ThoughtCo. This discursive position effectively disallowed a subject position of another sort: solidarity with her client. In social work research, this ap- (1992). Discourse refers to how we think and communicate about people, things, the social organization of society, and the relationships among and between all three. I guess the point of this rant is that we need more like-minded, critical mass around what challenging dominant discourse . Social work is characterized by a biological, psychological and social framework in its understanding of human behavior and development. Following her immigration, she lived only for a short time with her mother, from whom she had been separated for most of her childhood. Take, for example, the relationship between mainstream media (an institution) and the anti-immigrant discourse that pervades U.S. society. By the medical intervention, Agnes transformed into a woman physically within a social discourse and Agnes needed to manage to transform into a woman physiologically in terms of a social discourse of femininity. These were oppositional discourses. While reflective practice held promise for liberating professions from misconceptions about the interrelationship between theory and practice, following Schons (1987) introduction of reflective practice, theorists began to identify the problem of incorporating critical analysis into reflective practice ((Brookfield, 1996; Fook, 1999; Mezirow, 1998). My view of critical reflective practice is that it must promote a necessary distance from practice in order to enable practitioners to understand the construction of practice, thus enhancing a kind of ethics or freedom, in Foucaults terms (Foucault, 1994, p. 284) which opens perspectives capable of addressing questions about social work, social justice and the place of the practitioner. London: Sage. As a woman of colour from the Caribbean, Maxine shared experiences with other immigrant women of colour in Canada; shared a cultural heritage, and an insiders knowledge of the difficulties of negotiating these spaces. Haraway, D. (1988). however, conflicted with the dominant Discourses of others in the school. Many times our investigations pointed to opposing discourses - discourses that counteract each other. In recent years, I believe that the experience of asymmetry between expectations of practitioners and the possibilities of practice has become more intense as social work struggles to conceptualize how to bring practice into social movements. Flax, J. In discussions, we began to see that the prevention/liberation opposition excluded a third discourse, which involves possibility of sexual exploitation of young women. In class, we worked to identify the existence of two, opposing discourses: one was the prevention and risk education approach of the school and the other was Ronnis libratory approach to girls and sexuality. Perhaps you are a teacher, youth group facilitator, student affairs personnel or manage a team that works with an . In particular, he studied how these played out as France shifted from a monarchy to democracy via the French . Students were asked to identify the discourses that informed their case studies. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575-599. (2001). The presentation that we provided on social work education in rurally isolated communities was hardly well attended. Dominant discourse is a way of speaking or behaving on any given topic it is the language and actions that appear most prevalently within a given society. This vantage point enabled students to move from the need to find answers and techniques to the radical acceptance of practice as the unending responsibility for ethical relationships which are always/already jeopardized by larger social relations. Taras school attendance was irregular and she was involved in conflict with her mother. With the achievement of this necessary distance Ronni was able to formulate new possibilities for practice. This desire is subjected to the strange twists and turns of which take place inside the institutions of practice. Contested territory: Sexualities and social work. I suggest that we gain new vantage points from which to reconstruct practice theory in ways that are more consciously oriented to our social justice commitments. We decry racism and declare our allegiance to anti-oppressive practice while working in primarily white agencies. When we fail, we describe the result as burnout. Maxine was routinely assigned cases involving immigrant people of colour because she herself is an immigrant woman of colour. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Pregnant with possibility: Reducing ethical trespasses in social work practice with young single mothers. Major theorists such as Michel Foucault and Stuart Hall . Taking the case of racially charged events in Ferguson, MO, and Baltimore, MD that played out from 2014 through 2015, we can also see Foucaults articulation of the discursive concept at play. Foucault believed that discourse is created by those in power for specific reasons and is often used as a form of social control. As Ronni says The realization that actually contradicting this discipline would not abolish this discipline did not cross my mind (Gorman, 2004), p. 16). Indeed, many . When people wish to make social change, how we talk about people and their place in society cannot be left out of the process. Helping people learn what they do: Breaking dependence on experts. Understanding these Discourses allows you to develop the power and status you need to be successful, as well as making the bond stronger between you and that secondary Discourse. 