Beyond Individualism: Social Work and Social Identity

Individualism continues to have a notable impact on social work. The personalisation of services and the individualisation of care are just two examples of this societal trend. While helping service users to articulate their aspirations for a better future, individualism, if taken too far, undermines the social aspects of life. In response to this concern, this paper argues that social work must appreciate the interplay between the individual and the collective spheres, and its impact on identity formation, in order to enhance human well-being. To give substance to this argument, Jenkins's model of social identity is appropriated and augmented to take account of four interlinked, yet distinct, orders of experience, namely the individual, interactional, institutional and societal orders. This reworked conceptualisation is then considered in terms of its implications for social work practice.

Emotional development among early school-age children: Gender differences in the role of problem behaviours

There has been an increasing focus on social and emotional development in educational programmes in early childhood as both variables are believed to influence behavioural outcomes in the classroom. However, relationships between social and emotional development and behaviour in early childhood have rarely been explored. This article sets out to investigate the conceptualisation of these variables and their inter-relationships. Structural equation models were used to assess if differences exist between boys and girls in relation to social and emotional competences, which could affect the relative success of such programmes. This article is based on cross-sectional data collected from 749 four- to six-year-olds and their teachers. The findings generally supported the hypothesised relationships between social and emotional development variables and prosocial behaviour (including internalising behaviour) for boys and girls. However, some gender differences were noted in externalising behaviour, which teachers often consider to be most significant due to its potentially disruptive nature in the classroom.

Young people exiting homelessness: An exploration of process, meaning and definition

In the past decade in particular, research attention has shifted from an almost exclusive focus on routes or pathways into homelessness towards the investigation of exits from homelessness. As well as demonstrating the multiple paths possible for young people who become homeless, recent research, and longitudinal studies in particular, has contributed to a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of the homeless pathways of young people. Nonetheless, knowledge and understanding of the nature of homeless exits, and of the mechanisms that facilitate the transition out of homelessness, is far from complete. This paper explores the processes surrounding the exit routes taken by young people out of homelessness and the meanings attached by them to these housing transitions based on selected findings from an ongoing qualitative longitudinal study of homeless youth in Dublin, Ireland. More broadly, the paper considers the utility of distinguishing between the types of routes that young people take out of homelessness, with particular attention to the notions of ‘independent’ and ‘dependent’ exits. The paper aims to further the discussion and debate on the conceptualisation of homeless exits and also discusses a number of policy implications arising from the study's findings.

Environmental and social supply chain management sustainability practices: construct development and measurement

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise and operationalise the concept of supply chain management sustainability practices. Based on a multi-stage procedure involving a literature review, expert Q-sort and pre-test process, pilot test and survey of 156 supply chain directors and managers in Ireland, we develop a multidimensional conceptualisation and measure of social and environmental supply chain management sustainability practices. The research findings show theoretically sound constructs based on four underlying sustainable supply chain management practices: monitoring, implementing systems, new product and process development and strategy redefinition. A two-factor model is then identified as the most reliable: comprising process-based and market-based practices.

Perspectives on social citizenship in the EU – from status positivus to status socialis activus via two forms of transnational solidarity

Ever since the inauguration of EU citizenship, elements of social citizenship have been on the agenda of European integration. European level social benefits were proposed early on, and demands for collective labour rights have followed suit. This chapter uses the theoretical umbrella of transnational social citizenship in order to link transnational access to social benefits and collective labour rights. It promotes transnational rights as the best way to conceptualise EU social citizenship as an institution enabling the enjoyment of EU integration without being forced to forego social rights at other levels. Such a perspective sits well in a collection on EU citizenship and federalism, since it simultaneously challenges demands of renationalisation of social rights in the EU and pleas to reduce EU-level citizenship rights to a merely liberal dimension. Social citizenship as promoted here requires an interactive conceptualisation of regulatory and judicial powers at different levels of government as typical for federal systems.
In linking citizenship with human rights the chapter highlights different statuses of citizens. It argues that the rights constituted by social citizenship derive from a status positivus and a status socialis activus, expanding the time-honoured categories of Jellinek. This concept is developed further by linking the notions of receptive solidarity to the status positivus and the notion of participative solidarity to the status socialis activus. In relation to European Union citizenship it promotes a sustainable transnational social citizenship catering for receptive and participative solidarity.
These ideas contrast with most current discourses on EU citizenship. The stress on social citizenship takes issue with a retreat to mere liberalist notions of EU-level citizenship, and the stress on rights takes issue with conceptualising EU citizenship as a community bond with obligations, downplaying the empowering potential of rights. The difficulty of conceptualising transnational social citizenship is to avoid, on the one hand, taking up the tune of populist discourses imagining those moving beyond state borders as a threat to national social citizenship and, on the other hand, to reject the legitimate fears of those remaining at home of creating rupture in the social fabric of Europe’s society. Promoting transnational social citizenship rights based on receptive and participative solidarity the present chapter aims to contribute to avoiding these pitfalls.

