Global and critical perspectives in Norwegian Social Work Education

Although it can be seen as somewhat of a new social work agenda, there is increasing literature addressing the implications of a globalised era for local social work education, research and practice. This includes moving beyond the traditional multicultural approach, increasing the amount of critical and global perspectives in the social work curriculum, and in turn increasing social work students' awareness to treat people as whole persons. To what extent this has been done in different social work education programmes varies across institutions. Therefore, this study investigated the current educational situation at three different Norwegian universities by conducting a document analysis on the social work curricula, benchmarked against national and global standards for social work education and training. The findings facilitated some recommendations for national guidelines on social work education, in terms of implementing global and critical perspectives. Furthermore, a focus group interview with social work educators was conducted to investigate possible challenges of implementing global and critical perspectives in education. The challenges addressed in this study are related to neoliberal educational policies and practices creating specialised courses, time constraints and lack of a central thread. Furthermore, the lack of relevant literature and the individual-oriented tradition influencing several levels are addressed. These findings also facilitated recommendations for Norwegian social work education, related to institutional openness to collaboration and information-flow, new publications, and closer collaboration with the field placements. Key words: Critical perspectives, global perspectives, social work education, social work curriculum, educational standards, critical theory, Scandinavian social work, Norwegian Welfare state

‘In the dark’: Voices of parents in marginalised stepfamilies: perceptions and experiences of their parenting support needs

The fastest growing family type in the UK is the stepfamily with social parenting an increasingly normal practice. Parenting policy and practice, which has increased exponentially over the last two decades, has historically been modelled on the biological nuclear family model with marginalised families the main recipients. The possibility that parents in marginalised stepfamilies might have separate and discrete parenting support needs to biological parents seems to be overlooked in policy, practice and research. Rather, the historical legacy of deficit, dysfunction and a ‘whiff’ of poor parenting in marginalised stepfamilies lingers on. The focus of the research was to determine marginalised parents’ perceptions and experiences of parenting in their stepfamily and their parenting support needs. Thematic analysis of the data revealed accounts that were interwoven throughout with strong moral undertones which seemed to categorise their lives. The parenting issues were different and more complex than those they had encountered before. The parents adopted biological family identities, but these didn’t fit with their social roles and often rendered them powerless in their relationships with stepchildren. This appeared to have a cumulative effect which impacted on the already fragile couple relationship. Despite the parents easy articulation of the parenting issues there was a contrasting unease and ambivalence in discussing parenting support needs. Parenting support seemed to be an irrelevance that could be disregarded. Ultimately the moral significance of the parents marginalised class positions appeared to be central to their lives, which has important implications for policy and practice

Contributions to a sociology of the internet: a case study of the use of the internet in the republic of Croatia in the 1990s

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Within the humanities and social sciences there are a variety of approaches for the study of the Internet. Through the use of a case study of the operation of the Internet in The Republic of Croatia during the 1990s, this thesis contributes to a position that regards sociological or 'culturalist' concerns as significant as 'formalist' concerns. The thesis is divided into three sections; the first section examines the socio-political construction of the Internet in contemporary academic and journalistic discourse. Attention is paid to the following: the broad theoretical understandings of the relationship of technology and society, the way in which the Internet is thought to be different from older forms of mass media, the assumed political potency of the Internet and how such conceptions are understood in terms of their integration into broader political perspectives. The second section deals with the use of the Internet in the Republic of Croatia during the 1990s. Attention is paid to the history of the Internet in Croatia and its political use is examined. The degree to which the Internet functioned as an effective counter to the dominant hegemonic discourse is found to be negligible when compared to old media that were operating in 'such a fashion. The explanation offered shows how the Internet and other forms of computer-mediated communication offers forms of communication that may not be best suited for the debates that were occurring in Croatia at that time. The third section explores how media forms are strongly linked to social forms. The Internet is conceptualised as a media form that is dependent upon a number of requirements for its full political potential to be made evident. It is concluded that attention should be placed upon both the interrelatedness of society, media technology and form of action studied, and the ways in which such concepts are socially constructed

