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1 – 10 of 15Sarah Wendt and Heather Fraser
Most women who serve time in prison will eventually be released and expected to reintegrate back into society. To maximize the chances of success, careful support is usually…
Abstract
Purpose
Most women who serve time in prison will eventually be released and expected to reintegrate back into society. To maximize the chances of success, careful support is usually required. An example of this support work was the Healthy Relationships Program (HRP, 2016) offered to women inmates of the Adelaide Women’s Prison (South Australia) pre-release. The content of the HRP was influenced by a gender-responsive framework and constructed as a social work program. The purpose of this paper is to report on a small qualitative study that used semi-structured interviews pre- and post-program to explore women participants’ expectations, perceptions and experiences of the program. In this paper, the focus is on the women inmates’ interview transcripts where a thematic analysis was conducted. Two main research questions drove this analysis. First: How did the women experience the HRP? Second: What does their reported experience reveal about the ongoing need for gender-responsive support? The key findings are that domestic violence and relationships with children are strong motivators for participation in programs; therefore, gender-responsive support is still required in prison programs. However, the paper also advocates that future iterations of gender-responsive support and social work interventions become more consciously intersectional feminist in orientation.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative design was used to explore what women thought the HRP taught them. Individual face-to-face interviews were used to explore women’s perceptions, ideas and experiences of healthy relationships. Thematic analysis was used to draw out the themes across interviews.
Findings
The key arguments made are that gender-responsive support is still required but that future iterations of gender-responsive support become more consciously intersectional feminist in orientation.
Research limitations/implications
The researchers experienced strict time restrictions to conduct interviews and therefore depth was somewhat compromised. To try and compensate for this restriction, the researchers visited potential participants as part of program recruitment and information sharing to help enable and build general rapport before the interviews. Time restrictions and prison security protocols did not allow for researchers to check transcripts with the women.
Practical implications
Reporting on this case study also showed that social work practice can influence relationships with institutions, such as prisons, that perpetrate marginalization and therefore enable a setting that facilitates safe participation in programs.
Social implications
Gender-responsive frameworks provide the much needed validation of gender differences, but also require a feminist intersectional lens to more consciously aid in the conceptualization and evaluation of future programs for women in prison. It is this intersectional lens that is more likely to bring multiple experiences of oppression into focus so that personal issues and problems can be analyzed in a richer wider social context, particularly intersections between gender, class and/ethnicity race.
Originality/value
This paper has reported on women’s expectations and experiences of a health relationships program and provides insight and learnings for future practitioners intending to run similar programs. Overall, the women participants were able to articulate their own personal learnings about interpersonal relationships and were able to acknowledge the impacts of abuse and violence in their lives in the program.
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The key purpose of this chapter is to identify some ways of enhancing feminist conceptual, empirical, and theoretical work on violence against women. Much attention is given to…
Abstract
The key purpose of this chapter is to identify some ways of enhancing feminist conceptual, empirical, and theoretical work on violence against women. Much attention is given to addressing the harms caused by new electronic forms of woman abuse, including the role of adult Internet pornography and sex robots. This chapter also emphasises the importance of revisiting some major feminist contributions from the past.
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An inquiry into the constitution of the experience of patienthood. It understands “becoming a patient” as a production of a subjectivity, in other words as a process of…
Abstract
Purpose
An inquiry into the constitution of the experience of patienthood. It understands “becoming a patient” as a production of a subjectivity, in other words as a process of individuation and milieu that occurs through an ontology of production. This ontology of production can, of course, also be understood as a political ontology. Therefore, this is, first of all, an inquiry into a mode of production, and, secondly, an inquiry into its relation to the issue of social justice – because of effects of digital divisions. In these terms, it also reflects on how expert discourses, such as in medical sociology and science studies (STS), can (and do) articulate their problems.
Approach
An integrative mode of discourse analysis, strongly related to discursive institutionalism, called semantic agency theory: it considers those arrangements (institutions, informal organizations, networks, collectivities, etc.) and assemblages (intellectual equipment, vernacular epistemologies, etc.) that are constitutive of how the issue of “patient experience” can be articulated form its position within an ontology of production.
Findings
The aim not being the production of a finite result, what is needed is a shift in how “the construction of patient experience” is produced by expert discourses. While the inquiry is not primarily an empirical study and is also limited to “Western societies,” it emphasizes that there is a relation between political ontologies (including the issues of social justice) and the subjectivities that shape the experiences of people in contemporary health care systems, and, finally, that this relation is troubled by the effects of the digital divide(s).
Originality
A proposal “to interrogate and trouble” some innovative extensions and revisions – even though it will not be able to speculate about matters of degree – to contemporary theories of biomedicalization, patienthood, and managed care.
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Sarah Anne Eckert and Melodie Miller
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of using structured reflection via the critical incident analysis method to develop multicultural awareness and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of using structured reflection via the critical incident analysis method to develop multicultural awareness and intercultural empathy in undergraduate-level pre-service teachers. This research is important, given the striking demographic mismatch between students and teachers in US schools.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a convergent parallel mixed methods research design that combines both qualitative analysis of completed written critical incident analysis assignments and quantitative analysis of responses from a brief survey.
Findings
In most cases, engaging with the critical incident analysis method did lead participants reexamine their own experiences and develop a better understanding of their own biases and actions. While students followed different pathways with the assignment, participants were able to better understand the crucial role that teachers play in creating a space that values and welcomes diversity for the benefit of all students.
Originality/value
This study diverges from future research on the critical incident analysis method by asking students to examine specific moments from their past in the process of deep, targeted self-reflection.
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Abstract
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Donna-Marie Palakiko, Chantelle Eseta Matagi, J. Kealohilani Antonio, Morgan Aiwohi Torris-Hedlund, Sarah Momilani Marshall and Emily Makahi
To share the narratives of six Indigenous Researchers representing the diverse thinking of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The narratives describe the impact Decolonizing…
Abstract
Purpose
To share the narratives of six Indigenous Researchers representing the diverse thinking of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The narratives describe the impact Decolonizing Methodologies have on our lives within the framework of Tuhiwai Smith’s Indigenous Research Agenda.
Design/methodology/approach
Linda Tuhwai Smith’s Indigenous Research Agenda framework is used to explore through narrative, the impact Decolonizing Methodologies had on the authors’ professional awakening as Indigenous Researchers. Each author reflects on their first encounter with Decolonizing Methodologies and describes through their narratives how the book influenced and guided their research and community work.
Findings
Positionality as a Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander is imperative to being an Indigenous Scholar. Understanding who one is requires critical reflection and is a part of developing an Indigenous Research Agenda. The challenges each Indigenous scholar’s narrative explores is navigating a Western system while staying true to our values and identity as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. At the core is our ability to work in partnership with the community to bring forth sustainable change.
Originality/value
This paper explores the impact Decolonizing Methodologies had on the authors thinking and research approaches. The narratives the authors share is from the positionality of being Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.
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Heather Tunender, Lisa Tatum, Ellen Purcell, Peter Murray and Margaret Tapper