Preparing to prescribe: How do clerkship students learn in the midst of complexity?

Prescribing tasks, which involve pharmacological knowledge, clinical decision-making and practical skill, take place within unpredictable social environments and involve interactions within and between endlessly changing health care teams. Despite this, curriculum designers commonly assume them to be simple to learn and perform. This research used mixed methods to explore how undergraduate medical students learn to prescribe in the 'real world'. It was informed by cognitive psychology, sociocultural theory, and systems thinking. We found that learning to prescribe occurs as a dynamic series of socially negotiated interactions within and between individuals, communities and environments. As well as a thematic analysis, we developed a framework of three conceptual spaces in which learning opportunities for prescribing occur. This illustrates a complex systems view of prescribing education and defines three major system components: the "social space", where the environmental conditions influence or bring about a learning experience; the "process space", describing what happens during the learning experience; and the intra-personal "cognitive space", where the learner may develop aspects of prescribing expertise. This conceptualisation broadens the scope of inquiry of prescribing education research by highlighting the complex interplay between individual and social dimensions of learning. This perspective is also likely to be relevant to students' learning of other clinical competencies.

Understanding Graduate Recruitment, Development and Retention for the Enhancement of Talent Management: Sharpening “the edge” of Graduate Talent

Graduates are deemed to be a key source of talent within many organisations and thus recruiting, developing and retaining them is viewed as a logical talent management (TM) strategy. However, there has been little attention paid to university graduates as part of an organisation’s TM strategy. Such a specific focus addresses the need for further research into the segmentation of talent pools and the specific challenges different talent pools are likely to create. This research, which utilised a qualitative data collection strategy, examined the experiences and practices of six large UK organisations in relation to graduate TM. Drawing from Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries and González-Cruz’s (2013. What is the meaning of ‘talent’ in the world of work? Human Resource Management Review, 23, 290–300.) framework for the conceptualisation of talent, the findings from this research indicate and explain why graduate employers are frequently compelled to use the object approach (talent as characteristics of people) due to the unique characteristics that recent graduates possess, even though other studies have found that a subject approach (talent as people and what they do) is preferred by most employers. Ultimately, employers conceptualise graduate talent by what they describe as ‘the edge’ which needs to be ‘sharpened’ to fully realise the potential that graduates offer.

The Dublin Lock Hospital: Medicine, Morality, Disease and Sin

Anecdotal evidence has it that when Dublin’s venereal disease hospital closed its doors for the last time in the 1950s, its administrative staff began to burn its records, starting with the most recent. This attempt to conceal the results of sexual profligacy is perhaps understandable in the rarefied climate of mid-century Catholic Ireland. However, the sense of shame attached to this institution has been pervasive. For example, of all Dublin’s major hospitals, the lock hospital remains the only one without a dedicated history. And, throughout its two centuries of existence, the ‘lock’ had often been a site of controversy and approbation.

The institution began in the eighteenth century as the most peripatetic, poor relation of the city’s voluntary hospitals, wandering indiscriminately through a series of temporary premises before finally achieving a permanent home and official recognition as a military-sponsored medical hospital in 1792. It also gained architectural extensions by both Richard and Francis Johnston and in the following decades. This new-found status and a growing re-conceptualisation of venereal disease as a legitimate medical problem rather than a matter of morality was, however, somewhat compromised by the choice of site at Townsend Street. The institution occupied a hidden part of city, appropriating the vacated home of the Hospital for Incurables, another marginalised group whose presence in the city had been viewed through the lens of superstition and fear. For the rest of its existence, the lock hospital would share this experience occupying a nebulous position between medicine and morality; disease and sin.

Using what’s left of the hospital’s records and a series of original architectural drawings, this paper discusses the presence and role of the lock hospital in the city in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, tracking how changes in its administration and architectural form reflected wider attitudes towards disease, sexuality and gender in Georgian Dublin.

Understanding the help seeking behaviour of teenagers who experience relationship abuse (dating violence) from a feminist intersectional approach.

