Models of 'ordinary' and 'special' daily living: matching residential care to the mental-health needs of looked after children

This paper proposes a set of distinctions between ‘ordinary’ and ‘special’ modes of everyday living in residential settings for young people in the ‘looked after’ system. The paper begins by reviewing both quantitative and qualitative evidence on the mental‐health needs of the young people, arguing that there is evidence of very high levels of mental distress and disturbance within this group, and that this distress is often undiagnosed and untreated both by psychiatric professionals and within the residential care system itself. There follows a commentary on the tacit assumptions underpinning much residential practice, especially the emphasis in some policy and legal documentation on the young people’s need for ‘ordinary’ everyday experience. The concept of the ‘ordinary’ is problematized, and it is argued that while young people do need to be supported towards mainstream ‘ordinary’ everyday living, they also need specialized everyday care in which their emotional and psychological needs can be recognized and responded to. Four models of ‘special everyday living’ are proposed, based upon existing literature on residential practice, and it is argued that residential care programmes should be based upon a mix of these special and ordinary provisions if the young people’s emotional needs are to be met.     

Symbols of Terror: ‘9/11’ as the Word of the Thing and the Thing of the Word

This paper adopts a social representations approach to examine the ‘9/11’ symbol which is argued to be a centrally organising, communication oriented, symbolic resource within contemporary representations of terrorism. Within the context of the events of September 11 2001 as a point of shared history which has come to be understood as a significant world event (Liu et al., 2009 ), the ‘9/11’ symbol is argued to fulfil a triple function in contemporary representations of terrorism. Firstly, the ‘9/11’ symbol provides a central anchor for the events of September 11 2001. Secondly the ‘9/11’ symbol acts as a powerful rhetorical resource for objectifying the abstract concept of terrorism. Lastly, alongside the capacity to objectify the abstract, the ‘9/11’ symbol also enables a counter process of transcendentalisation (Billig, 1988 ) whereby it transforms the object into the abstract. As a result the ‘9/11’ symbol is highly suited to widespread mobilisation of easily apprehended notions defining what terrorism is, which do not readily provoke contest and are widely constructed as mundane forms of ‘truth’ amongst a community of users.     

A qualitative exploration of parenting representations amongst mothers with young children on the edge of care

Mothers who are at risk of losing custody of their children represent a vulnerable population whose voices are seldom heard. Exploring their perspectives of parenting, their child and the relationship with their child—their ‘parenting representations’—can improve our understanding of their struggles and inform interventions. Research in this area so far has been predominantly quantitative, meaning valuable information about subjective experiences is often lost. The present study sought to address this gap by thematically analysing interviews with eight mothers with under-3-year-olds on the edge of Local Authority care, completed at the beginning of a therapeutic intervention. Results are reported around five themes: ‘Idealistic portrayal of the child and the relationship’, ‘Struggling as a parent’, ‘Shadows of the past’, ‘The child and motherhood as comfort’ and ‘Anxiety about loss and fighting for the child’. The parenting struggles of mothers in this population are complex and multi-faceted, fuelled by unresolved relational trauma, fears of further pain, adversity and difficulties in accessing and trusting support. Successful interventions are likely to require comprehensive, long-term approaches that holistically address mothers' unmet physical and emotional needs and begin with building relational trust.     

Multi‐agency information practices in children's services: the metaphorical ‘jigsaw’ and professionals quest for a ‘full’ picture

As there are a number of high‐profile public inquiries into child death tragedies, ‘information sharing’ has now become a moral and political imperative across England and Wales for improving the welfare and protection of children. This paper discusses multi‐agency information practices, at the stage of referral, which were observed and documented in the day‐to‐day practice of child protection work. Drawing on transcribed, professional narrative accounts, a ‘jigsaw’ metaphor is used to describe the process of piecing information together to ascertain a ‘full’ picture of children and families lives. However, these accounts highlight that there is something of a mismatch between the jigsaw, as articulated in the conceptual abstract accounts, and jigsaw practices operating on the ground. It is argued that abstracting professional information practices from situated contexts creates impoverished understandings of these practices. Thus, reported findings in this paper highlight the inherent complexities of jigsaw practices in the ‘everyday’ of child protection work, which challenges objectivist assumptions about a stability of meaning, and further highlight that the ‘endpoint’ of reaching a ‘full’ picture of a child's life is not fixed, nor does it have the same meaning for all professionals, but rather it is a complex process involving sense‐making, translation in context and organizational relevance.     

