Maria Bouverne‐de Bie
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3780389 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Maria Bouverne‐de Bie |
| NOMBRES | Maria |
| APELLIDO | Bouverne‐de Bie |
| FIRMA | DE BIE M B |
| AFILIACIONES | Ghent University |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 27 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 163 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 27 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1990 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2016 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
A singer is a group’
In this article, we seek to merge an insider with an outsider perspective on participatory arts projects, by engaging with the ethnographic turn in arts and promoting the idea of a ‘researcher template’ (Goodley 1999) as a way of enabling reflexivity in practice-led inquiries. Situated at the intersection between artistic, educational and academic work, this template allows us to address and reflect upon the complexities and vicissitudes emerging…
We Make the Road by Walking
In this article, we discuss a research project focusing on the ways in which children in poverty spend and experience their leisure time. We argue that the dominant conceptualisation of leisure time participation reduces poverty to a lack of social and cultural capital, marginalising poor children as passive objects of socialisation. Inspired by the interpretative paradigm of lifeworld orientation, three insights are identified throughout poor ch…
Poverty and Decision Making in Child Welfare and Protection
The influence of socio-economic background factors, such as poverty, on the risk of children to be disproportionately represented and placed in residential care has increasingly been the subject of international research. This article reports on the findings of a research project that focused on the relationship between poverty and child welfare and protection (CWP) interventions in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Using logistic re…
Between Institutional Inclusion and Invisibility? The Case of Flemish Homelessness Care
Over recent decades, vagrancy has been deinstitutionalised and a welfare approach has been developed in which the problem definition of “vagrancy”, perceived as a criminal problem, has shifted into a problem of “homelessness”, defined as a poverty problem. In this article, we discuss the findings of a case study in Ghent, Belgium, in which the implications of this welfare approach to homelessness in social work practices are examined. The researc…
From Vagrancy to Homelessness
For centuries, the debate about homelessness concentrated on the ways in which the issue of vagrancy could be dealt with as a criminal problem. In recent decades, this perspective faded out and alternative approaches to dealing with vagrancy were argued for and implemented. In this article, we discuss the emerging reconceptualisation of a repressive approach into a welfare approach to the issue of vagrancy—which is called homelessness later on—as…
Voluntariness as legitimation for social work interventions
Based on research into homelessness care, in this article we discuss the dominant interpretation of voluntariness as an individual characteristic. It will be demonstrated that this conceptualization runs the risk of becoming a tool to select those clients for whom short-term reachable goals can be set, and that clients are obliged to accept the conditions which are set by social work initiatives. We argue for an understanding of voluntariness as …
Professionals' understanding of partnership with parents in the context of family support programmes
Partnership has become a dominant concept in current thinking about the parent–professional relationship within a variety of interventions aimed at child welfare, including family support practice. However, despite the burgeoning policy and research attention, the meaning of partnership in practice remains unclear. Based on interviews with professionals in a family support intervention in F landers (the D utch‐speaking part of B elgium), this pap…
Researching child poverty
Childhood research with children in poverty involves a diversity of dilemmas and complexities. In the context of a recent research project in Belgium, the authors attempt to embrace child poverty as a normative issue created a crisis of representation. In order to untangle this, they situate different methodological approaches in relation to the constructed epistemological windows on child poverty. The authors differentiate between research in wh…
Parent-worker relationships in child welfare social work
The involvement of parents within child and family social work has become an important research topic during the past few decades. Within this research, a lot of attention is paid to partnership, which is recognised as a dominant concept in current thinking about the parent–worker relationship in present-day practice. The debate on parent–worker relationships, however, seems to be mainly focussed on the individual relationship between the parent …
On the frontline or on the side-line? Homelessness care and care avoiders
Homelessness is a social problem which is subject to many definitional issues and problems. These problems can be discerned on both the conceptual and the practical level (Hopper, 1997). Based on research carried out in Ghent, Belgium, this article deals with ways in which social workers involved in homelessness care construe the problem of ‘care avoiders’, who seem to be perceived as a separate category within the homeless population. We show th…
Between ‘believers’ and ‘opponents’
