The use of vignettes in an international comparative social work research

The aim of this article is to reflect on the strengths and challenges in qualitative comparative research on personal social services. The specific methodological approach that these reflections emerge from is the application of case vignettes in focus group interviews with social workers, working in different welfare regimes. We describe the process of vignette construction and implementation in focus group interviews, and relate this to findings in a large international project with researchers and data from Chile, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Ireland and the UK. Findings reveal that some globally spread professional norms prevail when they are applied locally, while others are more formed through welfare systems with strong contextual norms and legal and socio-economic barriers. Furthermore, the project showed that to use case vignettes and focus groups, in order to compare ‘social work’ in its totality between countries, is really difficult. It appears more fruitful to use such research methods to compare subsectors and sub-disciplines instead of social work as a whole. The strength of the data retrieved from the study is that it makes it possible to separate information on actual practice from information on principles and system norms, thus providing in-practice and on-practice reflections

Private and public families

English Social workers around the world work with families and family complexities in their everyday practice. In this cross-national study, we explore social workers’ family intervention practices related to family definitions and functions, and how social workers balance children’s and parents’ rights and social policies in the proper context. Data derives from focus group interviews with child welfare workers from Norway, Lithuania, Chile and England based on discussions of a common fictitious complex family case (vignette). The four countries chosen for this comparative study are examples of four different welfare systems/regimes. The findings related to this broad area of caring topics are related to how the dimensions of a ‘private’ and a ‘public’ family manifest in social work in the four countries. Social workers in Chile and Lithuania refer to the idea of the private family, while their Norwegian counterparts lean more to the public family. English social workers combine public and private family conceptions in their focus groups, reflecting a system that is partly de-familialized. Spanish Familias públicas y privadas. La visión de los trabajadores sociales sobre la posición de hijos y padres en Chile, Inglaterra, Lituania y Noruega. Los trabajadores sociales en todo el mundo lidian con familias y sus complejidades en su práctica cotidiana. En este estudio de comparación internacional exploramos las prácticas de intervención en familias de trabajadores sociales en relación con sus definiciones y funciones, así como los modos en que los trabajadores sociales equilibran los derechos de padres e hijos y las políticas sociales en el contexto apropiado. Los datos provienen de entrevistas grupales con trabajadores sociales de servicios de bienestar infantil en Noruega, Lituania, Chile e Inglaterra, basadas en la discusión acerca de un caso común ficticio de familia compleja (viñeta).  Los cuatro países seleccionados para este estudio comparativo ejemplifican cuatro regímenes o sistemas de bienestar. Los resultados relativos a esta amplia área del tema del cuidado tienen que ver con cómo las dimensiones de “familia privada” y “familia pública” se manifiestan en el trabajo social de estos cuatro países. Los trabajadores sociales de Chile y Lituania hacen referencia a la idea de la familia privada, mientras sus colegas noruegos se inclinan más hacia la familia pública. Los trabajadores sociales ingleses apuntan hacia una combinación de las concepciones de familia pública y privada en sus grupos focales, reflejando un sistema que es parcialmente de-familiarizado

Welfare regimes and social workers' conceptions of social problems and professional roles

This article compares social work in countries representing four different welfare regimes: Chile, the Republic of Ireland (refer to elsewhere as ‘Ireland’), Lithuania and Sweden. The aim is to examine how social workers in different contexts refer to families’ complex needs, how contextual factors influence social workers’ positions and actions, and how they make sense of their work. Social workers in 15 focus groups, 4 per country except for Chile with 3, were interviewed about their conceptions of ‘family’, ‘families with complex needs’, and reasoning about interventions in relation to a fictitious complex case vignette. The understanding of complex needs appears relatively individualized in Chile and Lithuania, while contextual factors were more pronounced in the Irish and Swedish material. Chile, exemplifying a familialized family policy regime, reflects a poverty-compensatory social worker role that also supports familial reproduction; Ireland, a partly de-familialized regime, reflects a supportive and risk-reactive role; Lithuania, a re-familialized regime reflects a patriarchal risk-reducing role and Sweden, a de-familialized policy regime, reflects a rights-oriented and technocratic role. Welfare regimes shape different social work practice contexts. However, to some extent, social workers around the world share a common work ethos in how they, for the best interest of the people they work with, deal with the cross-pressure from social problems and political-ideological priorities

Экономическое и административно-территориальное районирование: исторический опыт БССР 20-х годов

Материалы междунар. научно-практической конференции 15-16 ноября 2001 года

The close-down of NCB in Köpmanholmen : a study of the consequenses for household economy

This study deals with the consequences for household economy in connection with unemployment. Various mechanisms that influence the relationship between unemployment and the reception of supplementary benefits are described and analyzed. The labour market, the social insurance system and the adjustment strategies of families are fields of particular interest to this study. The economic systems of support that have developed are dominated by the unemployment insurance. Those, whose unemployment benefits have ceased or who for some other reason are not covered by the insurance, have to resort to supplementary benefits. The differences in level between working, receiving unemployment benefits or supplementary benefits can be described in terms of a scale of income. The aspect of the scale varies strongly between different types of families. The empirical point of reference for this dissertation is the close-down of a pulp industry (Ncb in Köpmanholmen 130 km south of Umeå in the north of Sweden). The development of those made redundant has been studied with regard to reception of supplementary benefits, income and adjustment strategies. Data about income and supplementary benefits were collected from registers at the local tax charge office and the local administration of social services. 83 out of 444 households were interviewed about adjustment strategies. The close-down in question proved to be exceptional in many aspects. The expected "social catastrophe" never occured due to the economic upswing, raised unemployment benefits and ambitious labour market policy efforts, among other things. Only a very small minority of those made redundant have received supplementary benefits after the close-down. This has been the case although many of those made redundant have been removed from the open labour market with a subsequent lowering of their income level. Amongst those made redundant many different patterns of adjustment havè been observed. It appears that those who lack work after a couple of years after the close-down are often characterized by passivity, whereas those who have been employed are often characterized by activity. Finally the variation in patterns of adjustment can be seen as a social policy problem. Judging from the results a combination of the institutional and marginal social policy strategies would be desirable. Reform schemes can be suggested that are based on a wish to supplement the preventive and institutional social policy with selective features where the adjustment strategies of families should provide an important resource potential.digitalisering@um