Performativity and helping professions: social theory, power and practice

Drawing on Judith Butler's conception of 'performativity', we would argue that the notion has important implications for contemporary debates in international social welfare over agency, subjection and 'resistance'. Professional social workers embedded in discursive institutions function according to particular expectations around performativity. In addition, this organisational context is complex with multiple demands. In light of technologies of surveillance and control in contemporary social work, performativity offers a response to the pressing need to expand notions of worker opposition beyond traditional forms of organised dissent towards the production of subjective space.     

Using the 2001 census to study human capital movements affecting Britain's larger cities: insights and issues

Summary.  Human capital is increasingly being recognized as crucial to the sustained growth of British cities, and the population census is unrivalled as a source of data on the characteristics of people moving to and from cities. Taking advantage of new features in the 2001 census, the paper examines how successful 27 of Britain's largest cities and their regions are in maintaining their labour force complement, giving particular attention to young adults and people working in high level occupations. Considerable variation is apparent between city regions, but the interpretation of results is somewhat hampered by limitations in the census data, prompting recommendations for future data collection.     

Audience Design and Context Discrepancy: How Online Debates Lead to Opinion Polarization

This article examines how the technical layout of some online platforms shapes the way individuals engage in public debate online. To do so, the research studies an empirical case of how public debating on Weibo—China's equivalent to Twitter—leads to opinion polarization. The technical layout of Weibo strongly influences how users debate with others. The thread‐based message structure fragments the interactional context, preventing users from gaining a clear picture about other discussants and the ongoing conversation. Weibo's technical design, which enables simultaneous interactions with multiple audiences (of which many users are unaware), further complicates the debates. Consequently, users become confused about their audience and where their replies are targeted, and subsequent interpersonal tension sparks as they adopt interactive strategies (sharing personal experiences, adding situational elaborations, and seeking solidarity through opinion) to reduce this confusion. Ironically, these strategies often serve to further polarize opinions. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/U5qdm6eiQ1M .     

MEASURING SELF-PERCEIVED RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISCRIMINATION IN SOCIAL SURVEYS

The aim of this article is to encourage a research agenda that attends to methodological considerations regarding measuring self-perceived racial and ethnic discrimination in social surveys. Toward this end, the author compared validity of alternative measures of discrimination. The first measure asks whether something unfair or bad has happened because of race and ethnicity, whereas the second measure asks about generic unfair events independent of attribution to race or ethnicity. In a probability sample of 586 Black respondents living in the Detroit metropolitan area interviewed in 1995, it was found that the prevalence of self-perceived racial and ethnic discrimination depended on question framing. Moreover, different respondents were likely to respond affirmatively to explicit versus generic measures of discrimination; importantly, the mental health consequences of self-perceived racial and ethnic discrimination varied by question framing. The results confirmed that the prevalence, correlates, and psychological impact of self-perceived discrimination should be evaluated on the basis of measurement sensitivity.     

When was secularization? Dating the decline of the British churches and locating its cause1

Dating the decline of Christianity in Britain has a vital bearing on its explanation. Recent work by social historians has challenged the sociological view that secularization is due to long‐term diffuse social processes by asserting that the churches remained stable and popular until the late 1950s and that the causes of decline lie in the social and cultural changes associated with the 1960s. We challenge this interpretation of the evidence. We also note that much of the decline of the churches is explained not by adult defection but by a failure to keep children in the faith. Given the importance of parental homogamy for the successful transmission of religious identity, the causes of decline in one generation may well lie in the experiences of the previous generation. We focus on the disruptive effects of the 1939–45 war on family formation and use survey data to argue for a staged model of decline that is compatible with the conventional gradual view of secularization.     

Beyond Managism: Negotiated Narratives and Critical Management Education in Practice

A pragmatist conception of critical management education and learning is first set out. This accepts a degree of 'functionality' between management study and management practice. It is, however, a non-managerialist and non-technicist functionality. The criterion for judging critical management learning cannot be how well it reveals truths in any absolute or foundationalist sense. The only possible criterion is how well, relative to alternative types of learning, it informs the practices of people involved in managerial situations (regardless of whether these are managers or not). Next, one way of applying pragmatist critical management principles is outlined. This works through negotiated narratives and stands as an alternative to orthodox management education approaches – ones to which the critical concept of scholarism is applied. The outline is then developed through an ethnographic style account of an instance of such a practice. Central to this piece of teaching and learning practice is the critical concept of managism . Managist discourse and its role in framing managerial thinking and practices is examined and debated by the management class in the process of attempting collectively to make sense of stories brought to the class by both the students and the teacher. The basic 'story' that the paper tells is rehearsed at the end in the form of a fairy tale. This is done as an alternative to concluding or 'closing' the paper. The story of critical management education and learning and what is done in its name continues to unfold.     

Physical activity in the life of a woman with cerebral palsy: physiotherapy,social exclusion,competence, and intimacy

Although physical activity can have substantial mental and physical health benefits, people with cerebral palsy usually lead sedentary lives. To understand, at an individual level, this inactivity, we interviewed a 29-year-old minimally active woman with cerebral palsy (Alana) about the meanings and experiences of physical activity throughout her life. Using a case-study approach, we found that Alana had adverse childhood experiences with physical activity, including: having to perform difficult, and sometimes painful, physiotherapy; wearing callipers to assist her walking; demonstrating limited competence at physical activity; being excluded from physical education and other organised physical activity at school; and feeling socially isolated from her classmates. These experiences seemed to contribute to feelings of difference/inferiority and the subsequent avoidance of physical activity, which, in turn, might have contributed to premature functional decline. Physical activity levels in people with cerebral palsy might be increased through focusing on enhancing childhood experiences.