More than Visiting Hours: Maintaining Ties Between Incarcerated Mothers and Their Children

The majority of people in America’s prisons are the parents of minor children. Incarcerated mothers, in particular, were likely to have been a part of their children’s lives before their imprisonment, and most will soon be returning to the community and to their children. Research has shown that it is in the best interests of the mothers and the children to maintain a relationship across the prison bars. In this article, we use the example of New York State to show how institutional policies and structures can impede or encourage efforts to maintain ties between women and their children and why demonstrating support for family ties must extend well beyond having visiting hours.     

Tensions between institutional closure and deinstitutionalisation: what can be learned from Victoria’s institutional redevelopment?

Deinstitutionalisation must extend beyond the closure of institutions to individualised support to people with intellectual disabilities and societal change. Castellani suggests that closure processes may be incompatible with effective deinstitutionalisation. This article draws on findings from two Australian studies of institutional closures to explore tensions in the closure process that occur in the policy context of applying managerialist principles to the delivery of services, and examines how these processes hindered or furthered the aims of deinstitutionalisation. It suggests closure can divert attention from planning for individualised support, the needs of staff may conflict with those of residents, transition plans may be disrupted by organisational imperatives and that little attention may be paid to broader community development strategies or micro-level planning of the nature of staff support. The article reiterates the danger of equating institutional closure with deinstitutionalisation and the need to focus beyond the imperatives of closure.     

Special foster care for exceptional children:: A review of programs and policies

This article reviews programs and policies regarding alternative home care for exceptional and special-needs foster children. While some focus is placed on program evaluation and efficacy of these specialized foster homes, the major thrust of the review is to identify major procedural underpinnings of successful programs for special needs foster children. These include: (a) appropriate selection of qualified therapeutic parents; (b) preservice training of parents; (c) matching of child to abilities of parents; (d) high-intensity and high-frequency casework and consultation; and (e) professional status for the specialized foster parents. Special foster care programs which have been evaluated offer generally high levels of success and goal attainment at much lower per diem rates than institutional care. Summary policies and recommendations are forwarded.     

Historical institutional child abuse: Activist mobilisation and public inquiries

The abuse of children in institutional settings is an issue of ongoing social, public, and political concern internationally. While societal responses to historical abuse have been the subject of considerable scholarship in recent years, conceptualisation of the role of activism remains limited. This article aims to advance sociological and interdisciplinary perspectives on nonrecent institutional child abuse through a conceptualisation of activist mobilisation. The article begins by providing context for the emergence of institutional child abuse as a social issue. A brief overview of key themes and debates in the interdisciplinary literature is then offered, and a critical gap in current scholarship is identified in relation to activism. Drawing on illustrative examples of activist mobilisation, both in the form of survivor narratives and strategies aimed at influencing policy, the article sets out how a sociology of activism in the field of historical institutional child abuse might proceed. Through attention to the social dynamics of activism, and conceptualisation of collective action in this domain as a social movement, the article provides new insights for the field and an alternative to sociological theorisation of responses to historical institutional child abuse as simply constituting a public scandal or moral panic.     

Academic freedom,institutional autonomy and the corporatised university in contemporary South Africa 1

This article examines threats from the state, institutional bureaucrats and academics themselves to academic freedom and to the institutional autonomy of universities in South Africa, and argues that the situation is more complex than is often perceived. The generally disappointing post‐independence history of academic freedom and autonomy in Sub‐Saharan Africa is drawn upon to illustrate the perils that may accompany too eager an embrace of the state by intellectuals in South Africa in confronting persisting racial inequities in institutions of higher learning. The article suggests that a ‘republican’ approach linked to social accountability may provide a way forward. To be securely founded, the advancement of academic freedom and institutional autonomy must be embedded in the prevailing power realities: it must grow from the contestation of empowered stakeholders. Finally, the article makes a number of specific recommendations calculated to strengthen the quest for such freedom and autonomy.     

The institution of medicine and transgender identity construction: Between a doc and a hard place

Research shows that when transgender young people are well-supported throughout their gender transition they have similar levels of depression to their cisgender counterparts. For transgender young people who wish to transition medically, these support systems may include parents as advocates and healthcare professionals who specialize in transgender services. Decisions about steps throughout transition are made by transgender children, their parents, and their physicians. An examination of gender structure theory and medicalization literature helps to assess how medicine-on institutional, interactional, and individual levels-contributes to cisnormativity and enables us to reflect on the relationships among sex, gender, and science. This literature review aims to analyze how cultural ideologies influence medical processes that shape the identity construction of transgender children and it sheds light on parental involvement throughout transitions.     

‘What Troubled Children Need’ Constructions of Everyday Life in Residential Care

This article argues that key values of child protection work are not the appropriate point of departure for contemplating the welfare of children in professional care. Central values, such as ‘comfort’, ‘recognition’ or ‘appreciation’ say very little about the social practices of residential care. Using data from an ethnographic study in Denmark, the article demonstrates that ideas about the needs of troubled children are realised in dissimilar ways, creating highly different living environments for institutionalised children. The principles behind these construction processes are explored, and the profound ambiguity of values in childcare is discussed as an effect of residential care’s being an ‘institutional’ or ‘human service’ type of organisation.     

