In order to achieve a critical social work practice a practice capable of grasping towards an ethics of practice - we needed to raise questions about the construction of experience in the classs case studies. . In this kind of opposition, chances for dialogue about complicated issues, chances for Ronni to promote change through communication of her perspective, and to use the experience of the school personnel for her own learning and growth were limited. It focuses specifically on participant . We can raise questions about practices that may be outside such reproduction. 1 Discourse is, thus, a way of organising knowledge that . Finally the strengths perspective will be . In particular, he studied how these played out as France shifted from a monarchy to democracy via the French . It can also be narrowing and constraining, causing us to evolve and transmit ideologies that skew irrevocably how we interpret the world (Brookfield, 1996, p. 36). These discourses are effects of power, usually when an opposing discourse is mobilized to resist another. New York: Columbia University Press. (1992). Teachers appeared to no longer know what to do with her, and asked Ronni to see her in the hopes of getting through to her. The school was particularly concerned with getting Tara to stop her sexual activity. Institutions organize knowledge-producing communities and shape the production of discourse and knowledge, all of which is framed and prodded along by ideology. Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. For example, Ronni mobilizes a libratory discourses as a way of resisting prevention discourses. . Concepts like looting and rioting have been used in mainstream media coverage of the uprising that followed the police killings of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. Ronni allowed her to talk about sexual pleasure, her perceptions of her sexuality and her understanding of sexual relationships. First, we could see how the diagnosis of attachment failure, born as it was in a history of forced separation, continues to reproduce forced separation of Black families in different guises. Critical case study: My experience with Tara .Unpublished manuscript, Toronto. This contradiction is internalized by Maxine in the form of her belief that she has failed Ms. M and that her monumental efforts did not make a difference in this case. second revised edition ed.). I am arguing that social work, because of its focus on marginalized people, is a concentrated site of social, political and cultural ambivalence and contradiction. Ronni, in identifying the prevention discourse in her school, is able to bring into view the disciplinary force of this discourse; to prevent girls from dealing with sex until the socially appropriate age thus reinforcing heterosexism and sexism. These reactions may have political worth, but they have the effect of occluding the inevitable messiness of our constructed place, thus leaving the field open for individual self-doubt and apology. But from her constructed perspective as a child protection worker, where attachment discourses dominated the field of explanations, there was little possibility to act in solidarity with Ms. M. Indeed, she was profoundly aware of Ms. Ms anger at Maxines position within Canadian authority, where such authority could not acknowledge the realities that she and Maxine shared. Maxines client, for example, comes to Canada seeking greater opportunity: opportunity that originated over two hundred years ago when my ancestors on the coast of Rhode Island traded with the Caribbean for goods produced by slave labour thus giving birth to the very American capitalism that created the need for Maxines and Ms. Ms migration in search of opportunity. Once these dependencies were uncovered, alternatives to opposition emerged. Ronni sees such a health-based approach as capable of including protection from disease, harm, or sexual exploitation by its emphasis on openness, dialogue, and choice. . Geography. Foucault adopted the term 'discourse' to denote a historically contingent social system that produces knowledge and meaning. Maxine made extraordinary efforts to help Ms. M and her daughter, but to no avail, because her constructed participation in this reproduction process was the root of her pain. . For some time now, I have been interested in the role of critical reflection in social work practice (Rossiter, 1996, 2001). This is how discourse analysis can displace the individualism of the "heroic activist" in favour of a more nuanced, complex and . The power of discourse lies in its ability to provide legitimacy for certain kinds of knowledge while undermining others; and, in its ability to create subject positions, and, to turn people into objects that that can be controlled. Taylor, C., & White, S. (2000). If ideology is a worldview, discourse is how we organize and express that worldview in thought and language. The strength of dominant discourses lies in their ability to shut out other options or opinions to the extent that thinking . 3, p. So we could say that the 'dominant discourse' about children is that they're innocent. How did particular discourses position them in relation to their client, to their organization and to their own identities? 1 The community discourse is consistent with the social work value base in emphasising social justice, community empowerment and the rights of marginalised groups (Ife, 2008). We can also assess how discourses position us in relation to other professionals and to clients. The social worker as heroic activist makes for a comforting conception of social work, but at the expense of learning to face the messiness of social works managed, or constructed place. A conflict occurred between Ronnis perspective and that of school personnel when Tara disclosed her pregnancy to Ronni. The second case study (Gorman, 2004) takes place during a practicum in a school setting. Gee's definition of Discourse is a theory that explains how language works in society. Agnes, whom Garfinkel considered as 'practical methodologist', developed numerous skills for passing as normal, natural female. Biomedicine is a dominant and pervasive model in health care settings and there are strengths and limitations in working within the this discourse. Perhaps an alternative way to understand burnout is to see it as deep disappointment that results when we are unable to enact the values we hold and have been encouraged to hold, and when that disappointment is interpolated as our fault or the agencys fault, at the expense of understanding the social construction of the failure. . Relatively little published research explores issues pertaining to menstruation in school education. Practising reflectivity in health and welfare: Making knowledge . Haraway, D. (1988). Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575-599. Social workers were critiqued as being a part of the problem by choosing to emphasize casework as a model of practice, an approach . The case involved a single mother originally from the Caribbean. Such an analysis might allow us to ask the kind of questions that are the heart of social work ethics: How, for example, could we think differently about child welfare practices with black families if our work were guided first and foremost by a desire to find forms of practice that take into account centuries of trauma from racial injustice? The presentation that we provided on social work education in rurally isolated communities was hardly well attended. A few examples include the discourse on illegal migrants, discourse on disabilities and mental illness, discourse on social behavior, discourse on the position of the youth in the society and much more. Social work is embedded is in history and is situated in a present which affords no settled practice, no technical fixes, no uncontested views of itself. ), Feminists Theorize the Political (pp. Taken together, these words are part of a discourse that reflects a nationalist ideology (borders, citizens) that frames the U.S. as under attack by a foreign (immigrants)criminal threat (illegal, illegals). Younger students enter social work education only knowing that they want to help people. Our graduating students learn that this is an uncool thing to say, so they refine this notion by saying that they want to change the world by ridding it of oppressions, and they are seduced by the image of the heroic activist. It is a topic worthy of scrutiny (p. 199). The end of innocence. In social work, critical practice is crucial because social work is a nexus where social contradictions are manifest. Understanding our constructed place in social work depends on identifying how language creates templates of shared understandings. 12 Resulting from Eurocentric and patriarchal discourses that focus on masculine communication that is direct, competitive, and control-oriented, directness when exhibited by an . Dr. Nicki Lisa Cole is a sociologist. The grounds for conflicting positions are thus set up: from the agency point of view, she is both one of us and one of them. Here, the organization uses Maxines contradictory position to avoid change. New York: Routledge. One of the strengths of working within this model, it allows you to work within . Were asked to help but not make people dependent. In this case, the dominant discourse on immigration that comes out of institutions like law enforcement and the legal system is given legitimacy and superiority by their roots in the state. (French social theorist Michel Foucaultwrote prolifically about institutions, power, and discourse. Discourse typically emerges out of social institutionslike media and politics (among others), and by virtue of giving structure and order to language and thought, it structures and orders our lives, relationships with others, and society. For example, Tonkiss considered different explanations of juvenile crime constructed within discourses The only problematic area for all the social workers was their difficulty in naming the skills and knowledge used in their practice. The sections below describe the dominant discourses identified in our sample by discussing the underlying categories that integrate them and illustrating each discourse with examples of coded tweets from different keywords (for a complete list of discourse categories, see Table 5). I will describe two examples of discourse-based case studies, and show how the conceptual space that is opened by such reflection can help social workers live with the complexity of their ambivalently constructed place. In J. Butler & J. Scott (Eds. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Corporation. In other words, they take different ontological stances.Extreme constructivists argue that all human knowledge and experience is socially constructed, and that there is no reality beyond discourse (Potter 1997).Critical realists, on the other hand, argue that there is a physical . For example: A dominant discourse of gender often positions women as gentle and men as active heroes. Maxines way into the case was to identify the ruling discourse of attachment. Such questioning opens up as social workers attempt to account for their own social construction within the cultural construct of social work. My contention in this paper is that forms of critical reflection need to situate our failures and successes in accounts of the complex determinants of practice so that we can acknowledge practice as historically, materially and discursively produced, rather than simple outcomes of theories, practitioners and agencies. While she understands that such an approach is constructed a fiction it is a construction she chooses to empower because it is grounded in her social justice aspirations. Indeed, more how tos could only add to their apology stance. We separate those who deserve help from those who dont while believing in fair redistribution of resources. When we fail, we describe the result as burnout. Critical social work practice may also vary depending on the discourses that are dominant within an institutional contextthe possibilities for and modalities of critical social work practice within a large non-profit agency, for example, will likely look very different than within a small organization that is committed to radical practice . Brookfield, S. (1996). Peer specialists with incarceration histories constructed new identities through their training and peer work by valuing experiential knowledge. Lets take a closer look at the relationships between institutions and discourse. This is noted as an area for development. However, the theoretical foundations of social work have been dominated primarily by the psychological and systems