Experiences of Young Indian Girls Transiting out of Residential Care Homes

Leaving the residential care home is one of the most significant occurrence in the life of every care‐leaver. It encompasses vast changes which has a long term impact on the care‐leavers future. This study captures the lived experiences of twenty‐four young Indian girls who have left care in the past four years. It addresses their journey of moving out of care at two levels — their preparation to leave care and their present experience. The primary focus of the study is to explore the interpretation and meanings attributed by these girls to the phenomena of transition out of care; identifying the uniqueness and commonalities that emerges from their experiences. The results exposes a plethora of emotions and episodes the girls have encountered at each step of their path. It also emphasises on the role played by multiple environmental factors — support network (friends, peer group, family, social workers, etc.), residential care home, state and other social processes — operating at different systemic levels, highlighting the interface between the ‘self’ and the ‘environment’, based on the Ecological Framework.     

Social Psychology,Consumer Culture and Neoliberal Political Economy

Consumer culture and neoliberal political economy are often viewed by social psychologists as topics reserved for anthropologists, economists, political scientists and sociologists. This paper takes an alternative view arguing that social psychology needs to better understand these two intertwined institutions as they can both challenge and provide a number of important insights into social psychological theories of self‐identity and their related concepts. These include personality traits, self‐esteem, social comparisons, self‐enhancement, impression management, self‐regulation and social identity. To illustrate, we examine how elements of consumer culture and neoliberal political economy intersect with social psychological concepts of self‐identity through three main topics: ‘the commodification of self‐identity’, ‘social categories, culture and power relations’ and the ‘governing of self‐regulating consumers’. In conclusion, we recommend a decommodified approach to research with the aim of producing social psychological knowledge that avoids becoming enmeshed with consumer culture and neoliberalism.     

Models of Disability, Work and Welfare in Australia

In discourse around disability there has been a shift away from a ‘medical model’, which perceives disability as an individual problem to be ‘cured’ or contained, towards a ‘social model’. The latter focuses on the relationship between people with disabilities and their social environment, locating the required interventions within the realm of social policy and institutional practice. Drawing upon a small qualitative study conducted in Melbourne, this article argues that recent plans by the Australian government to introduce mutual obligation requirements for recipients of the Disability Support Pension (DSP) sit in tension with this shift from the medical to the social models of disability. Mutual obligation is based on the assumption that income support recipients need to be taught how to be more ‘self‐reliant’, to ‘participate’ in society more fully and to become ‘active’, rather than ‘passive’, citizens. This language appears to overlap with that used to articulate a social model, which places emphasis on participation in the community and attempts a shift away from reliance on the medical profession. However, examples from interviews conducted with current and former DSP recipients demonstrate that, in practice, mutual obligation is likely to reinforce a medical model of disability, frame DSP recipients as ‘conditional’ citizens and ignore the obligations of the state and society regarding access and inclusiveness for people with disabilities.     

Dialogical Demand: Discursive Position Repertoires for a Local and Global UK Sex Industry

The increasing incidence of ‘trafficking’ has added an incontestably disturbing dimension to the contestable nature of a ‘non‐trafficked’ UK sex industry. Men who buy sex remain under‐researched, though some studies have indicated ambivalence within men's attitudes. This study combines a critical discursive psychology in support of dialogical self theory. Secondary data, from prominent UK media resources, were analysed using Edley's (2001) method of combining ‘interpretative repertoires’, ‘ideological dilemmas’ and ‘subject positions’. Contrasting discursive practices indicative of wider ideological conflict were found. Discursive concepts were ‘mapped’ onto Hermans and Hermans‐Konopka's (2010) ‘I‐positions’ to explore how these potentially dilemmatic positions might be understood in terms of identity production. The function of ‘uncertainty’, particularly salient with the increasing complexity of globalisation, was considered a factor in how men's identities might be limited by the current discursive space. A ‘dialogical’ model of self is introduced as a framework for understanding how men who buy sex might take up new, inclusive, positions. A corollary is reflected upon; that researchers, activists and buyers alike, who remain ideologically inflexible, may be sustaining the conditions for coercion through their contribution to the discursive conflict. The synthesis of discursive and dialogical analytical tools is recommended for investigating the production of selves in contested spaces.     