Generational differences and cultural change

Young people are arguably facing complex life situations in their transition into adulthood and navigating their life trajectories in a highly individualised way. For youth in post-compulsory education, their training years have been extended, their years of dependency have increased and they have greater individual choice compared to previous youth generations. This study develops an understanding of the process of individualisation applied to youth in late modernity and explores it in relation to the neo-liberal climate. It compares the life situation of this youth generation with youth in the early 1960s, brought up with more predefined traditional conditions, cemented in traditional social structures. The processes that led to generational changes in the experiences of youth in the last forty-five years are examined, linked to structural transformations that influence subjective experiences. Specifically, the shifts of the conditions of youth in post-compulsory education are studied in relations to socio-economic, technological and cultural changes. This study discusses the Western Anglo-American model of changes in youths life experiences and examines how it (mis)fits in a more conservative Catholic Mediterranean setting. The research investigates conditions in Malta, an ex-colonial small island Mediterranean state, whose peculiarities include its delayed economic development compared to the Western setting. The core of the research comprises of primary data collection using in-depth, ethnographical interviews, with two generations of youth in different socio-historical context; those who experienced their youth in the early 1960s and youth in the late 2000s. This study concludes that the concept of individualisation does indeed illuminate the experiences of youth in late modernity especially when compared to the experiences of youth forty-five years ago. However the concept of individualisation is applied in a glocalised manner in line with the peculiarities of Malta that has lagged behind mainstream developments in Western Europe and still retained traditional features. Building on the individualisation concept, I use an empirically grounded concept of compromised choices to describe the increase in the bargaining of choice happening at different fronts in the life experiences of youth, especially in the life biography of women, choices in education and the job market and choices in consumption

'Is This Student Voice?' Students and Teachers Re-negotiate Power through Governance Partnerships in the Classroom

A change in status for students to position them influentially as educational decision-makers with teachers is identified as a key dimension of student voice research and pedagogy. Despite over 30 years of student voice research and pedagogical practice, this change in student status remains problematic. Accountability agendas associated with neo-liberalism intermingle with student voice ideals contributing to contradictory purposes for, and in some cases diminutive instantiations of, student voice research and practice. This tension often renders student influence illusory, fleeting or difficult to sustain. Greater theorising of the power dynamics at work in enacting ongoing student influence in pedagogical and curriculum design, that also takes account of expectations and demands on teachers’ practice, is called for. This research contributes to this challenge. Three teachers and their Year Seven and Eight students within one intermediate school collaborated across a three-cycle action research project to identify and utilise student perceptions of effective teaching and engagement as a basis for co-constructing responsive and reciprocal pedagogy as governance partners. The teachers met regularly to plan and reflect on aspects of enacting the teacher/student governance partnerships in their classes, collaborating to ensure that aspects of teacher voice were addressed in the process of enacting student voice. A student research group of 12 students drawn from the three participating classes provided ongoing reflection and insight into classroom power dynamics as the research unfolded. Teacher/student ‘governance partnerships’ were enacted as a way to maximise student influence within classroom-based pedagogy and curriculum decision-making. A power analytic framework was developed to theorise the relationships between voice and power by mashing Lukes’ three-dimensional theory of faced power with Foucault’s micro-physics of power and theories of discourse and discourse analysis. Three findings emerged from this research. Firstly the research established that the vantage point from which student voice practice was experienced influenced how that practice was perceived. Teachers were more certain that their co-constructive action research work with students represented student voice in action because the students demonstrated behaviour teachers identified with student voice. Participatory strategies enacted within the action research meant that student talk and reflection about their learning and themselves as learners increased. Teachers gained valuable insight into their students as learners as well as the efficacy of their teaching from this student talk. As teachers came to increasingly trust their students’ contributions, students’ thinking came to influence teachers’ thinking and the student voice curriculum in the three classrooms. Students from their vantage point were more ambivalent in their evaluation of these same actions. Although they appreciated having a say in deciding aspects of the classroom programme, they identified pedagogical decision-making as a clear responsibility for teachers who they perceived were professionally trained for this responsibility. Secondly, the power analytic frame developed for the research illuminated visible and less visible aspects of how power dynamics influenced teachers’ and students’ action as governance partners. Persistent tensions between co-construction and accountability agendas meant that teachers and students were constrained in their student voice action by school expectations and macro accountability demands. However they were able to negotiate ways to address these constraints, largely in ways that accommodated rather than challenged them. Thirdly the shift in power dynamics between teachers and students in the research classrooms generated spaces conducive to the emergence of a student discourse on student voice. Students identified the importance of knowing and being known as learners by their peers, rather than being motivated to establish influential relationships with teachers. This student-student collaboration theme pushes back against adult-centric student voice discourses focused on increasing the influence of students in conventionally teacher-dominated decision-making domains. Implications from this research suggest that although building student influence in classrooms as a means to elevate their status as governance partners with teachers is necessary, student voice practice and research needs to look beyond the classroom to bring taken-for-granted elements of school culture expectations, and how these constrain classroom possibilities for action, into the student voice agenda. Teachers and researchers need also to consider how their conceptions of student voice are imposed within the context of compulsory classwork on students. The power analytic frame developed for this research may assist students, teachers, policy makers and researchers to keep the problematic nature of student voice in schools to the forefront as they plan, implement and critically reflect on classroom and school student voice initiatives to scaffold student influence within the educative process