perspectives. Discourse is a coherently-arranged, serious and systematic treatment of a topic in spoken or written language. At no time did Ronni focus on getting her to stop.. Cole, Nicki Lisa, Ph.D. "Introduction to Discourse in Sociology." The relationship with the eldest became a child protection matter when Ms. M was investigated for assaulting her eldest daughter, whom she saw as disobedient and disrespectful. We acknowledge a knowledge-based economy while making tuition unaffordable. Such a process enabled them to stand back from the scope of their practice in order to understand its construction within a particular discursive space. Thus, Maxine is positioned to assess and discipline Ms. M. She cannot find room for the very insider knowledge she is supposed to have. Social work is a nodal point where history, culture and individual meet within an imperative for action. This is how discourse analysis can displace the individualism of the heroic activist in favour of a more nuanced, complex and sophisticated analysis. We began to think about the ways slavery is replicated in different incarnations following the end of slavery. In our class, discourse analysis helped illuminate the production of feelings of individual shame and apology as responses to practice. Mainstream media typically adopt the dominant state-sanctioned discourse and showcases it by giving airtime and print space to authority figures from those institutions. As such, discourse, power, and knowledge are intimately connected, and work together to create hierarchies. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 7(2), 23-41. Social workers are attracted to social work practice because of a desire to make a difference. I understand these vantage points in the case studies I will describe as: 1) an historical consciousness, 2) access to understanding what is left out of discourses in use, 3) understanding of how actors are positioned in discourse, all leading to: 4) a new set of questions which expose the gap between the construction of practice possibilities and social justice values, thus allowing for a new understanding of the limitations, constraints and possibilities within the context of the practice problem. I would like to turn to two case studies which illustrate how discourse analysis was used by students. . Social workers are the bodies in the middle of this site and must act within the force field of contradictions. Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and historian interested in the construction of knowledge and power through discourse. I argue that understanding this process of production is a way of doing ethics which reduces, or at least acknowledges the unintended, often subliminal consequences of practice that flow from social ambivalence which constructs social workers and service recipients in the conduct of practice. These wordsreflect and reproduce very particular values, ideas, and beliefs about immigrants and U.S. citizensideas about rights, resources, and belonging. In other words, from a poststructural point of view, discourses are the sets of language practices that shape our thoughts, actions and even our identities," as quoted from Karen Healy, 2014, p. 3. Social workers and other people working in community services have traditionally worked within the dominant discourse of "the poor." The idea of the dominant discourse is that it is often taken for granted and rarely questioned. Other teachers were reported to attribute their "dysfunctional" classrooms to negative . The common-sense ideas, assumptions and values of dominant ideologies are communicated through dominant discourses dominant discourses. In Critical Social Justice, dominance is the yang to oppression's yin. Here, I want to gather strands of the previous discussion. In turn, such assessments act against the internalization of the contradictions played out in social work practice. Discourse is understood as a way of perceiving, framing, and viewing the world. Discourse refers to how we think and communicate about people, things, the social organization of society, and the relationships among and between all three. Van Dijk, 1995:353; Jahedi, Abdullah &Mukundan, 2014:29). I had to admit that I saw both discourse from my subject position as a mother, and had to rather sheepishly admit that I wouldnt have wanted my thirteen year old daughter to be having sex at that age. Ronni believed that such discourses silenced and disciplined not only young women such as Tara, but all young womens diverse and fluid experiences of sexuality. Ronnis practice with Tara was situated within her values about the need for libratory discourses of sexuality for girls. Maxine considered how she was positioned both by discourses of professionalism and by the attachment discourses used to explain Ms. M. As a professional with statutory power, Maxine was given Caribbean family cases due to her insider status. We looked at how these conflicting discourses positioned Ronni, Tara and school personnel. How did some discursive positions conflict with their own self-knowledge? What Is Political Socialization? New Discourses Commentary. These behaviors and patterns of speech and writing reflect the ideologies of those who have the most power in the society. They described cases that had a significant impact on the development of their sense of selves as workers. Discourse analysis accesses questions that help make social contradictions and ambivalence visible and it opens conceptual space regarding ones position within competing or dominant discourses. Helping people learn what they do: Breaking dependence on experts. A 13-yr old girl, Tara, was referred to Ronni Gorman for counseling. We worked to identify oppositions between competing discourses. Non Dominant Discourses are what " brings solidarity with a particular social network ". People with mental illnesses are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and discourses concerning the medical model, criminalization, and criminality dominate the intervention . Ms. M had immigrated to Canada when she was an adolescent. Scott, J. Foucault was interested in power and social change. Gadamer, H.-G. (1992). On reflection, she sees that the opposition excludes aspects which both discursive positions require the inclusion of protection. 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