‘Doing it right?’– accessing the narratives of identity of newly qualified social workers through the lens of resilience: ‘I am,I have,I can’

Using narrative enquiry, this paper accesses the construct of identity through exploring resilience in newly qualified social workers based in statutory children's services. In seeking to avoid deficit‐based models of this role, this paper aims to present inductively the ‘voice’ of three social workers in a semi‐rural authority, storying the positive ways in which resilience has developed during their first year. Using the Grotberg resilience framework (1995) –‘I am, I have, I can’– as an analytical tool at the interface of personal, professional and organizational identities, we conclude that ‘I am’ and ‘I have’ are more important than the skills dimension of ‘I can’. Positive role models, trust, ‘managed’ optimism, flexibility of support in and beyond induction, and, crucially, self‐efficacy and space for reflexivity, are more prominent as sources of resilience and strong identity. The reflexivity, inspired by the process of narrative enquiry, is an important contributor to self‐efficacy. We propose that a positive view of growth and identity is preferable to deficit models in the context of the transition between the two ‘communities of practice’ and of the challenges of the workplace. Organizational approaches based on this view will be more likely to promote a sustainable workforce.     

Adult women and ADHD: On the temporal dimensions of ADHD identities

This paper uses conceptual resources drawn from psychosocial process thinking (Brown & Reavey, 2015; Brown & Stenner, 2009; Stenner, 2017) and from G.H. Mead in particular, to contribute to an emerging body of work on the experiences of adult women with ADHD (Horton‐Salway & Davies, 2018; Quinn & Madhoo, 2014; Singh, 2002; Waite & Ivey, 2009). It has a particular focus on how ADHD features in the construction of women's identities and life‐stories and it draws upon findings from a qualitative investigation of adult women diagnosed or self‐diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). A theoretically informed ‘thematic decomposition’ of 16 depth interviews reveals how complex processes of identity transformation are mediated by the social category of ADHD. Through this process, troubled pasts are reconstructed from the perspective of an ‘emergent’ identity that offers participants the potential for a more enabling and positive future.     

Poverty and material deprivation among European workers in times of crisis

Many EU countries are faced with abysmal public debts and high unemployment, and may have to reduce their social expenditure and deregulate their labour market, which should lead to an increase in ‘working poverty’ (i.e., an increase in the number of working men and women who live in a low‐income household, or in a household that cannot afford certain goods and services considered essential for a decent life, respectively). However, working poverty remains an under‐analysed phenomenon in Europe. Moreover, the vast majority of existing definitions used in Europe are based on a relative income poverty line and the EU's official definition of ‘in‐work’, which raises concerns about the robustness of existing findings. This article first examines how the socioeconomic situation has evolved in seven EU Member States that have fared differently. In addition, the article examines whether the use of non‐monetary poverty indicators and of an encompassing definition of ‘working’ has an impact on the conclusions drawn. An attempt is made to identify the main macro‐level determinants of changes in ‘working poverty’ and to better understand their impact at the micro‐level.     

Attributing Outcomes to Social Policy Interventions – ‘Gold Standard’ or ‘Fool's Gold’ in Public Policy and Management?

