Resilience as Reflexivity: A New Understanding for Work with Looked-After Children

This article argues that the current model of resilience in the social work literature, through its predominant focus on outcomes and behaviours rather than the underlying processes of development involved, risks superficiality and appears to lack an underpinning psychological theory of the way in which resilience develops. In response, I propose a psychodynamic understanding of this process, which sees resilience as rooted in the capacity for reflexivity (defined here as an awareness of one's own mental state and the mental states of others), and which describes how this capacity develops. This holds that a strong-enough ego, with the capacity for resilience-as-reflexivity, is the necessary precursor of the child's ability to make use of positive experiences. This psychodynamic understanding of resilience development aims to give social workers a greater appreciation of how the mental health of children in the care system may have been affected by their experiences, and how they can be helped to develop the psychological foundations of resilience and therefore better mental health. I suggest that workers can use this understanding to assess the stage of resilience-development a child has reached, and to inform therapeutic work aimed at strengthening their resilience.     

“If I Can Offer You Some Advice”: Rapport and Data Collection in Interviews Between Adults of Different Ages

Reflexively analyzing interactions between myself (young adult woman) and 150 adult research participants, I explore how interviewees responded to the interviewer's perceived age in combination with other social identity categories. Addressing a gap in scholarship on adult‐adult interview interactions, this article examines how age gradations, in combination with other axes of similarity or difference, affect researcher‐interviewee rapport and data acquisition. Racial similarity, regardless of age, unlocked access to the topic of race/ethnicity. Age intersected with gender such that women within a decade of the woman interviewer's age assumed similarity and were communicative. In interviews with similarly‐aged heterosexual men, awareness of sexuality inhibited answers around intimacy. With older interviewees, gender similarity bridged the age chasm with women. In contrast, age and gender difference inspired older men to act paternalistically and give unsolicited advice. Even among adults, interviewees' classification of the interviewer's age contours the interactional dynamic, impacts data acquisition, and reproduces social distinctions.     

Analysing responses to climate change through the lens of reflexivity

Sociologists are increasingly directing attention toward social responses to climate change. As is true of any new field of inquiry, theoretical frameworks guiding the research to date have room for improvement. One advance could be achieved through closer engagement with Reflexivity Theory, particularly the work of Margaret Archer, who asks just how individuals come to give attention to certain problems, and formulate responses to them. Individuals vary significantly in regard to their understanding of and concern for anthropogenic climate change, and these standpoints in turn influence commitment to mitigation and adaptation. The emergent social interactions among all such agents in turn influence the morphogenetic trajectories through which social structures will evolve, but the role of ‘meta‐reflexives’ is particularly crucial. Identifying pathways of individual climate change reflexivity can make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the potential for and nature of collective responses. In this paper, I explore climate change reflexivity, with particular attention to climate change meta‐reflexives, through a qualitative analysis of personal interviews with residents of two small communities in Alberta, Canada. Applying Reflexivity Theory to this context articulates dimensions of reflexive processing not elaborated in current theoretical treatments, including future outlook and comfort with uncertainty, among others.     

从理据到实践：多元文化路径中的主体反身性建构

如何在大学探寻人才生成的多元文化路径,广州大学“文化素质教育”课题组经过五年来的探索,认为文化素质的教育不能依靠开展一些外缘于主体的活动就可达到目的,而首先应解决认识论上的问题,应将文化素质教育置于认知主体的反身性建构这一理论框架,以获得进一步的理解,进而设计文化素质教育的逻辑进路,并通过诸种实践活动,创构一种在多元文化路径中的主体反身性生成的环境。     

Viewing Spirituality in Social Work through the Lens of Contemporary Social Theory