The social construction of character

There has been increased interest in character strengths or virtues in recent years in social research and in various policy domains. However, while the notion of virtue has gained credibility in the fields of positive psychology and moral philosophy, it has yet to be satisfactorily considered from the perspective of social theory – in spite of the ongoing calls of researchers who have identified the need for further investigation into the role of culture and social context in the development of individuals' characters. In order to consider how good character and excellence in specific virtues are formed and sustained in social context, this article gives a theoretical account of character and virtue using well‐known microsociological concepts. It is argued that whereas virtues are often understood as psychological ‘traits’ or ‘dispositions’, they are also socially practiced and represented. Analyses of their related social processes are therefore appropriate and empirically promising, particularly in institutional settings, and can complement other theoretical and methodological approaches.     

Policy Diffusion and Policy Transfer in Comparative Welfare State Research

For many years, comparative welfare state research has followed a ‘methodological nationalism’ in the sense that countries were treated as independent units. Yet the recent ‘spatial turn’ in comparative politics has also influenced welfare state research. For some years now, the field has been witnessing a growing interest in questions about interdependencies and policy diffusion between countries. In this article, we provide a structured overview of the state of the art in the policy diffusion and transfer literature that deals specifically with social policy. We present and critically evaluate existing theoretical concepts and quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches that enable the analysis of interdependencies between countries. Moreover, we summarize the empirical findings of quantitative and qualitative studies on the diffusion and transfer of social policy, from some pioneering studies to the latest findings. Against this background we point out what we believe to be promising avenues for future research. We focus on five areas: theoretical work on the mechanisms underlying diffusion and transfer; methodological approaches; the impact of domestic institutions and policy characteristics on social policy diffusion and transfer; programme‐specific dynamics; and the systematic combination of horizontal and vertical interdependencies.     

Deregulation, markets and the 1988 Housing Act

This paper looks at the deregulation of private sector rents. It examines two recent articles on this topic published in Social Policy and Administration, which take very different positions on the need for and desirability of rent deregulation, one very pro-market the other very anti-market in outlook. It is argued here that both articles hold idealized views of ‘the market’, though for different reasons, and that a less partisan view of the arguments and the evidence would suggest that deregulation of relettings, as provided by the Housing Act 1988, will be neither so significantly beneficial nor so deleterious in its effects as these two articles respectively would suggest.     

On Being Unemployed and Being a Victim of Crime—A Commentary

In a paper illustrating the shifting ground of Australian criminological debate Braithwaite and Biles claim the results of the National Crime Victim Survey (showing the unemployed have higher victimization rates for certain crimes: breaking and entering, peeping and assault, than ‘the wealthy’ or ‘the poor’) amount to a refutation of ‘a long tradition of radical criminology’. This tradition is portrayed as ‘crime is a manifestation of working class rebellion against the ruling class’. It is argued that this belated entry into confrontation with marxist oriented radical criminology, evaded for so long, is to be welcomed. However certain formal requirements: properly reading, representing, documenting and referencing ‘the radical critique’ are essential for theoretical advance. On these criteria the Braithwaite and Biles paper is deficient and distorted. The results of the victimization survey bolster rather than deny adequately represented radical critiques.     

Modeling Contextual Effects in Developmental Research: Linking Theory and Method in the Study of Social Development

This special section was inspired by the recent increased interest and methodological advances in the assessment of context‐specificity in child and adolescent social development. While the effects of groups, situations, and social relationships on cognitive, affective and behavioral development have long been acknowledged in theoretical discussions of social development, empirical research has largely relied on the assessment of individual differences rather than contextual differences in these processes—perhaps due to the fact that advanced data analytic techniques are required to access contextual dependencies in such data. While still developing, best practice data analytic techniques enable us to access the ‘social’ of social development in more precision today than ever before. In this special section we examine three of these techniques through the work of our invited authors.     