In recent years there has been increased interest in outcome‐based social policy‐making and management. The UK has been in the forefront of this movement but similar movements have been identified internationally. This interest in outcome‐based decision‐making has been given particular impetus through the ‘results’‐based movement in evaluation and performance management since the 1980s, which has increased in scope over time, slowly changing its emphasis from cost reduction and measuring outputs to measuring outcomes. This change has been widely welcomed by policymakers, practitioners and academics. However, there is evidence that the reality is often rather less than the rhetoric. Moreover, the ‘attribution problem’ of attributing changes in outcomes to specific social policies has remained a major issue. The conceptual solution of constructing ‘cause‐and‐effect’ models, imported from the policy evaluation field, has only recently become common for operationalising these models. This article outlines the evolution of interest in outcome‐based social policy‐making up to recent times and the growing realization of the importance of the attribution problem. It then outlines both how the ‘cause‐and‐effect’ policy modelling approach can partially tackle the attribution problem, but also its inherent limitations. Lastly, the article uses several case studies in current UK social policy‐making to demonstrate the potential importance of the reasoning embedded within cause‐and‐effect models but also the dangers in policy‐making which adopts this approach without understanding its conceptual basis or in fields where it is inappropriate, given the current state of our knowledge of social policy systems.     

Simmel on Acceleration, Boredom, and Extreme Aesthesia

By focusing on the unique velocity and over‐stimulation of metropolitan life, Georg Simmel pioneered an interpretation of cultural boredom that has had a significant impact on contemporary social theory by viewing it through the modern experience of time‐pressure and social acceleration. This paper explores Simmel's account of boredom by showing how—in the frenzy of modern life—it has become increasingly difficult to qualitatively distinguish which choices and commitments actually matter to us. Furthermore, this emotional indifference invariably pushes us towards more excessive and risky behavior, towards, what I call, “extreme aeshesia.” Insofar as novel experiences quickly become routine in the technological age, it appears that only extreme sensations and experiences can break the spell of boredom, allowing us to momentarily feel strongly for something.     

From Official Supervision to Self‐monitoring: Privatizing Supervision of Private Social Care Services in Finland

In October 2011, a new Act on Private Social Care Services came into force in Finland. The Act included a provision on a ‘self‐monitoring plan’. According to the provision, providers of private social care services are required to draw up a self‐monitoring plan and to follow its realization. The plan must be kept publicly on view so that clients and their relatives can also keep an eye on the realization of self‐monitoring. In this article, self‐monitoring is first explained and then briefly analyzed against the background of a wider theoretical discussion on accountability. It is argued that the introduction of client involvement in the supervision of private social care services represents a new mechanism of accountability that is typical of the Post‐Keynesian welfare state. Because public authorities are no longer able to supervise the growing number of private social care service providers, the responsibility has been partly shifted to service providers themselves as well as to clients. However, it is argued that the idea of self‐monitoring lends itself poorly to ‘delegated’ private social care services, i.e. to services that are outsourced to private service suppliers. Supervision of private social care service providers should not be too eagerly delegated to service providers themselves, or to clients, because we are here dealing with the constitutional right to adequate social care services. Client involvement also involves numerous practical problems, as shown at the end of the article.     

Social capital and community building through an electronic network

This paper describes a social policy experiment that explores current and potential links between trends in Australian public policy. The central example is provided by the implementation of a wired community set up in a low‐income public housing estate by an entrepreneurial not‐for‐profit internet service provider, InfoXchange. ‘Reach for the Clouds’, the wired community being established at Atherton Gardens in Fitzroy, Melbourne, is attractive to policy‐makers and funding bodies, combining community‐building, public‐private partnerships, self‐help and place‐based management. However, although the project is promoted as an exercise in community‐building through technology, many of the key assumptions are untested. It seems self‐evident that low‐income people who are socially and economically excluded would benefit from greater ‘connectedness’ with one another. However, it is not clear that such exchanges, online or off‐line, will build ‘community’. The paper attempts to establish some distinctions between online communities of interest and place based communities, untangling the relationship between social connectedness and models of social capital.     

