Recently, there have been renewed calls to place social workers in schools. Although these are not unchartered waters, contextual understandings of safeguarding have reaffirmed…
Abstract
Purpose
Recently, there have been renewed calls to place social workers in schools. Although these are not unchartered waters, contextual understandings of safeguarding have reaffirmed the centrality of schools in the lives of young people and keeping them safe. Yet, schools can only do so much to support young people. Safeguarding practice reviews continue to highlight the shortcomings of contextless assessment. This paper aims to make the case for a broader approach to safeguarding practice by placing social workers in schools.
Design/methodology/approach
A scoping review was undertaken to elicit social workers in schools (SWIS) literature from the UK, as well as international examples. Keyword searches revealed a lack of consensus on shared/agreement terminology for SWIS. The literature was organised thematically, as a mechanism to open up the extent, range and nature of research activity in relation to SWIS.
Findings
Findings are presented in three themes: misunderstandings of SWIS – what do they actually do?; micro versus macro interventions; and the concept of reach.
Research limitations/implications
The main implications of this study are to sharpen the focus on the centrality of schools in the lives of children and young people; to expand school-based initiatives as a way to reach young people at risk; to re-centre practice to local, community orientation with an emphasis on early help; and to bring together pockets of good practice and learn from successful partnership models.
Originality/value
Little attempt has been made to contemplate the past and present and rethread school-based initiatives. There is an absence of attention afforded to the theoretical foundations of SWIS. This paper identifies a gap in interest from the early iterations of SWIS, with a recent upsurgence in attention.
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Máire O Sullivan and Brendan Richardson
This paper aims to highlight the role of consumption communities as a self-help support group to ameliorate loneliness. The authors suggest that the self-help element of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to highlight the role of consumption communities as a self-help support group to ameliorate loneliness. The authors suggest that the self-help element of consumption communities has been overlooked because of a focus on communities pursuing hegemonic masculinity. Instead, the authors focus on a female-led and – dominated consumption community.
Design/methodology/approach
A longitudinal ethnography was undertaken with the aim of understanding consumer behaviour in a “hyper-feminine” environment. Participant observation, depth interviews and netnography were carried out over five years within the Knitting community, focussing on an Irish Stitch ‘n’ Bitch group.
Findings
A dimension of consumption communities has been overlooked in the extant literature; this female-led and -dominated community functions as a self-help support group used as a “treatment” for loneliness. It also demonstrates all the characteristics of a support group.
Research limitations/implications
This study offers a framework with which new studies of community consumption can be examined or existing studies can be re-examined, through rather than cases of loneliness and self-help support groups.
Practical implications
Marketers have an opportunity to build supportive consumption communities that provide a safe space for support where commerce and brand-building can also occur. Groups aimed at ameliorating loneliness may wish to consider integration of the consumption community model.
Originality/value
Calls have been made for a reconceptualisation of consumption communities as current typologies seem inadequate. This paper responds with a critical examination through the lens of the self-help support group, while also taking steps towards resolving the gender imbalance in the consumption community literature. The paper explores loneliness, a previously underexamined motivator for consumption community membership.
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In recent years, two new approaches have bloomed in criminological thinking, narrative criminology and psychosocial criminology. Both have argued for a new consideration of…
Abstract
In recent years, two new approaches have bloomed in criminological thinking, narrative criminology and psychosocial criminology. Both have argued for a new consideration of offenders' narratives, which are investigated as a description of life events and choices, and of the decision to offend. An interview regarding the life and deviant career of an Italian football hooligan (‘ultras’) – a Bangladeshi–Italian boy trying to find his place in Italian society – will show how the two approaches can be combined in an analysis of the subject's often ambiguous narratives, in which both neutralisation techniques and defence mechanisms can be discerned. We will first describe the complex narrative strategies used. We will then try to explain how, through the use of complex defences and neutralisations, the subject can feel simultaneously integrated into both the deviant group and general society. In this case, despite antinomies and ambiguity, integration is achieved by keeping at bay the sense of guilt related to aggression towards parental figures.
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After great Wars, the years that follow are always times of disquiet and uncertainty; the country is shabby and exhausted, but beneath it, there is hope, expectancy, nay…
Abstract
After great Wars, the years that follow are always times of disquiet and uncertainty; the country is shabby and exhausted, but beneath it, there is hope, expectancy, nay! certainty, that better times are coming. Perhaps the golden promise of the fifties and sixties failed to mature, but we entered the seventies with most people confident that the country would turn the corner; it did but unfortunately not the right one! Not inappropriate they have been dubbed the “striking seventies”. The process was not one of recovery but of slow, relentless deterioration. One way of knowing how your country is going is to visit others. At first, prices were cheaper that at home; the £ went farther and was readily acceptabble, but year by year, it seemed that prices were rising, but it was in truth the £ falling in value; no longer so easily changed. Most thinking Continentals had only a sneer for “decadent England”. Kinsmen from overseas wanted to think well of us but simply could not understand what was happening.