This presentation aims to raise issues related to teenage relationship abuse (TRA-dating violence) and help seeking behaviour from an intersectional approach. Even though teenage relationship abuse has been raised as an issue since the 80’s there is still an absence of an intersectional theoretical conceptualization of TRA. Existing conceptualizations are based on incorrect assumptions of sameness of teenagers experiences of TRA which ignore the unique developmental stages of teenagers as well as youth’s diverse lived experiences due to their sexual orientation, ethnicity, class, disability as well as other structural divisions. TRA exists in a social context of inequalities. For the individual survivor, this social context is created not only through romantic relationships, but also through relationships with families, peers, friends, classmates and others. Their experiences are constructed through these relationships which form part of the social context into which TRA needs to be analysed. The analytical framework of intersectionality can provide a framework of understanding how these lived experiences are enacted and negotiated contextually. Emphasis will be given to the help seeking behaviour of diverse youths. This presentation will explore the diverse lived experiences contextually. Methods and Findings: This presentation is based on a research project in Northern Ireland currently underway, thus, it will offer a preliminary conceptualisation of TRA from an intersectional approach. The findings will be contextualized taking into account the high rate of homophobia that exists in Northern Ireland amongst other things. Conclusion/Recommendation: Intersectionality needs to be the analytical framework through which teenagers’ relationship’s experience are analysed since the lived experiences of LGTB, BME and disabled youth cannot be analysed apart from the structural divisions, social location and the context they are experienced. This presentation argues that the intersectional approach of theorizing is congruent and contributes to anti-oppressive social work practice.

Appropriate complexity for the prediction of coastal and estuarine geomorphic behaviour at decadal to centennial scales

Coastal and estuarine landforms provide a physical template that not only accommodates diverse ecosystem functions and human activities, but also mediates flood and erosion risks that are expected to increase with climate change. In this paper, we explore some of the issues associated with the conceptualisation and modelling of coastal morphological change at time and space scales relevant to managers and policy makers. Firstly, we revisit the question of how to define the most appropriate scales at which to seek quantitative predictions of landform change within an age defined by human interference with natural sediment systems and by the prospect of significant changes in climate and ocean forcing. Secondly, we consider the theoretical bases and conceptual frameworks for determining which processes are most important at a given scale of interest and the related problem of how to translate this understanding into models that are computationally feasible, retain a sound physical basis and demonstrate useful predictive skill. In particular, we explore the limitations of a primary scale approach and the extent to which these can be resolved with reference to the concept of the coastal tract and application of systems theory. Thirdly, we consider the importance of different styles of landform change and the need to resolve not only incremental evolution of morphology but also changes in the qualitative dynamics of a system and/or its gross morphological configuration. The extreme complexity and spatially distributed nature of landform systems means that quantitative prediction of future changes must necessarily be approached through mechanistic modelling of some form or another. Geomorphology has increasingly embraced so-called ‘reduced complexity’ models as a means of moving from an essentially reductionist focus on the mechanics of sediment transport towards a more synthesist view of landform evolution. However, there is little consensus on exactly what constitutes a reduced complexity model and the term itself is both misleading and, arguably, unhelpful. Accordingly, we synthesise a set of requirements for what might be termed ‘appropriate complexity modelling’ of quantitative coastal morphological change at scales commensurate with contemporary management and policy-making requirements: 1) The system being studied must be bounded with reference to the time and space scales at which behaviours of interest emerge and/or scientific or management problems arise; 2) model complexity and comprehensiveness must be appropriate to the problem at hand; 3) modellers should seek a priori insights into what kind of behaviours are likely to be evident at the scale of interest and the extent to which the behavioural validity of a model may be constrained by its underlying assumptions and its comprehensiveness; 4) informed by qualitative insights into likely dynamic behaviour, models should then be formulated with a view to resolving critical state changes; and 5) meso-scale modelling of coastal morphological change should reflect critically on the role of modelling and its relation to the observable world.

Establishing the ‘Truth’ of the Matter: Confessional Reflexivity as Introspection and Avowal

The conceptualisation of reflexivity commonly found in social anthropology deploys the term as if it were both a ‘virtuous’ mechanism of self‐reflection and an ethical technique of truth telling, with reflexivity frequently deployed as an moral practice of introspection and avowal. Further, because reflexivity is used as a methodology for constructing the authority of ethnographic accounts, reflexivity in anthropology has come to closely resemble Foucault’s descriptions of confession. By discussing Lynch’s (2000) critical analysis of reflexivity as an ‘academic virtue’, I consider his argument through the lens of my own concept of ‘confessional reflexivity’. While supporting Lynch’s diagnosis of the ‘problem of reflexivity’, I attempt to critique his ethnomethodological cure as essentialist, I conclude that a way forward might be found by blending Foucault’s (1976, 1993) theory of confession with Bourdieu’s (1992) theory of ‘epistemic reflexivity’.