This paper locates the social work literature on spiritualitywithin the broad theoretical and epistemological perspectivesof late modernity. It focuses particularly on the rise of individualismand its culmination in the theory of reflexive modernization—lifepolitics and subpolitics—and makes an appeal for an ‘ecospiritualsocial work’—one which would take social work awayfrom individualism back to its communitarian roots. The riseof spirituality in social work is linked to individualism. Bothresult from the depersonalizing and alienating effects of modernity:the detraditionalization and secularization of society; therise of science, rationality, the professions, and industrialand technological progress; and the decline in religion. Socialwork mirrors this process in that it has worked vigorously toshake off its religious, moralistic beginnings, and to embracethe secular trappings of professionalism in the process increasinglyembracing highly individualistic values and scientific explanationsof reality. The literature on spirituality in social work, inwhich the influence of New Age spirituality is strongly evident,tries to re-instantiate our search for quality and meaning.However, social work has yet to examine broader sociologicaltheory and the way in which it can deepen our understandingof the rise of spirituality in social work.     

Agency,reflexivity and risk: cosmopolitan,neurotic or prudential citizen?

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the turn to risk within sociology and to survey the relationship between structure and agency as conceived by popular strands of risk theorizing. To this end, we appraise the risk society, culture of fear and governmentality perspectives and we consider the different imaginings of the citizen constructed by each of these approaches. The paper goes on to explore what each of these visions of citizenship implies for understandings of the structure/agency dynamic as it pertains to the question of reflexivity. In order to transcend uni‐dimensional notions of citizenship and to reinvigorate sociological debates about risk, we call for conceptual analyses that are contextually rooted. Exampling the importance of knowledge contests around contemporary security threats and warnings of the deleterious effects of pre‐emptive modes of regulation that derive from the ‘risk turn’ within social science, we argue for a more nuanced embrace of reflexivity within risk theorising in order to facilitate a more dynamic critique of the images of citizenship that such theorizing promotes.     

To return or not to return? The importance of identity negotiations for return migration

Whereas migration research has been heavily influenced by the individualization paradigm, studies on return migration have been more inspired by theories on attachment and belonging. It is common for this kind of research to assert that the main motivations for returning are social contacts and a homing desire. Although this article does not question the importance of such motivations for some, it does argue that return migration needs to be more problematized, not least by studying people who have decided not to return. Based on interviews with highly skilled Estonians, this article suggests that return decisions are influenced by three types of comparisons: social, temporal, and intra-subjective. The first two comparisons have been discussed to some degree in migration literature; however, a focus on intra-subjective comparisons – in which people compare different parts of their identity in order to decide on a potential return – has been scarce. This article suggests that, in line with the individualization of social relationships, but also with the introduction of a new EU mobility space, it is the latter type of comparison that is becoming increasingly widespread.     

An “Army of Volunteers”? Engagement,Motivation, and Barriers to Volunteering among the Baby Boomers

ABSTRACT

Aging baby boomers are expected to provide a large reservoir for the nonprofit sector. We find evidence which while broadly supportive of this idea also suggest limitations as to what can realistically be expected. Using data from the third (2017) wave of the Norwegian life-course, aging, and generation study (n = 2,993, age 53–71), we find that a sizable proportion is already engaged (65–68% in the past year) and around half of non-volunteers (from 58% among the youngest to 43% among the oldest) express interest in volunteering. However, most volunteering is sporadic and less than half of volunteers participate on a weekly basis. Furthermore, most of the non-volunteers who express interest seem unlikely to realize their interest as they simultaneously report important motivational and ability-related barriers to volunteering. A further challenge is that few boomers are willing to make a major commitment to volunteering. Findings suggest that to mobilize boomers, nonprofit organizations need to accommodate more self-interested and ?exible forms of involvement.     

Colonial hangover? A case of multiple cross-cultural influences on Indian Railways

Employing a reflexive-ethnographic design involving past experiences and analysing qualitative data contained in 73 interviews with senior managers from the Indian Railways (IR), this study argues for the remnants of colonial influence on the management, governance aspects and culture in IR. Findings from the study further ratify and confirm aspects of our four scenarios and indicate that the interaction between colonial culture with both national and organisational culture collides to create a complex and conflicting culture in this extremely large and diverse organisation. Such organisational culture, despite the resilient presence of Indianness, paradoxically retains strong elements of the colonial influences as this is seen at times a legitimate and dominant way of governing the world’s largest commercial employer – The IR.