Putting the child at the centre of inter‐professional cooperation in out‐of‐home care

A large part of most children's childhood is about taking part in educational and leisure‐time activities together with other children across various contexts. However, children in out‐of‐home care do not always have easy access to these possibilities for participation. In general, parents coordinate their children's everyday lives, but in the case of children in out‐of‐home care, the responsibility of care is distributed between several professionals and institutions. Research often recommends that inter‐professional cooperation should put the child at the centre and be more child focused. But what does that mean? The paper investigates theoretical understandings of ‘child centredness’ in inter‐professional cooperation. It also includes an empirical example taken from a research project that followed four children in their everyday lives in two residential homes in Denmark. The research explored how professionals work together across contexts in order to support children to take part in school and leisure‐time activities. The overall reasoning leads to the point that for children in out‐of‐home care, the possibility of exercising personal agency in their everyday life constitutes a difficult but vital issue. How children in out‐of‐home care learn how to conduct their everyday lives, is closely related to the ways professionals cooperate across contexts. It points to the need for close inter‐professional cooperation in order to encourage and support children's initiatives and engagements in activities in communities with other children.     

Social inclusion under Labor in South Australia

Social inclusion policies were championed by the former Rann Labor government in South Australia from 2002 to 2011. In 2011 the Social Inclusion Unit was dissolved by the South Australian government. It is argued that the relatively narrow focus of the former SIU on ‘problem’ communities limited its capacity to provide more than residual solutions. The diminishing political returns on social inclusion also encouraged the South Australian government to abandon this initiative. In 2014 this government has had to grapple with the end of car making in Australia and a declining manufacturing labour force, traditionally a ‘mainstream’ constituency of the Labor Party. The return to ‘mainstreaming’ social policy in South Australia might offer limited space for realignment of social policy with the concept of social citizenship. It might also represent a move away from the functionalist morality of social inclusion. Social inclusion as practiced in South Australia has limited capacity to address generalised social disadvantage. The latter is likely to concern a re‐elected Labor minority government grappling with significant job losses and a declining local economy.     

A theory of “popular political legitimation”: A dual-process model approach to legitimation and political socialization

How do everyday people—or actors who do not occupy positions of political authority—legitimate political systems? Responding to this question, I use work from sociology, political science, and cognitive science to build a theory of “Popular Political Legitimation” (PPL)—defined as everyday people's legitimation of a political system. To answer how PPL happens, we must answer two sub-questions that address legitimacy as a normative phenomenon: 1) What are the processes of socialization through which individuals learn the norms, widely held beliefs, and values that legitimate a political system? 2) How do individuals subsequently use these norms, widely held beliefs, and/or values in their own legitimations of a political system? Thus, we see that a model of socialization is central to understanding how PPL happens. I proceed in four steps. First, I review the literature on political legitimation. Next, I review the literature on political socialization. Third, to address gaps in the two aforementioned literatures concerning a model of socialization that explains legitimation, I turn to neuroscience (for reviews see Greene, 2017; Cushman, 2020) and psychology to review models of socialization and rationalization. Finally, I synthesize these literatures to develop a theory of political socialization and how it generates PPL.     

Inter‐agency Cooperation and New Approaches to Employability

This article examines the role of inter‐agency cooperation, which is one form of ‘partnership’, in new approaches to employability in the UK. The article articulates a ‘model for effective partnership working’ on employability. This model is applied first in a general review of employability policy and then to discuss case study research on the recent ‘Pathways to Work’ and ‘Working Neighbourhoods’ pilots. It is argued that successful partnerships need a clear strategic focus based on a necessity for inter‐agency cooperation and institutional arrangements that allow for shared ownership, trust and mutualism, and flexibility in resource‐sharing. While some of these factors are apparent in UK employability services, an over‐reliance on contractualism and centralized organizational structures may undermine partnership‐based approaches. Many of the success factors associated with effective partnership working appeared to be in place, even though the role of the Public Employment Service was fundamentally different in each case (as a key actor in implementing the first pilot, but largely withdrawing from the implementation role in the second). The article concludes by outlining the relevance of this model and the case study findings to discussions of the future development of employability policies and related partnership working.     