Institutional Activism: Seeking Customary Forest Rights Recognition from Within the Indonesian State

This article aims to explain why the adat movement activists in Indonesia could expand their campaigns for state recognition of adat community rights to activities from within the state apparatus. We argue that three combined processes have contributed to the conjuncture that made institutional activism possible: the preparation of the 2014 national election offered activists opportunities to influence the government agenda; the emergence of a conscious strategy for conducting institutional activism; and the coalitions between some key state officials and the movement’s actors. This article also analyses the problems that institutional activists faced, in particular resistance from influential actors at various government units who were not sympathetic to the adat movement’s agenda. Therefore, the impact of this activism on policy changes so far remains limited. The authors’ personal involvement in this case of institutional activism to promote customary forest provided access to the information for this article.     

Bureaucracy and place: expertise in the European Quarter

Bureaucratic structures and procedures are an integral part of the production of political space today. Analyses of geopolitical practices must therefore unpack the bureaucratic context in which these practices unfold on a daily basis. This is particularly important if we wish to understand transnational processes that operate at scales and in contexts other than the familiar contours of the nation‐state. In this article, I focus on one bureaucratic centre of geopolitics – the European Quarter in Brussels, Belgium, the institutional centre of the European Union. Drawing from scholarship on geopolitics and policy‐making, as well as primary interview material from field research in Brussels, I make two related points – (1) that we need detailed close‐up studies of the bureaucratic settings of contemporary geopolitics, and (2) that we must carefully situate such settings in their place‐specific contexts to reveal dynamics that remain unnoticed from afar. Empirically, the article contributes to the interdisciplinary scholarship on the EU as a transnational power centre of global importance. Theoretically, it seeks to improve our understanding of geopolitics as a bureaucratic and material practice.     

Social services and deviation from the Bismarckian model in Italy: the absence of a nationwide trend of change

This article analyses the processes of deviation from the Bismarckian welfare model in Italy, with a focus on social assistance. The sector was reformed in 2000, with new service provision functions being assigned to local institutions and the affirmation of a universalistic principle of access. However, an analysis of social expenditure data and a review of the process of implementation of the reform demonstrate that many local governments have been unable to enact the innovation and that a homogeneous nationwide trend of deviation from the Bismarckian tradition is absent. This absence is explained by looking both at the local institutional arrangements that have historically characterized the different Italian territories and at the present relationships among national, regional, and local governments.     

Boundary dimensions of social innovation: negotiating conflicts and compatibilities when developing a national agenda

In order to add to the existing knowledge on the complex institutional dynamics of negotiating conflicts and compatibilities in innovation processes that address societal challenges and social needs, this article scrutinizes the scientific and societal debate on the theoretical and practical application of “social innovation” by means of the concept “boundary object” linked to institutional theory. A participatory case study of the development of an R&I agenda for social innovation in Sweden, formulated through dialog between stakeholders from the public, private and non-profit sectors, is presented. The results show that the unpredictable, emergent, evolving and adaptable character of needs, challenges and solutions in social innovation processes is made more theoretically and practically manageable by acknowledging social innovation as a boundary object. This is since this concept, despite its ambiguous character, helps balance complexity and usefulness in a way that serves to expand existing knowledge on institutional dynamics.     

Four contexts of institutional oppression: Examining the experiences of Blacks in education,criminal justice and child welfare

ABSTRACT

Institutions are key sites of oppression. Institutional oppression is defined as the mistreatment of people of a particular group that is enforced by society and its institutions. It is a system of invisible barriers that emerge from institutional laws, customs and practices, thus producing inequities for particular groups across race, gender and class. Woven together, the web of institutional oppression is vast, cumulative and multi-faceted, including both overt and covert discriminatory practices and behaviors. Based in a critical review of the literature, the authors of this article introduce and describe four characteristics of institutional oppression that specifically impact the lives of Black Americans. Furthermore, we provide a case vignette that illustrates these characteristics of oppression. The article concludes with recommendations on dismantling institutional oppression and highlights the roles that social workers can play in collaboration with educators and other professionals.     

Care for vulnerable and disadvantaged children in the Czech Republic

The problematic issue of care for vulnerable and disadvantaged children in the Czech Republic, highlighted in this article, stems from the large number of children in institutional care. Workers from the Department for Social and Legal Child Protection (OSPOD) may get involved if there are factors in the family jeopardising the child's healthy development that cannot be improved, and institutional care may be recommended. This article discusses factors that influence and many times complicate the worker's job and are often the reason for an adversely high number of children living without a family. Attempts to reunite children with their biological families are complicated by the fact that the family situation rarely improves. Therefore children returning to live with their own families face the same conditions they were previously removed from. A more positive option for some children placed in institutional care is adoption or long-term foster care. However, many children continue to spend their whole childhood in a care home. The authors describe the care system in the Czech Republic and point out its weaknesses and some controversial facts. They also discuss and evaluate the ‘National Action Plan’, a government policy document, which articulates aspirations and obligations for all government departments and organisations involved in the Czech childcare system.     

