Femininity, Sexuality and Professionalism in the Children's Departments

Correspondence to ReadingLasses, Wigtown, Galloway, DG8 9EH. Summary Noting the significance of women in management in the localauthority children's departments (1948–72) and the preoccupationwith women in management during the 1990s, the authors comparethese two periods. In particular, they focus upon the discoursesof femininity which shape the ways in which women as managersand as professionals are talked about, understood and analysed.The argument, presented from a feminist post-structuralist perspective,is based on an analysis of data generated through interviewswith women who were significant in the children's departments(as children's officers or members of the children's committees)between 1948 and 1972. The paper shows that the ways in whichfemininity is constructed, socially and through women's subjectivities,act as powerful mechanisms through which women are controlled,but also present opportunities to women for resistance and change.     

Using Autobiographical Approaches with People with Learning Difficulties

Biography and autobiography have been used in numerous ways to represent people with learning difficulties. In this paper we review a variety of approaches to biography and autobiography with people with learning difficulties, and discuss the roles researchers play. The paper ends with a discussion of the potential of autobiography as a means to change the power relationships in disability research.     

Some Conditions for Effective Work with Groups

Summary The principal point being made in this article is that a groupleader or therapist, by his own decisions and actions, can substantiallyinfluence (though not absolutely control) the likelihood ofthe group's success and effectiveness. Some facilitating decisionscan be made and some activities undertaken before a group begins.These include deciding whether or not to conduct a group ina particular setting; exploring the attitudes of one's colleagues;conducting preparatory discussions with potential group members;deciding how many staff will be present; deciding at what intervalsto introduce new members; etc. Other decisions cannot be made,or actions taken, until after the group is under way; or theymust be undertaken after the group has started because theywere overlooked beforehand. These include helping a group toestablish a consensus by encouraging the expression of expectations,reservations, and underlying concerns; reassessing a group whichseems to have gone stale; initiating discussions with colleagueswhen covert resistances on their part become apparent. The four issues discussed here set the stage and constitutethe context for the group's work. Appropriate attention to them,and management of them, will facilitate but not guarantee thegroup's success. Many further situations arise in the courseof the group's life which may alter its character and course. Nevertheless, many groups which provide a disappointing experiencefor both group members and leaders could be retrieved if theseissues were kept in mind. To summarize: A group is more likely to be successful if it is conducted inan organizational or institutional context in which other personnel,not directly involved with the group, nevertheless accept andsupport its aims and general procedures, and value its potentialcontribution to the shared goals of the organization or institution. A group is more likely to be effective if a consensus—whichmay be implicit—can be established within the group aboutits aims and procedures. Lack of clarity, persistent splitswithin the group, or identification of the leader as adversary,all work against the best interests of the group. Structuralfactors such as size, duration, composition, constancy of membership,and ratio of staff to members, influence the character and effectivenessof the group. A group which has lost its usefulness can and should be terminatedor reconstituted with a different mandate     

A Qualitative Study of Social Work Assessment in Cases of Alleged Child Abuse

Correspondence to Dr Dorothy Scott, School of Social Work, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia 3052. Summary While there has been considerable theorizing about how socialworkers think and act, there has been relatively little researchin this area. In the study reported in this paper, in-depthinterviews and observations of practice were used to explorethe process of assessment undertaken by Australian social workersin a hospital specialist service and in a statutory child protectionservice. Using a semi-longitudinal approach which ‘shadowed’10 families (17 allegedly abused children), highly detaileddata were collected from 42 observations of practice and 123interviews with 12 hospital social workers and 15 child protectionworkers on how their assessments evolved over the life of thesecases. While there were some individual differences betweenpractitioners within each organization, of greater significancewere the marked differences between the two groups in the variablesto which they attended. Both groups tended to adopt a proceduralizedmodel of practice which narrowed the range of factorsconsideredin assessment.     

Social Medicine and the New Society: Medicine and Scientific Humanism in mid-Twentieth Century Britain

Abstract The essay examines how the academic discipline of social medicine was founded in Britain in the 1940s as a political mission. The original conception of social medicine was built upon a collection of beliefs about the nature of science and medicine which were shared by various branches of the profession who identified with diverse social values. The synthesis of ideas that created the discipline, however, were integrated into a specifically left-wing philosophy of social reform. This medicine of society for society emerged from the politics of science, ethics and society in the Second World War. As an expression of scientific humanism social medicine aimed to fulfil the ethical dictates of the modern evolutionary synthesis and be part of the rising tide of corporate welfarism. The paper concentrates on how its intellectual founder, John Ryle, believed this could be achieved by changing clinical medicine into a new discipline of holistic socio-biology of health and disease.     

Topic Variation in Levels of Agreement Between Parents and Adolescents

The object of this paper is to examine why agreement betweenparents and adolescents varies across topics in the way it doesand why discrepancies take the particular form they do. Datafrom a large-scale survey of adolescents matched with independentreports from their parents (N=3,988) have been used to showthat the level of dyadic agreement is influenced by the objectivityof the topic, its relation to social norms, and its salienceto the respondents. Agreement is high when the topic is objectiveand unambiguous, and when it does not activate problems of socialdesirability or personal threat. Topics which refer to recentevents produce slightly less agreement than less timebound topicswhen the topic is a potentially threatening one. The level ofagreement does not change if the referent is changed from theparent, to the student, or to those outside the dyad.