Consent requires a relationship: rethinking group consent and its timing in ethnographic research

ABSTRACT

Activist groups in ethnographic research re-negotiated our Ethics Committee’s expected order of securing consent before data collection, demonstrating the importance of researchers taking time to build relationships first. Although the Ethics Committee expected us to obtain group consent, the literature provides little guidance on how to do this. We developed a Memorandum of Understanding to summarize what forms of participant observation each group agreed to and how we would reciprocate. In this article, we (re)conceptualize consent, using analogies to consent in social contract theory and sexual relations to offer a critical perspective on what constitutes consent. We argue that taking time to build relationships before expecting research participants to consent and replacing informed consent with a negotiated agreement is a more ethical approach. We advocate for Ethics Committees to expand the meaning of ‘informed consent’ and review its timing, especially for ethnographic research with groups.     

State Policy Restrictions on Abortion

Abstract

Although abortion remains legal and available to women, access to services is limited by restrictive factors such as parental consent and notification laws, mandatory delay requirements, insurance regulations/bans, and postviability testing requirements. This study employed a hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) with all states over a six-year period 1988-2000. It found the variable parental consent statistically significant. Consistent with its focus on social justice, social workers should be aware of and informed about social policies that appear to discriminate against oppressed populations such as young women, low-income women, and women of color.     

Investigative vs. Clinical Emphasis in Child Custody Evaluation: A Reflection on Austin and Kirkpatrick(2004)

ABSTRACT

There is an ongoing discussion regarding the role of psychologists in child custody relative to clinical vs. investigative roles. The issues revolve around how expansive or how limited a professional might be in addressing the concerns of families, adults and children in high conflict custody cases. In the article, the investigative or more maximalist role is discussed in the light of the alternative more clinical or minimalist stance. An argument is advanced that we may be limited to a more clinical/minimalist role if we are to stay within the confines of research informed practice standards.     

Key Issues in Adoption Legislation

SUMMARY

This paper examines the underlying assumptions associated with two key areas of adoption legislation where there is variation across jurisdictions and calls for change. These legislative issues are consent and openness. In each area, there is very little social research which might otherwise offer insight into how to best formulate legislation in a way that would serve the needs of various members of the adoption experience. The primary goal of this paper is to consider key legal issues associated with consent and openness and make recommendations for how research might provide important information that could serve as guides for a legislative reevaluation of these areas.     

The curious case of case study: a viewpoint

Abstract

This paper focuses on microethical issues concerning interactions in which the process of informed consent occurs. It draws on research analysing the biographies and future hopes of 15- to 17-year-old girls and boys participating in targeted youth/educational programmes in the Helsinki area. The ethical challenge explored here is how to negotiate with the young interviewees on expanding the research setting towards a longitudinal and cross-generational approach, which also means expanding the data produced on their already well-reported lives. The paper highlights the power relations between adult researcher and young research participant, the contextual nature of gaining informed consent, and the conflict involved in trying to avoid hounding an over-surveilled group while still tracking their whereabouts and revisiting them for a follow-up interview.     

Informed Consent: Provider Responsibilities in Psychotherapy

Abstract

When a psychotherapist and patient meet for the first time, there may be a multiplicity of assumptions on both sides about expectations and goals. This paper describes that crucial relationship and the work that must take place in order that a patient gives a relatively informed consent about the therapeutic process. Due to the many variables and unknowns, there is no such thing as an absolute informed consent in psychotherapy. A relatively informed patient, however, is one who is better prepared to enter into a therapeutic alliance. These important concepts are illustrated with case examples.     

Pathways to social work supervision

ABSTRACT

Social work research and literature in the area of supervision tends to focus on the supervision of field education students. Less attention is given to the supervision of social work practitioners and there is almost no information that examines how social workers become supervisors. This exploratory study interviewed 27 practicing social work supervisors across different fields of social work practice in Western Canada. The participants included 15 supervisors with a graduate degree and 12 supervisors with an undergraduate degree. The supervisors completed a brief questionnaire that was followed by a structured interview. Supervisors were asked how they came to be social work supervisors. Thematic analysis of the supervisors’ responses revealed three pathways to supervision: task exposure, supervision by happen chance, and deliberate decision. The responses suggested that additional focus on supervision might be included in undergraduate education and that universities, professional associations, and employers pay more attention to succession planning.     

Family Functioning and Satisfaction of Former Residents of a Non-Therapeutic Residential Care Facility: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT

Recently there has been a resurgence in discussions among government policy-makers regarding the use of non-therapeutic residential care as an alternative to kinship and family foster care. If informed decisions are to be made regarding foster care alternatives, evaluation is needed of how children fare in residential care facilities. This study looks at the family relationships and life satisfaction of 76 adults who resided in a residential care facility as children. The overall positive results suggest that the negative reputation of non-therapeutic residential care facilities may not be wholly deserved. The authors hope that this information can assist social workers and policy-makers in making important decisions about the appropriate use of residential care with our country's future population of foster care children.     