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. When I read the case studies, I was taken aback to find that students chose to write about stories of pain and distress in their practice contexts. This is how discourse analysis can displace the individualism of the heroic activist in favour of a more nuanced, complex and sophisticated analysis. With the increasing prevalence of neo-conservative and managerial discourses, it is argued that a dominant focus on individualism diminishes the understanding of how the social context can impact on people's lives (Houston, 2016) and moves away from collectivist values . A discourse is a system of words, actions, rules, and beliefs that share common values. Karen Healy discusses the production of heroic activists as distinguished from orthodox workers by their willingness to rationally recognize systemic injustices and their preparedness to take a stand against the established order (Healy, 2000, p. 135). 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. Discourses facilitate the process by which certain information comes to be accepted as unquestionable truth. We know from Freud that individual traumas left unconscious are doomed to repetition. Neatly avoiding how workers are constructed, we ascribe burnout to hearing painful stories of others, to stress, doing more with less, dysfunctional organizations and other explanations that implicate individuals. When they enter the world of practice, they are thrown into sites constructed by contradictions and ambivalences where their subjectivities as practitioners embody these contradictions, yet they still expect to enact their ideals. The case involved Ms. M, a single mother of two teenage daughters. They can be found in many forms of media and communication. In taking up that alignment, she positioned herself as Taras protector her shield against school personnel with their regressive focus on prevention of acknowledgment of sexuality. A Sociological Definition. One of the advantages of identifying discourses-in-use in practice is that we gain access to how we are positioned within discourses. This paper concerns the relation between critical reflective practice and social workers lived experience of the complicated and contradictory world of practice. In narrative therapy, there is an emphasis on the stories that you develop and carry with you through your life. Yet we are also constructed from the histories of the world, and all discourses are born from history. Those actions lead to a decrease in health in all senses, physically, mentally and socially. ), Working with Experience. This assignment will discuss the case study given whilst firstly looking at the issues of power as well as the risk discourse and how this can be dominant within social work practice. We frequently found that dependencies within competing discourses were obscured by oppositions. These alternative viewpoints are important because discourses are structured through power relations so that the identification of what is outside prevailing stories may give us a better picture of how power operates. Discourse transmits and produces power; it undermines and . We began to think about the history of forced separation and forced disruption of families beginning with the importation of African slaves to the Caribbean. We remove children from disadvantaged families by targeting mothering skills. She has taught and researched at institutions including the University of California-Santa Barbara, Pomona College, and University of York. Maxinestamp358@hotmail.com. Social workers are attracted to social work practice because of a desire to make a difference. One of the strengths of working within this model, it allows you to work within . In Critical Social Justice, dominance is the yang to oppression's yin. 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 gain a necessary distance from the complexity of their ambivalently constructed place. 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. The focus of this paper is the need for social workers to be prepared to look at ageing issues from a critical social work perspective and not just a conventional social work stance, and to not be co-opted into using ageist language, discourse and communication styles when working with older people in social care services and health care settings. Adult Education Quarterly, 48 (3), 185-198. Understanding our constructed place in social work depends on identifying how language creates templates of shared understandings. Understanding our perspectives as contingent enables us to understand our own complicated construction within a field of multiple stories giving rise to multiple perspectives. Ronnis anti-oppressive analysis focused on the disciplinary intent of social works history of excluding the existence of youth sexuality. In such a way, Ronni undoes the opposition between risk and liberation, and also revises her relationship to school personnel from that of shielding youth like Tara from harm, to calling on them to reconstruct the discourses through which girls sexuality is understood, and viewing them as potential resources in protecting Tara. Three types of ideology relating to social work are explored, and it is proposed that such case examples (among others) have, and continue to, maintain a significant influence within state social work. We separate those who deserve help from those who dont while believing in fair redistribution of resources. The We needed instead, a process of understanding the construction of pain, apology and failure in social work practice - a process that allowed them to be the heroes they were by virtue of their willingness to think, self-reflect, and ultimately, be brave enough to uphold the primacy of question over answer while rejecting paralysis. In N. Miller (Ed. 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? ), Feminists Theorize the Political (pp. Most social workers take up the profession because of personal ideals. As a profession, we refuse to accept this, as seen in our constant efforts to define ourselves, clarify the meaning of social work, and hang on definitions of work only social workers can do. Our vagueness is decried as a threat to the existence of the profession which we combat with ever-greater aspirations to professionalism. Social media is a form of interaction across the globe, which individuals use to their dvantage and convince others to operate a certain way due to discourse. 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