Gender,emotions and fly‐in fly‐out work

This paper explores the emotional life of fly‐in fly‐out (FIFO) workers and their families, through an analysis of more than 500 postings made on an online chat forum for mining families. Building on literature on fly‐in fly‐out workers and understandings of emotions as socially constructed, analysis shows how posters to the forum, typically women whose male partners are FIFO workers, construct gendered emotional identities for their partners (sometimes referred to as ‘Mr Miner’), and for themselves, as ‘mining women’, ‘mining widows’ or the ‘mining missus’. Inherent in the creation of gendered emotional subject positions is the process of women undertaking emotion work on and behalf of themselves, their male partners and their children. The findings demonstrate the overarching normative dimensions of women's emotional self‐transformations in the service of their mining partners' careers and the attendant reproduction of everyday patriarchal relations in the private lives of mining families.     

Networked lives

Social network analysis has grown tremendously across a wide range of disciplines and is now regarded as a road‐map in strengthening links with the life‐course perspective. ‘Linked lives’ is often cited as a key principle of life‐course theory, but there is still much to be learned about the significance of these links for the life course. Network theory refines our understanding of the properties of these links, their emergence as structures in daily life, and the mechanisms underlying the inequalities that arise from social relationships. This paper clarifies why networks can be conceptualised as meso‐level structures that bridge the micro‐macro gap. It thus addresses four processes of particular interest for the integration of life‐course and network research: (a) the problem of tie formation; (b) the activation of ties as social capital; (c) their resilience through segments of a life course; and finally, (d) the problem of their loss. In so doing, we highlight innovative approaches for each of these issues in order to propose a research agenda we call ‘Networked Lives’, which emphasises promising avenues for advancing the integration of these two important fields in the social sciences.     

The significance of a secure base: a psychosocial model of long-term foster care

ABSTRACT Long‐term foster care has been a much neglected area of social work practice and research. Yet there are obvious challenges that need to be understood when building a family for life in foster care. Is it possible for foster families, where there are no biological or legal ties between carers and children, to provide care, concern and family membership not only through childhood but also into adult life? The study on which this paper is based set out to explore that question by investigating the experiences of 40 adults, aged 18–30, who grew up in foster families. Qualitative interviews were conducted, transcribed and analysed. Theoretical frameworks from attachment and resilience were brought together with concepts such as ‘belonging’ and ‘family membership’ to make sense of the narratives provided. An integrated and dynamic psychosocial model of long‐term foster care was developed, which emphasizes the significance of a secure base and has some important implications for practice.     

Differences in adolescents’ motivations for indirect,direct, and hybrid peer defending

Adolescents’ defending of peers who are being bullied—or peer defending—was recently found to be a heterogeneous behavioral construct. The present study investigated individual differences in adolescents’ motivations for executing these indirect, direct, and hybrid defending behaviors. In line with the literature on bullying as goal‐directed strategic behavior, we adopted a social evolution theory framework to investigate whether these peer‐defending behaviors could qualify as goal‐directed strategic prosocial behaviors. A sample of 549 Dutch adolescents (49.4% boys; M_age = 12.5 years, SD = 0.6 years) participated in this study. Their peer reported defending behaviors (including bullying behavior as a control variable) and the following behavioral motivations were assessed: (a) agentic and communal goals (self‐report), (b) prosocial and coercive social strategies (peer report), and (c) altruistic and egocentric motivations for prosocial behavior (self‐report). The outcomes of hierarchical linear regression analyses suggest that adolescents’ motivations for executing the different subtypes of peer defending partially overlap but are also different. While indirect defending was fostered by genuine concerns for victims’ well‐being, direct defending was more motivated by personal gains. Hybrid defending combined favorable aspects of both indirect and direct defending as a goal‐directed, strategic, and altruistically motivated prosocial behavior. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The implications of dialogicality for ‘giving voice’ in social representations research

