Promoting stability and continuity of care for looked after children: a survey and critical review

This paper reports on a two‐pronged research study: a critical review of reported research concerning continuity and stability for children looked after away from home, and a telephone survey of UK managers responsible for looked after children. The review found limited research in this specific field that met the criteria of the critical review, but reports some evidence in favour of sibling co‐placement, kinship care, parental participation, professional foster care and individualized, multidimensional support. The survey revealed a culture of innovation in this field in the UK voluntary and statutory sectors, but with little evaluation of the independent effects of new interventions. The paper places the research in the context of current policy initiatives in the UK and discusses the implications of the findings for research and practice.     

The relations of ruling: a feminist inquiry ∗

This paper explores the complex of objectified social relations that organize and regulate our lives in contemporary society. Its inquiry is driven by experiences in the women's movement of a dual consciousness, with the particularities of being mother and housewife on the one hand, and, on the other, the abstracted discourses and forms of organization creating the matrix of a consciousness outside the local and particular. A strategy for sociological inquiry is formulated which does not begin from a discursively structured position within the objectified relations, but from a standpoint traditionally women's, located in the actualities of the everyday of people's embodied living. The historical trajectory of these relations emerges as increasingly independent and increasingly pervasive organizers of people's everyday/everynight activities. The materiality of printed and electronic texts mediates the intersections of the relations of ruling and the everyday world. Texts are complemented by technologies or disciplined practices that standardize local states of affairs or events, bringing them into correspondance with standardized texts. Baudrillard's conception of ‘hyperreality’ is used to explicate characteristic forms of the text-mediated systems of corporate management. Finally the topic returns to the issue of gender, showing how the dual consciousness which brings the objectified extra-local character of these relations into view has itself been defined in the historical trajectory of their emergence. It is in this context, that a sociology from the standpoint of women can be seen as proposing an alternative organization of knowledge which does not reproduce the relations of ruling, but an explication of just those relations in which our lives are embedded.     

Qualitative research in family therapy: publication trends from 1980 to 1999

In the early 1990s, scholars from a variety of disciplines encouraged greater inclusion of qualitative research methodology in the mental health field. Moon, Dillon, and Sprenkle (1990) hoped their paper “Family therapy and qualitative research” would serve as a stimulus for further development of qualitative research in the field of family therapy. Ten years later, entering the new millennium, has the field been influenced by recommendations for an increase in use of qualitative methodology in family therapy? A content analysis was conducted on articles published in the marriage and family therapy literature from 1980 to 1999. Of the numerous articles examined in four journals, 131 articles were published using qualitative research methodology. Findings support the contention that qualitative research is increasing, but still accounts for a small number of research articles published in marriage and family therapy journals.     

Career Concerns and Mobility Motivations of Orchestra Musicians

This paper offers a theoretical and empirical stance towards careers and professional socialization as subjective experience. Focusing on the problematic features of mobility, entrapment, and organizational commitment in the orchestra world, it shows how the analysis of career concerns in the "minor leagues"of organizational sets can reveal the meaning of status passage, definitions of time, and experiential turning points. Some adaptations to failure and the process of making commitments are considered.     

'A Pair of Stout Shoes and an Umbrella': The Role of the Mental Welfare Officer in Delivering Community Care in East Anglia: 1946-1970

via e-mail: sherolph{at}hotmail.com Summary In this paper we describe an oral history research project whichexplored a little-known aspect of the history of social work:the history of mental welfare officers and their role in communitycare. We interviewed former MWOs and analysed both private andpublic documents to explore this history in East Anglia between1946 and 1970. In the paper we address three themes. In thefirst place, we argue that MWOs, as well as carrying out theirstatutory function in overseeing hospital admissions, had asignificant role in community care for people with learningdifficulties and psychiatric problems. They began to advocateon behalf of clients, often making a case for home support andthey supported parents' groups. Increasingly, they carried outcase-work and painstaking social work with families. In thesecond place, we explore the surprising finding that, amongMWOs, genericism was not as new a concept in 1970 as many writershave assumed. Finally, we analyse some gender issues that emergedfrom the research and the way they influenced attitudes to communitycare held by some MWOs. The paper looks at the gradual developmentof a profession from one with little consistent training, toone in which specialist education began to be seen as an importantaspect of the role of the MWO.     

Perceptions of elder physical abuse in the courtroom: the influence of hearsay witness testimony

A community sample of 226 participants (41% men, 59% women) who answered questions about a trial summary that manipulated what type of witness (a 45-year-old hearsay [second-hand information based on the report of a crime victim] witness, a 75-year-old hearsay witness, or the 75-year-old victim) presented an allegation of elder physical abuse. Overall, participants who read the testimony of a 45-year-old hearsay witness had higher conviction rates than participants who read the testimony of the 75-year-old hearsay witness or the elder victim. Additionally, participants who had previously been victims of abuse and/or who had positive attitudes toward elderly people rendered more pro-prosecution verdicts. Finally, as the age of the participant increased so did conviction rates.