A Review of the Empirical Literature About Child Development and Adjustment Postseparation

This article provides a substantial review of the empirical data that have steered the work of child custody experts for the last 30 years. Child custody evaluators who are designated the responsibility of designing parenting plans postseparation for children exposed to family breakdown must be capable of sifting through the literature to select valid and reliable data to support their recommendations and plans. This article provides a review of this literature and discusses the methodological impairments in this body of knowledge.     

Facilitating and hindering factors in the realization of disabled children’s agency in institutional contexts: literature review

Disabled children’s opportunity to act as agents may be compromised because adults have the power to choose who are entitled to express agency. Disabled children spend much time in institutions and with professionals of different fields. The aim of this literature review was to find out which factors facilitate or hinder the realization of disabled children’s agency in institutional contexts. As data we used 19 research articles and analysed them with inductive content analysis. Key factors relate to professionals’ attitudes towards diversity, children and themselves as well as professionals’ communication skills and institutional factors that enable the child to have an influence or prevent it and which give or do not give room for children’s peer relationships. Rethinking the child and adult view and learning dialogical communication are recommended in the education of all fields that work with disabled children.     

Assessment in Marriage and Family Therapy: A Review of Clinical Updates for Family Therapists

This article presents information from an integrative literature review that examined assessment processes presented to marriage and family therapists in Clinical Updates for Family Therapists, Volumes 1 (2005), 2 (2006), and 3 (2007). The study was based on the concern that marriage and family therapy is losing its systemic relational focus as practitioners must comply with diagnosis models using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Using integrative literature review methods, similar to qualitative research, 54 articles were deconstructed to identify assessment tools and diagnostic processes being presented as best practice. Of the 54 articles, 96% identified the importance of having a family or couple relational perspective for working with individuals with mental disorders; however, only 54% provided any explanation to how this could be accomplished. These findings suggest a need to increase the identification of unique, relational assessment practices in articles that offer best practice techniques in marriage and family therapy.     

The sociology of Catholicism: A review of research and scholarship

This article seeks to review recent research and scholarship in the sociology of Catholicism, as well as focusing on areas needing greater attention. In taking stock of this literature, I identify institutional change, church-society interactions, institutional resources and influence, and the church as international actor as four key topics that have engaged scholarship. I review existing research under each, as well as highlighting gaps and blind spots that invite further inquiry of this specific religious group.     

The Second Generation in Chile: Negotiating Identities,Rights, and Public Policy

This article presents the first study of children born in Chile to at least one migrant parent – the “second‐generation”. Based on a mixed methods and child‐centred approach, this article discusses institutional and experiential aspects of boundary and identity‐making in Chile regarding race and nationality. We first review quantitative data from the state regarding the second‐generation. Building on insights from comparative research on European states’ second‐generation integration policies, we suggest how gathering targeted Census data in Chile can inform the long‐term evaluation of state policies and programs for socio‐cultural inclusion in education and labour. We also present qualitative data from interviews with ten second‐generation children between ages eight to thirteen, born to parents from Peru and Ecuador. We attend to how they negotiate being perceived as “foreign” and/or “Chilean”. Their position in‐between the two categories is an important starting point for policies and discourse to expand notions of citizenship and belonging.     

Toward a multifaceted understanding of Lareau's “sense of entitlement”: Bridging sociological and psychological constructs

In her influential ethnographic study, Lareau proposed that intensive middle‐class parenting strategies produce in children a “sense of entitlement” that can be used to gain advantages in schools and other institutional settings. In this article, we review both sociological and psychological studies to propose a multifaceted understanding of a sense of entitlement that challenges the assumption that the consequences of entitlement are exclusively positive. We also compare “sense of entitlement” with four psychological constructs—academic entitlement, help‐seeking, interpersonal control, and agentic engagement—that provide critical clues for subsequent empirical efforts. Our study highlights the benefits of bridging sociological and psychological work, not only to connect related disciplines and concepts, but also to assess and refine theory.     

CARING ABOUT POVERTY

Entry to institutional care is being used as an ineffective and expensive response to child and family poverty in a number of countries. In this paper, the practice of using institutional care for children in poverty is examined, drawing on case studies from three countries–the Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria, and Sri Lanka. Research findings reveal that poverty is a major underlying cause of children being received into institutional care and that such reception into care is a costly, inappropriate, and often harmful response to adverse economic circumstances. We suggest that alternatives to care may be funded from resources currently committed to institutions by developing a policy of gatekeeping. However, alternative strategies must be responsive to local conditions, and all such strategies need to be developed in consultation with children, their families, and communities.