Quando as crianças contam histórias: estudo para o desenvolvimento de uma aplicação multimédia interativa de suporte ao conto de histórias por crianças do 1º CEB

Concetualmente ancorado em referenciais teóricos que demonstram o papel fundamental da narrativa e a ubiquidade dos produtos dos esquemas narrativos nos vários domínios da vida humana, bem como a importância do desenvolvimento de competências narrativas adequadas enquanto processo determinante no sentido da construção da literacia, este trabalho procurou compreender os processos de estruturação e a estrutura de histórias contadas por crianças do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (CEB), numa abordagem morfológica suportada pela teoria e modelo de Vladimir Propp, no sentido da concetualização e prototipagem de uma aplicação multimédia de suporte ao conto de histórias. Os estudos empíricos conduzidos, de natureza comparativo-exploratória, permitiram que as crianças assumissem o papel de contadoras de histórias e informantes, fornecendo-nos o corpus e conteúdo para análises morfológicas e de conteúdo, sobretudo qualitativas e com objetivos fundamentalmente descritivos. Os resultados do estudo suportaram o delineamento de linhas orientadoras para o desenvolvimento do modelo concetual e requisitos funcionais de uma aplicação multimédia de suporte ao conto de histórias, de natureza educativa, que veio a designar-se por Curucucu©, Conto eu ou contas tu?. O processo de prototipagem da aplicação multimédia implementou uma abordagem iterativa e centrada no aluno para efeitos de concetualização, desenho, implementação e testes da ferramenta e tendo como preocupação central o desenvolvimento de interfaces adequadas, quer às crianças, quer aos objetivos e contextos de utilização, integrando crianças e professores do 1.º CEB, bem como outros informantes (na qualidade de peritos) em fases específicas do processo. Para além das limitações encontradas no estudo, avançam-se propostas de investigação futura.

Dealing with uncertainty: challenges and possibilities for the early childhood profession

In many countries, strategies to further develop services and institutions for the education and care of young children are linked to a discourse on professionalism. Ambitious policy goals, it is argued, can only be achieved by a skilled and qualified workforce whose practice is guided by a professional body of knowledge. This article argues that the prevailing conceptualisation of the early childhood professional is constructed out of a particular, hierarchical mode of producing and applying expert knowledge that is not necessarily appropriate to professional practice in the field of early childhood education. However, it is highly effective and contributes to forming a professional habitus that contradicts the relational core of early childhood practice. Drawing on the conceptual framework of hermeneutics, the article explores an alternative paradigm of a relational, systemic professionalism that embraces openness and uncertainty, and encourages co‐construction of professional knowledges and practices. Research, in this frame of thinking, is understood as a dialogic activity of asking critical questions and creating understandings across differences, rather than producing evidence to direct practice.

Éditorial: présentation de la revue Circula

La revue électronique Circula, lancée à l’automne 2015 aux Éditions de l’Université de Sherbrooke, souhaite contribuer à la recherche sur les idéologies linguistiques en offrant à la communauté scientifique un lieu d’échange et de diffusion. Émanant d’un groupe de recherche homonyme, Circula souhaite plus particulièrement accueillir des travaux consacrés à la conceptualisation, la construction et la circulation d’idéologies sur la langue, et ce, à partir de corpus tant contemporains qu’historiques.

Développement d’un cosmopolitisme: L’expérience des étudiants participant à un programme de mobilité de l’Université Laval

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la manière dont des étudiants de l’Université Laval, à Québec, engagés dans différents programmes de mobilité pendant leur formation, donnent un sens à leur expérience et, ainsi, permettent pour une majorité d’entre eux l’émergence d’un cosmopolitisme. J’explore ces expériences de mobilité en plaçant l’étudiant au centre de ma réflexion. Ceci m’amène à analyser le sens profond de leur récit, dans le contexte de l’éducation supérieure et des enjeux de l’éducation au XXIe siècle. Mon analyse débouche sur trois parcours types d’étudiants, qui peuvent servir de guide pour faire émerger une pratique cosmopolite. À la suite d’une enquête ethnologique, j’ai analysé les données découlant de plus de 80 entrevues menées auprès de 53 étudiants inscrits dans une quarantaine de programmes d’études des trois cycles universitaires et ayant participé à l’un des dix programmes de mobilité offerts par le Bureau international. Un groupe de discussion a permis de compléter ces données et de valider un premier examen des diverses politiques en internationalisation de la formation (UNESCO, BCEI, MELS, UL) qui m’ont aidée à comprendre et à problématiser les données de la mobilité étudiante. Mon analyse s’appuie sur deux champs théoriques : d’une part, elle interpelle la théorie de la structuration d’Anthony Giddens (1987) et s’intéresse aux motivations, aux positionnements et à la capacité réflexive qui débouchent sur les interprétations qui structurent les pratiques liées à ces séjours. D’autre part, elle s’ancre dans une conceptualisation du cosmopolitisme proposée par Ulf Hannerz (2010). J’ai ainsi adopté une approche contemporaine du phénomène dans le cadre des études supérieures et construit les trois parcours types basés sur une approche anthropologique de la réflexivité de l’acteur en situation, en tenant compte de la complexité des expériences et des cheminements vécus lors d’une pratique de mobilité. Cette étude s’inscrit dans une anthropologie du chez-soi, et explore ainsi de nouveaux sentiers de recherche à considérer pour mieux saisir la construction du cosmopolitisme contemporain.