Russian study abroad sojourners voice trajectories

This doctoral project investigates the study abroad (SA) experiences of six Russian academic sojourners in the UK through consideration of identity, voice and ideologies. The main goal of the project is to explore the phenomena of developing voice trajectories through the lens of ideologies within migrant settings, while negotiating identities, simultaneously experiencing and using two (or more) languages and cultures, and dealing with social inequalities. This study contributes to the existing body of work on SA, which has been criticised for its imbalance and inconsistency (Benson et al., 2013; Badwan, 2015). The practical relevance of the project is determined by the growing number of Russian-born residents in the UK and increasing popularity of SA amongst Russian people. The study therefore addresses a) the previously undocumented experiences of Russian academic sojourners, b) the lack of research on Russian migrants’ voice development and identity construction in relation to their sociolinguistic activity and (language) ideologies, and c) the methodological limitations of existing studies. The project’s research data comes from seven rounds of individual and pair interviews conducted on a regular basis. While eulogising the principle of holistic enquiry, the analysis is centred around the concept of voice. Through approaching this phenomenon from a number of different theoretical perspectives (Bakhtin, 1963; Holliday, 1999; Hymes, 1996; Blommaert, 2010; Couldry, 2010; Bamberg and Georgakopoulou, 2007), this study enables insights into the complex interplay of factors contributing to sojourners’ ideological becoming in the context of sociocultural heterogeneity, linguistic superdiversity and cross-time-and-space mobility

Framing the financially literate subject : an analysis of financial literacy discourse in New Zealand : a dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Palmerston North, Manawatū, New Zealand

The purpose of this study is to analyse the discursive framing of the financially literate subject and their needs within New Zealand. The first part of the study identifies and traces key themes within the framing of the financially literate subject, using documents derived from OECD publications and NZ governmental institutions. Working with the critical conjunction of rhetorical analysis and critical discourse analysis informed in part by the work of Foucault, the role of financial literacy in contemporary New Zealand society is addressed through analysis of a case study based on a public debate in New Zealand about the ethics of investment in munitions by providers of the government-supported pension plan, KiwiSaver. The first part of the thesis puts KiwiSaver in a broader policy context by examining documents from the OECD that were influential in setting the framework, rationale and approach for the New Zealand government’s initiatives to restructure pension plans and encourage a change in the population’s savings habits and citizens’ grasp of financial principles. As it happened, the introduction of KiwiSaver in 2007 coincided with the onset of the global financial crisis, which saw a shift in the framing of the validation of the financially literate subject from a saving imperative to a need to manage individual risks and protect the market. These capabilities of managing risk and protecting the market, depicted as inherent to financially literate populations, manifest through the expectation that all those who participate in the market would preserve it through informal regulation based on informed consumer choice. The second part of the thesis presents a case study of public reaction to the media exposé of a financial scandal that broke in August 2016 when it was discovered that KiwiSaver funds were being invested in companies manufacturing illegal munitions. Through analysis of selected newspaper articles and Twitter commentary, the thesis emphasises the complexity of the relationship between the expectations of financial literacy on the part of the government, OECD and financial sector, versus the realities of the financial marketplace. In tension with the emphasis on individual responsibility within official and institutional discourses of financial literacy, the exchanges via Twitter reveal the desire for, and partial practice of, a more civic-focused, collective way of interacting via the financial markets. The case study serves to illustrate the apparatuses of power operating in the field of financial literacy. Analysing the discursive production of the financially literate subject and the imperative rhetoric surrounding financial literacy will provide a fuller understanding of the construction and conceptualisation of the financially literate subject, the social power relations inherent in the drive towards improved financial literacy, and the strategic goals being pursued. Ultimately, the thesis will contribute to our understanding of financial literacy as an ideological framework

Religious Transformation in the Middle East

This Special Issue draws attention to religious transformations currently emerging in the Middle East that diverge from the dominating rhetoric surrounding ‘radicalization’, ‘political Islam’, or the ‘Islamic awakening’. Particularly after the Arab uprisings, other currents seem to be coming more to the fore that need careful examination, such as the contemporary realities of religious ambivalence, religious doubts, disengagement from religious movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the search for alternative forms of spirituality or individualized piety, de-veiling, and different forms of non-conformism, free thinking, non-belief, and atheism. Accordingly, the contributions to this Special Issue provide highly relevant insights into several contemporary debates that are crucial in the social sciences and religious studies. This includes processes of individualization; the study of everyday lived (non-)religion; the anthropology of doubt, ambivalence, and ambiguity; and, last but not least, the deconstruction of the religious–secular divide, a divide that is seen as almost impenetrable according to many actors in the Middle East. This Special Issue consists of a cross-section of current works in social science, religious studies, and related fields on Islam/religion and non-religion in the Middle East. The articles present case studies from different countries in the Middle East, with examples from Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, and Syria, as well as studies on diaspora and social media