Social representations research is often undertaken by scholars who seek to ‘give voice’ to knowledge(s) that are held by socially disenfranchised individuals and groups. However, this endeavour poses a number of problems in practice, not least because it assumes that the ‘voices’ voiced by individuals and/or groups in social research will be unambiguous and uniform, and unchanged by the research encounter. Despite the growth of attention to the critical potential of social representations theory, there remains a lack of scholarship on the relationship between the theory's emphasis on the relational, or dialogical, nature of social life (the Ego‐Alter‐Object relation) and the implications of this for critical research. In this article, I argue that the dialogical epistemology from which social representations research must depart incites reflection upon (i) the design of empirical studies, which must equally attend to both ‘Ego’ and ‘Alter’, and (ii) the researcher‐researched relationship, which may itself be best viewed as an Ego‐Alter interaction. I make the case for adopting dialogical epistemology in critical social psychology, and argue that this is essential to undertaking ethical social research. I conclude by suggesting that claims to ‘giving voice’ have little place in critical social psychology in general, and social representations scholarship in particular.     

How do immigrant parents of children with complex health needs manage to cope in their daily lives?

Daily life with children who have complex health needs can be stressful for parents. Immigrant parents are vulnerable to stress because they may lack language skills and knowledge about the health care system and have limited social networks. In this study, we focus on how immigrant parents of children with complex health needs use emotion‐focused and problem‐focused coping strategies to manage their daily life, and how their self‐efficacy and the immigration process may affect their coping. This qualitative study had an exploratory design with individual and focus group interviews. The sample comprised 27 parents—18 mothers and 9 fathers—from Pakistan, Poland, and Vietnam. The findings indicated that the parents' love for their child helps them to cope in their daily life. Newly arrived migrants, single mothers with a severely ill child who lacked support and migrant parents with language difficulties struggle to cope. Some of the stress is related to personal, social and structural problems, and to the insufficient resources available to meet the child's needs. The parents used both emotion‐focused and problem‐focused coping strategies. The parents noted that access to both universal and selective welfare services is an important factor that contributed to their self‐efficacy and coping.     

Redefining viability: Aboriginal homelands communities in north‐east Arnhem Land

The current policy debate about the future of small Indigenous homelands communities in remote Australia is being framed in terms of a narrow economic definition of ‘viability’, with little attention to factors such as the social characteristics of such communities and the health, well‐being, and aspirations of those who choose to live there. The debate is taking place in the absence of comparative socio‐demographic data on these communities as opposed to other kinds of settlements in remote Australia. This paper argues for a broader conceptualisation of viability. It outlines some reasons why governments might consider helping homelands communities to become more economically self‐sufficient rather than starving them of support so that their inhabitants increasingly face a ‘choice’ between a marginalized and impoverished existence on the homelands and recentralisation in larger settlements. The argument is based on an analysis of ethnographic data from north‐east Arnhem Land that demonstrate the social cohesiveness and functionality of homelands communities as compared to larger hub settlements.     

‘Replacement Care’ for Working Carers? A Longitudinal Study in England, 2013–15

In the context of rising need for long‐term care, reconciling unpaid care and carers’ employment is becoming an important social issue. In England, there is increasing policy emphasis on paid services for the person cared for, sometimes known as ‘replacement care’, to support working carers. Previous research has found an association between ‘replacement care’ and carers’ employment. However, more information is needed on potential causal connections between services and carers’ employment. This mixed methods study draws on new longitudinal data to examine service receipt and carers’ employment in England. Data were collected from carers who were employed in the public sector, using self‐completion questionnaires in 2013 and 2015, and qualitative interviews were conducted with a sub‐sample of respondents to the 2015 questionnaire. We find that, where the person cared for did not receive at least one ‘key service’ (home care, personal assistant, day care, meals, short‐term breaks), the carer was subsequently more likely to leave employment because of caring, suggesting that the absence of services contributed to the carer leaving work. In the interviews, carers identified specific ways in which services helped them to remain in employment. We conclude that, if a policy objective is to reduce the number of carers leaving employment because of caring, there needs to be greater access to publicly‐funded services for disabled and older people who are looked after by unpaid carers.