Caring about independent lives

With the rhetoric of independence, new cash for care systems were introduced in many developed welfare states at the end of the 20th century. These systems allow local authorities to pay people who are eligible for community care services directly, to enable them to employ their own careworkers. Despite the obvious importance of the careworker’s perceptions of a welfare system aimed at independence for disabled people, this perspective is under‐researched. This article explores this perspective by outlining three examples of careworker strategies (a continuing carer biography, searching for new horizons and acting pragmatically) identified in a cross‐national case study of cash for care in the UK and Norway. The strategies are mainly derived by considering different positions in the labour market and different ways of carrying out this carework. Overall, the paper intends to contribute to the understanding of the complex welfare dilemma between user independence and the nature of carework.     

Information sharing and reporting systems in the UK and Ireland: Professional barriers to reporting child maltreatment concerns

Across the UK recent policy developments have focused on improved information sharing and inter‐agency cooperation. Professional non‐reporting of child maltreatment concerns has been consistently highlighted as a problem in a range of countries and the research literature indicates that this can happen for a variety of reasons. Characteristics such as the type of abuse and the threshold of evidence available are key factors, as are concerns that reporting will damage the professional‐client relationship. Professional discipline can also impact on willingness to report, as can personal beliefs about abuse, attitudes towards child protection services and experiences of court processes. Research examining the role of organisational factors in information sharing and reporting emphasises the importance of training and there are some positive indications that training can increase professional awareness of reporting processes and requirements and help to increase knowledge of child abuse and its symptoms. Nonetheless, this is a complex issue and the need for training to go beyond simple awareness raising is recognised. In order to tackle non‐reporting in a meaningful way, childcare professionals need access to on‐going multidisciplinary training which is specifically tailored to address the range of different factors which impact on reporting attitudes and behaviours. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond Neighborhoods and Crime: Expanding the Scope of Social Disorganization to Explain Occupational Deviance

This article proposes a structural explanation for the occupational deviance dimension of white collar crime. The systemic model of social disorganization theory is used as a framework for understanding organizational conditions that produce high rates of occupational deviance. The model of workplace disorganization proposed here posits parallel mechanisms can be found in communities as well as organizations. Marginalized workplaces, employee turnover, and employee heterogeneity are antecedent factors that discourage employee network formation and collective action against deviance. By refocusing on organizational factors, we offer a broader understanding of occupational deviance, one that can predict and explain the workplace conditions under which counterproductive behaviors occur.     

Pupil Mobility: Using Students' Voices to Explore their Experiences of Changing Schools

This article explores the ways in which students' voices can be used to analyse the process of moving schools, at a time outside of those that young people normally change schools. The paper is based on a study in a secondary school and uses qualitative data collected by researchers and student co‐researchers. Two areas were raised by students as important about being at a new school: the perceived challenges and their perceptions of learning in a new environment. It is argued that to respond to issues that arise due to mobility, an engagement with students' views is necessary. Furthermore, this can facilitate policy‐makers, school leaders and educators in providing more effective support for those young people.     

The demographic characteristics of populations living near oil and gas wells in the USA

Population and Environment - This study documents the prevalence of historically marginalized populations (across age, income, education, race-ethnicity, and language) living near active oil and...     

Scientization Under Pressure—The Problematic Role of Expert Bodies During the Handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Public Organization Review - This article focuses on the role of experts in the Norwegian decision-making process in central government during the crisis management of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is...     

Special Issue on The Scientization of Public Decision-Making Processes – the Relevance for the Handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Public Organization Review -     

Childhood innocence and experience: Memory,discourse and practice

This article examines how childhood innocence is taken up in (92) memories of undergraduate students across four sites in the US and Canada. Drawing from Foucault's theory of discourse, we examine how three themes—innocence as not knowing, innocence as being provided for, and loss of innocence as exposure to adversity—construct childhood as the absence of conflict, which perpetuates the myth of an innocence/experience binary and encourages a deficit perspective of childhood. These findings contribute to teacher education and childhood studies by highlighting the importance of interrogating adult memories in order to disrupt normative assumptions about children.