Evolving Ethical Standards in the Digital Age

ABSTRACT

Ethical standards in social work have matured significantly since the formal inauguration of the profession in the late 19th century. This article traces the global evolution of ethical standards in social work, focusing especially on current challenges in the digital age. The author discusses changes over time in social workers’ understanding of ethical issues and development of conceptual frameworks and protocols for managing them. Social workers’ increasing use of digital technology poses novel and unprecedented ethical challenges pertaining to privacy, confidentiality, informed consent, professional boundaries, conflicts of interest, documentation, client abandonment, and professionalism, among others. The article outlines emerging ethical standards designed to help social workers manage ethical challenges in the digital age.     

The Relation of Status to Self Esteem: Chain Saw Sociology at the Cutting Edge

Abstract

Explanation of the relation of status to self esteem is impeded by the crude and simple concepts most often used in analyzing this relationship. If concepts are the tools of the sociological trade, it is those equivalent to the chain saw that we most often use, and, as a consequence, the complex and subtle relationships that need to be observed in order to explain the effects of social status upon self esteem are obscured. There is also little evidence of any progressive specification of meaning of concepts related to status and self esteem. In this paper, examples of chain saw sociology are discussed and proposals are made for conceptual refinements that might prove helpful in explaining how our self assessments are linked to our social status.     

Beyond performative talk: critical observations on the radical critique of reading interview data

ABSTRACT

We centrally consider the question of what interview data can be used to ‘say’ through a dialogue with advocates of the ‘radical critique’ of interview studies. We propose that while the critique has considerable utility in drawing to ‘the social life of interviews’ and the pervasiveness of notions of the ‘romantic subject’, it simultaneously goes too far in its reduction of interviews to narrative performance, and not far enough in its own critical departure from core characteristics of the romantic subject. We show how the critique leaves intact imagery of a seemingly unbridgeable divide between the experienced and the expressed, and involves a related conflation of what can be said at interview with what interviews can be used to say. We explore how the radical critique might productively be built upon via more ‘synthetic’ forms of research engagement, outlining alternative modes of apprehending interview data through a further critical departure from the romantic subject. Accordingly, we advance a move beyond a sole engagement with questions of how data are constructed and produced and towards how such data might otherwise be used to speak about the social world beyond the social nexus that constitutes an interview encounter.     

Motivating the Unemployed? Attitudes at the Front Line

Abstract

Underlying employment services policy in many countries is the assumption that the unemployed exhibit a range of deficits. The goal of employment activation programs is to develop self-efficacy. Noting the determinants of self-efficacy, we illustrate how case managers and social workers think about the unemployed and suggest that negative attitudes held by case managers are not conducive to the promotion of self-efficacy, unlike the orientation displayed by social workers. We suggest that employment services, wherever provided, would be significantly improved if social work frameworks informed policy and practices.     

How do you solve a problem like Maria? Family complexity and institutional complications in UK social work

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on UK data from an international, comparative project involving eight countries. The study examined how social workers’ conceptions and definitions of family impact on the way they engage with complex families, and how social policies that frame social work context impact on the way social workers engage with families. Focus groups were held in which social workers from four service areas (child welfare, addictions, mental health and migration) were asked to discuss a case vignette. Several factors were embedded in the vignette to represent a realistic situation a social worker may come across in their day-to-day work. Social workers clearly identified the complexity of the family’s situation in terms of the range of issues identified and candidate ‘causes’. However, typical first responses were institutional, looking for triggers that would signify certainty about their, or other agencies’ involvement. This resulted in a complicated story, through which the family was disaggregated into individual problem-service categories. This paper argues that understanding these processes and their consequences is critical for exploring the ways in which we might develop alternative, supportive professional responses with families with complex needs. It also demonstrates how organisational systems manifest themselves in everyday reasoning.     

Confidentiality

Abstract

Confidentiality was the ethical dilemma most frequently encountered by Israeli social workers in a 1998 national survey (Linzer, Conboy and Ain, 2002). A reanalysis of survey responses found the social workers cared about preventing violations of client privacy, promoting client self-determination, and respecting client dignity, especially when challenged by: (1) public institutions' right to know, (2) limitations of protection of client communications and information, including duty to warn, (3) child and family dilemmas, (4) informed consent ambiguities, and (5) computers and technology utilization. Social workers looked to their own counsel, colleagues, and supervisor's advice and their professional code of ethics for guidance.     

