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Within public services there is a widely recognised role for workers who operate across organisational and professional boundaries. Much of this literature focusses on the organisational implications rather than on how boundary spanners engage with citizens. An increased number of public service roles require boundary spanning to support citizens with cross-cutting issues. The purpose of this paper is to explicate the emotional labour within the interactions that boundary spanners have with citizens, requiring adherence to display rules and building trust.

This is a conceptual paper which draws on illustrative examples to draw out the emotional labour within two types of boundary spanning: explicit and emergent.

Emotional labour theory offers a way to classify these interactions as requiring high, medium or low degrees of emotional labour. Boundary spanning theory contributes an understanding of how emotional labour is likely to be differently experienced depending on whether the boundary spanning is an explicit part of the job, or an emergent property.

Drawing on examples from public service work in a range of advanced democracies, the authors make a theoretical argument, suggesting that a more complete view of boundary spanning must account for individual-level affect and demands upon workers. Such a focus captures the “how” of the boundary spanning public encounter, and not just the institutional, political and organisational dimensions examined in most boundary spanning literatures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current policy of extending personal budgets to older people.

In developing this explanation, the paper draws upon a species of de-centred, post-foundationalist theory which draws attention to the way in which certain narratives can sustain a longing for the implementation of policies that are ultimately unachievable. The paper also draws upon original data from an evaluation of a national ageing charity’s project to increase take-up of personal budgets.

The paper draws attention to, and seeks to explain, the paradoxical discursive positioning of older adults as “the unexceptional exception” within the general narrative of universal personalisation.

This analytical approach can secure a different vantage point in this debate by paying closer attention to the ideological and ethical dimensions of personalisation than has been the case until now.

The paper contributes to the critical interrogation of the personalisation agenda, in which debate (both in academic and practitioner circles) has become highly polarised.

The paper contributes to discussions in critical social gerontology which point to a bifurcation of later life into, on the one hand, an ageless third age and a frailed fourth age, on the other.

The paper makes clear that the discursive positioning of older people as “the unexceptional exception” risks an inadvertent ageism.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on five reasons why personalisation is so contested. It aims to highlight the shared themes that point to common ground between advocates and critics of personalisation.

The paper draws on different academic and practitioner perspectives on personalisation, covering both advocates for and critics of the personalisation reforms.

The paper concludes by suggesting that the development of self-directed support in Scotland has the potential to develop social care change in ways which may be palatable to both sides of the English policy debate.

People who support and critique personalisation often write in ways which do not directly engage with the perspectives of the other side. Here the authors engage directly with the points of difference to explicate why such a diversity of perspectives exists, and how there is more common ground than might be assumed.

Partnership between people who use services, their carers, and professionals is seen as an increasingly important aspect of providing a quality service across health and social care. The concept is enshrined in national policy, but the application of it is patchy at best, and has partly been undermined by constant restructuring and organisational change ‐ both in partnership working and in the organisations set up to deliver health and social care. Partnership that recognises service user/survivor expertise and assets and promotes equal and reciprocal working between staff and users is being recast as ‘co‐production’ or ‘co‐creation’ in UK public policy. The Jersey Partnership Project demonstrates a co‐productive approach, which is being seen as a way forward for adult social care service development and design.The Partnership Project, which commenced in the summer of 2009, and which is reaching the conclusion of its first stage at the time of writing, brings together experts by experience and mental health professionals, including a number of the latter who use services themselves, in a way that is designed to map out a new way of working, in partnership, across services. The Project is due to complete its first stage in June 2010, and further stages, perhaps bringing in a wider range of community services, are under discussion, following a presentation to the Jersey Minister for Health in November 2009.This article explores the notion of partnership as both ‘truth‐telling’ and ‘walking on common ground’, allowing those who provide and those who make use of services to enter into a sharing of experiences and knowledge, and an integrated spirit, that provides a clearer direction for developing adult mental health services in Jersey. The article then goes on to consider some of the barriers to more inclusive ways of working and looks at the current discourse and practices around the ‘co‐production’ agenda. Finally, the article covers the practical operation of the Partnership Project looking at structure and learning points and concludes by looking to the final six months of the Project and beyond.

Diverse narratives and practices concerned with “vulnerability” increasingly inform how a range of social issues are understood and addressed, yet the subtle creep of the notion into various governance arenas has tended to slip by unnoticed. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of vulnerability in responding to longstanding and on-going dilemmas about social precariousness and harm.

Drawing on in-depth qualitative research into how vulnerability was operationalised in services for “vulnerable” young people in an English city, prominent narratives of vulnerability are traced, which operate in relation to a variety of often-dissonant service user responses.

The paper shows the governance of vulnerability as a dynamic process, informed by policy developments and wider beliefs about the behaviours of “problem” populations, interpreted and modified by interactions between practitioners and young people, and in turn shaping lived experiences of vulnerability. Patterns in this process illuminate how vulnerability narratives re-shape long-running tensions at the heart of social welfare interventions between a drive to provide services that might mitigate social precariousness and an impetus towards regulating behaviour.

The paper argues that although gesturing to inclusivity, the governance of vulnerability elaborates power dynamics and social divisions in new ways. Resulting outcomes are evidently varied and fluid, holding the promise of further social change.

This study explores how a group of middle school social studies teachers at a school, whose student population is primarily affluent and white, include multicultural content in their curriculum. Interviews and observations along with an analysis of the textbooks, state standards, and the school’s scope and sequence were the main sources of data collection. Three common themes arose in this study in relation to the incorporation of multicultural content into the social studies curriculum: (a) There is a discrepancy between teachers’ perceptions and practices; (b) the teachers’ background in multicultural education is limited, and (c) though there is some inclusion of multicultural content, it is not put into practice in any substantial way because it is not seen as applicable to their school environment.

Public service ethos (PSE) is traditionally associated with public administration, bureaucracy and frontline response. Thinkers such as Aristotle and Weber embedded ideas of public virtue and vocation, yet new managerialism, as well as changes to public services management challenge traditional notions of PSE. Recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, counter terrorism and government austerity agendas have put PSE back into the public eye. In this chapter we examine the context for a renewed PSE as a crucial aspect of resilience for workers in public services and public management. We focus on three areas that we feel are important for PSE: policy, purpose and pedagogy, and how a renewed PSE can inform pedagogy in the discipline, renewing ideas of vocation in public administration training.