Personal probabilities of probabilities

By definition, the subjective probability distribution of a random event is revealed by the (‘rational’) subject's choice between bets — a view expressed by F. Ramsey, B. De Finetti, L. J. Savage and traceable to E. Borel and, it can be argued, to T. Bayes. Since hypotheses are not observable events, no bet can be made, and paid off, on a hypothesis. The subjective probability distribution of hypotheses (or of a parameter, as in the current ‘Bayesian’ statistical literature) is therefore a figure of speech, an ‘as if’, justifiable in the limit. Given a long sequence of previous observations, the subjective posterior probabilities of events still to be observed are derived by using a mathematical expression that would approximate the subjective probability distribution of hypotheses, if these could be bet on. This position was taken by most, but not all, respondents to a ‘Round Robin’ initiated by J. Marschak after M. H. De-Groot's talk on Stopping Rules presented at the UCLA Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in Behavioral Sciences. Other participants: K. Borch, H. Chernoif, R. Dorfman, W. Edwards, T. S. Ferguson, G. Graves, K. Miyasawa, P. Randolph, L. J. Savage, R. Schlaifer, R. L. Winkler. Attention is also drawn to K. Borch's article in this issue.     

Integrating the teaching,learning and assessment of communication with children within the qualifying social work curriculum

Qualifying social work education must provide students with a variety of experiential, personalized, participatory, didactic and critically reflective learning opportunities across both the taught curriculum and in practice placements if deep learning of the capabilities needed for effective communication with children and young people is to be ensured. At present, programmes in England are not consistent in the curriculum structures, content and pedagogical approaches they are employing to teach and assess this topic. This paper discusses first how current proposals for the reform of qualifying education in England do not address the ambiguities and discretion in regulatory guidance, which have meant that the place and relevance of this topic within the curriculum remain uncertain and contested. It then draws on a model of the sequencing of students' learning and development in qualifying training, developed through the author's recent empirical research, to present an integrated and coherent approach to the teaching, learning and assessment of this topic. It is proposed that this strategy will enable students to develop the generic, ‘child‐focused’ and ‘applied child‐specialist’ capabilities they need for the ‘knowing’, ‘being’ and ‘doing’ of effective communication with children.     

COMMONWEALTH DROUGHT POLICY: 1989–1995. A CASE STUDY OF ECONOMIC RATIONALISM

Drought is a natural phenomenon that has particular implications for a primary industry, namely farmers. This paper examines the policy responses of the early 1990s. It is argued that these were driven more by political expedience than careful planning. In conclusion, it is suggested that drought policy shows one issue on which it was necessary to reverse, if only partially, the ‘economic rationalism’ that had dominated thinking in the 1980s.     

Conditions of mothering: The bio-politics of falling in love with your child

This article discusses and deconstructs the myth of ‘motherly love’ by contrasting it with fieldwork on Israeli parents' reactions to their appearance-impaired child. The ethnography of these reactions presents a common pattern of rejection—alternatively consisting of both the abandonment of the child at the hospital and of various forms of abuse at home. The article concludes by re-thinking the issue of ‘motherly love’ and ‘bonding’ as conditioned on some deeply-ingrained parental expectations regarding the appearance of their child.     

TEMPORAL DIMENSIONS OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS

This article identifies three temporal images of the homeless youth population. The dominant media typification is of an ‘underclass’ with chronic problems. A dissident image contends that most young people experience only short periods of homelessness, and that there is a ‘high turnover’ population. A third account suggests that there are both ‘short-term’ and ‘chronically’ homeless youth, but few individuals in-between. It is a ‘polarised’ image of the population. This article draws on information from a sample of 1,410 homeless young people to assess these accounts. The article theorises temporal concepts and it explains a methodological issue called the ‘point in time dilemma’. The main finding of the study is that the homeless population is characterised by temporal diversity. The basis for the dominant underclass typification is explained, and various policy issues are discussed.     

WESTERN SYDNEY AND THE DESIRE FOR HOME

‘Western Sydney’ frequently figures in current debates about urban planning as exemplifying ‘the problem of urban sprawl’. In this context it is represented as the spatial articulation of the irrational desires of a wilful population to live out ‘the great Australian dream’. This paper proposes an alternative reading of the western Sydney suburban landscape to argue for a different understanding of the issues it poses for urban planners. In particular, it is argued that this landscape articulates, and should be valued as, the memories and history of people struggling to make a home for themselves in the, modern world. Attempts by urban planners, it is suggested, to ignore or marginalise this version of ‘the great Australian dream’ will inevitably lead to failure.