Examining concepts of power and agency in research with young people

Concepts of power and agency have become increasingly prominent in the youth studies literatures and related research. A focus of the research to date has been an examination of how a better understanding of young people's lived experiences can reveal possibilities for young people's agency to emerge. Despite increased interest in the term agency, much less has been said about how the concept is defined and recognized in research with young people, including what the concept may entail but crucially, how the term is linked to and underpinned by the related concept of power. This paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of power and agency as utilized in research with young people. The discussion that follows identifies the possible ways in which different theoretical positions shape our understanding of how power and agency are investigated and how these understandings inform the ways we interpret young people's perspectives and actions as holding potential for ‘agency’. Drawing on recent empirical examples, we consider how varying interpretations of power and/or agency shape not only the ways in which young people's agentic experiences are theorized (and the related ontological and epistemological assumptions these positions imply) but also the presumed effects of that agency.     

I. Patients of the treatment division of the judge baker guidance center 1

Abstract

There is a growing emphasis in the social work literature that social work's overall mission should be that of social justice and that mental health be relegated as outside of social work's realm. This paper draws upon a constructionist and narrative perspective in developing a general formulation of clinical social work to bridge the gap between social justice and mental health.     

Differentiating Processes of Control and Understanding in the Early Development of Emotion and Cognition

In this study, we examined the hypothesis that preschoolers' performance on emotion and cognitive tasks is organized into discrete processes of control and understanding within the domains of emotion and cognition. Additionally, we examined the relations among component processes using mother report, behavioral observation, and physiological measures of emotion control. Participants were 263 children (42 percent non‐White) and their mothers. Results indicated that the three approaches of measuring emotion control were unrelated. Regardless of the measurement method, a four‐factor solution differentiating emotion control and understanding and cognitive control and understanding fits the data better than did either of two two‐factor models, one based on domains of emotion and cognition across processes, and one based on processes of control and understanding across domains. Results of this research replicate those of Leerkes et al. in describing a differentiated underlying structure of emotion and cognition processes in early childhood while also extending these conclusions across samples and across measurement approaches for assessing emotion control.     

Prosocial Behavior: Long‐term Trajectories and Psychosocial Outcomes

This study investigated developmental trajectories for prosocial behavior for a sample followed from the age of 10–18 and examined possible adjustment outcomes associated with membership in different trajectory groups. Participants were 136 boys and 148 girls, their teachers, and their parents (19.4 percent African‐American, 2.4 percent Asian, 51.9 percent Caucasian, 19.5 percent Hispanic, and 5.8 percent other). Teachers rated children's prosocial behavior yearly in grades 4–12. At the end of the 12th grade year, teachers, parents, and participants reported externalizing behaviors and participants reported internalizing symptoms, narcissism, and features of borderline personality disorder. Results suggested that prosocial behavior remained stable from middle childhood through late adolescence. Group‐based mixture modeling revealed three prosocial trajectory groups: low (18.7 percent), medium (52.8 percent), and high (29.6 percent). Membership in the high prosocial trajectory group predicted lower levels of externalizing behavior as compared with the low prosocial trajectory group, and for girls, lower levels of internalizing symptoms. Membership in the medium prosocial trajectory group also predicted being lower on externalizing behaviors. Membership in the high prosocial trajectory group predicted lower levels of borderline personality features for girls only.     

European‐American and African‐American Mothers' Emotion Socialization Practices Relate Differently to Their Children's Academic and Social‐emotional Competence

The current study examines whether the relation between mothers' responses to their children's negative emotions and teachers' reports of children's academic performance and social‐emotional competence are similar or different for European‐American and African‐American families. Two hundred mothers (137 European‐American, 63 African‐American) reported on their responses to their five‐year‐old children's negative emotions and 150 kindergarten teachers reported on these children's current academic standing and skillfulness with peers. Problem‐focused responses to children's negative emotions, which have traditionally been considered a supportive response, were positively associated with children's school competence for European‐American children, but expressive encouragement, another response considered supportive, was negatively associated with children's competence for African‐American children. The findings highlight the need to examine parental socialization practices from a culturally specific lens.     

Top Ten Challenges for Understanding Gender and Aggression in Children: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

This essay identifies ten significant methodological challenges for understanding aggression and gender. In light of the recent explosion of research on indirect/relational/social aggression, it seems important to clarify gaps in our current understanding and to identify promising methods by which better answers might be found. The discussion begins with basic issues of definitions, contexts and subtypes, moves on to points concerning sampling and measures, and addresses whether current evidence warrants deciding that girls are as aggressive as boys. We conclude that although research has shown that the majority of girls' aggression takes indirect/relational/social forms, it is premature to conclude that boys do not also engage in these behaviors. We caution against assuming that physical and indirect/relational/social aggression are comparable in their developmental origins and consequences, and urge researchers to consider that fully understanding indirect/relational/social aggression might require different conceptual frameworks and research methods.     

Parental choice and the rural primary school: Lifestyle,locality and loyalty

This paper discusses the geography of parental choice in a rural locale and shows how a group of parents negotiated their way through the process of primary school choice. Using ethnographic data collected through interviews and observations with parents and staff from three rural primary schools in England, the research utilises Bourdieu's concepts of capital, habitus and field to show how the resources and values the parents held affected the school choices they made. The paper demonstrates that the longer-term resident local parents were influenced not only by their cultural capital but also by familial ties and an emotional commitment to the rural locale and these parents were therefore more inclined to support their local school. In contrast, the more recent newcomer parents used their cultural capital and spatial power to shop around to find what they believed to be the ‘right’ school. The paper argues that the newcomer parents had less allegiance to place and hence to the symbolic position that the school holds within the rural community within which they lived.     

The Vile and the Noble

This article examines the concept of terroir—a French word that captures the correspondence between the physical and human features of a place and the character of its agricultural products. Tied to the protection of economic rents threatened by competition and fraud, the practice of classifying certain lands, grapes, and properties both substantively and qualitatively has become the organizing principle of the entire French wine industry. Often derided as snobbish monopolistic practices by New World producers, the notion terroir in France and its rejection in America both exemplify how the “principles of vision and division” of the natural world are always intertwined with the “principles of vision and division” of the social world. The present article discusses these affinities through an analysis of wine classifications in the French regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy, and some of the critiques they have given rise to, in the United States especially.     

“I Didn’t Feel Equipped”: Social Work Students’ Reflections on a Simulated Client “Coming Out”

Few studies have examined social work students’ reflections on and experiences working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning persons and addressing the intersection of race/ethnicity and sexuality within practice. This study explored current master’s of social work student (n = 11) and recent graduate (n = 7) reflections on conducting an objective structured clinical practice interaction with an African Canadian youth coming out as a lesbian. Narrative thematic analyses of reflective dialogues highlighted a variation of competence in gay affirmative practice across attitudes (managing personal reactions), knowledge (addressing diversity; terminology and information), and skills (readiness; challenging heterosexism). Curriculum development and agency-based training is recommended to address gaps in knowledge and competence regarding gay affirmative approaches.