Should trans people be postmodernist in the streets but positivist in the spreadsheets? A reply to Sullivan

ABSTRACT

Accurate census data is essential for a variety of government planning functions and plays an important methodological role in social science. This article responds to issues raised by Alice Sullivan concerning how the UK 2021 census will ask about sex and gender. The two-centuries-old question about male/female sex is not ideal, even with the new guidance proposed; however, I will argue that the proposed changes are unlikely to cause harm. The new open-ended census question on gender identity is welcome and will yield important data. I also respond to Sullivan‘s worries that “queer postmodernists” are “coming for” questionnaires and threaten the sanctity of scientific fact. Sullivan misrepresents trans-inclusive gender theories and how scientific research explaining sex/gender differences is carried out. Finally, I discuss how questioning the ontological reality of trans gender identities leads to transphobic harassment and worse.     

Microsocial Implications of the Macrostructural Distribution of Social Resources

Abstract

The general purpose of this paper is to develop an explanation of how the macrostructural distribution of social resources affects the microsocial structure of personal social networks and, therefore, constraints on individual purposive action.

Specifically, the paper attempts to provide a theoretical integration for two sets of recent findings; those noting status-related variations in personal network structures and those noting differential success in occupational attainment as a function of personal network structure and use.

It is suggested that the effects of macrosocial and microsocial structure on purposive action in general can now be understood using a social resources perspective.     

The social power of algorithms

ABSTRACT

This article explores the questions associated with what might be thought of as the social power of algorithms. The article, which introduces a special issue on the same topic, begins by reflecting on how we might approach algorithms from a social scientific perspective. The article is then split into two sections. The first deals with the issues that might be associated with an analysis of the power of the algorithms themselves. This section outlines a series of issues associated with the functionality of the algorithms and how these functions are powerfully deployed within social world. The second section then focuses upon the notion of the algorithm. In this section, the article argues that we need to look beyond the algorithms themselves, as a technical and material presence, to explore how the notion or concept of the algorithm is also an important feature of their potential power. In this section, it is suggested that we look at the way that notions of the algorithm are evoked as a part of broader rationalities and ways of seeing the world. Exploring the notion of the algorithm may enable us to see how algorithms also play a part in social ordering processes, both in terms of how the algorithm is used to promote certain visions of calculative objectivity and also in relation to the wider governmentalities that this concept might be used to open up.     

Complicating categories: Personae mediate racialized expectations of non‐native speech

This paper examines how American listeners’ expectations of non‐native English speech from speakers of East Asian descent can be modulated by the persona invoked by a speaker's visual display. While prior work has typically linked expectations of non‐native speaker status with East Asian‐ness broadly construed, this study indicates that US listeners’ expectations can be tied to more particular manifestations of this racialized identity, themselves informed by raciolinguistic ideologies. In a lexical recall task with persona‐based photographic primes, different visual styles embodied by the same Korean individual induced contrasting expectations of “foreign accented” speech, which corresponded to significant differences in how well the speech was remembered. Ultimately, I argue that models of sociolinguistic perception should include cognitive representations of social constructs like personae, not only to better capture the detailed nature of listeners’ sociolinguistic expectations, but also to avoid perpetuating homogenizing treatments of racialized groups’ language practices.     

Ethical Issues in the Provision of Online Mental Health Services (Etherapy)

ABSTRACT

A number of ethical issues involved in face-to-face therapy are examined in relation to online therapy (etherapy). Etherapy is defined and its strengths and weaknesses discussed. Specific ethical issues addressed include boundaries of competence, basis in science, avoidance of harm, confidentiality, avoidance of false or deceptive statements, forums, testimonials, solicitation of clients, fees, and informed consent. A concluding section briefly addresses legal issues, particularly interstate etherapy. It is recommended that federal licensing legislation be enacted, informed by the NASW, the APA, and similar groups.     

Social Capital and Neighborhood Poverty

ABSTRACT

Research indicates that concentrated neighborhood poverty has numerous detrimental effects on the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities. The term “neighborhood effects” has been used to describe the interaction between socioeconomic disadvantage and social problems at the neighborhood level. Social capital theory, defined broadly as social networks characterized by trust and reciprocity represents one prominent explanation for the phenomenon of neighborhood effects. Within poor neighborhoods, it is theorized that socioeconomic characteristics of the neighborhood foster inadequate social capital and it is this low level of social capital that leads to the phenomenon of neighborhood effects. In order to explore the utility of social capital theory in explaining neighborhood effects, this paper argues for an ecologically-grounded model of social capital that allows for the different ways in which social capital operates within different types of neighborhoods. Implications for social work practice, policy and education are discussed.