Practices in the field of children’s rights presuppose an agreement on what children’s rights are. Consequently, the implementation of more children’s rights is logically better for children. But is this really the case? In this paper, we try to answer this question critically. The problem with this question however is that from the outset, it becomes overshadowed by a highly polarised discussion between what Stammers (2009) calls ‘uncritical pro…
Acknowledging ambivalence in a multicultural neighbourhood
In this article, we focus on narrative practices in adult education in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), and reflect on a current project in a multicultural neighbourhood that is socially and economically marked by poverty and where turbulence and conflict are rife amongst local inhabitants. While adult education aims to energize the process of learning to live together in this urban context by making sense of individual narratives o…
Urban public space and the construction of social life
This paper addresses the question of what meaning urban public space has in relation to the process of children’s socialisation. It builds on data from qualitative research into the social-pedagogical meaning of three contrasting neighbourhoods in the city of Ghent. In this research, the neighbourhood was studied as a social and spatial context in which particular socialising practices are constantly constructed and reconstructed through the ever…
Irony and Social Work
The logic of managerialism is seen as a rationale for the limited scope for discretion of social workers and also complicates the recognition of the inherently ambiguous nature of social work. In this article, various strategies in dealing with managerialism and ambiguity are identified: social work can either attempt to escape from ambiguity or embrace (the discussion on) ambiguity as an opportunity. It is stated that, although social work can r…
Victim-offender mediation and social work
The role of social work in the restorative justice field remains largely unexplored. This article reports on the findings of focus groups conducted with mediators of juvenile and adult mediation practices in Flanders (Belgium) to gain more insight into how mediators perceive their professional role and to what extent they refer to individual and structural dimensions of social work practice. Implications for future social work involvement and res…
Data Recording and Social Work
Social workers operate in an increasingly informational context (Parton, 2008, 2009). In this context, registration and data recording are becoming an important condition for the funding of social work organisations (Jones, 2001). In this article, we argue that the debate on data recording and social work mainly focuses on the question of whether data recording is a threat to or an opportunity for the relational aspects of social work practice. B…
Social exclusion and youth work – from the surface to the depths of an educational practice
The current dominant discourse on social exclusion and youth work depicts inclusion in youth work as an instrument for inclusion in other more pivotal institutions of society. Recent studies have shown, however, that the participation of socially vulnerable young people does not necessarily yield the anticipated inclusions. Suggestions are subsequently been put forward to bring more structure into youth work initiatives. In this article, we asser…
The Emerging Social Pedagogical Paradigm in UK Child and Youth Care
This article is prompted by the finding that social pedagogy—although not a familiar concept in the UK—is now being taken up with greater interest ( Petrie et al., 2006; Lorenz, 2008), especially in the field of early childhood education and residential child and youth care. Social pedagogy is believed to be able to promote shared values and skills across different fields in education and care that were, until recently, sharply distinguished from…
Children’s rights education and social work
Despite the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the interest in developing a theoretical grounding for children’s rights education seems to be rather limited. This article argues for a better understanding of children’s rights education as a distinctive practice in social work. Two different conceptions of children’s rights education are identified: as an implementation strategy and as social action. Their releva…
Social work and parent support in reaction to children's antisocial behaviour
This article focuses on STOP4‐7, an ecological early intervention programme for children with serious behavioural problems in Belgium, which includes social skills training for children, management training for parents and classroom management training for teachers. We argue how this type of social work benefits from empirical research on its effects on children and parents. Yet social work research that addresses these questions needs to extend …
Social Work and the Shift from 'Welfare' to 'Justice
It has become increasingly clear that the emancipatory capacity of social work has been eroded. Several scholars link this to the influence of neo-liberal and ‘Third Way’ thinking. However, it has recently been argued that social work was not only a victim of these new influences, but that it is also very adaptable to the influence of such new ideas (Jordan, 2004) and not very critical about its own role in these changes (Lorenz, 2005). In this a…
Victim—offender mediation as a social work practice
English Based on the Flemish practice of victim–offender mediation for adult offenders, this article shows how mediation can be a social work practice that goes beyond being an instrument for the responsibilization of offenders, but instead recognizes social workers as policymakers. French Basé sur la pratique flamande de la médiation entre les victimes et les auteurs adultes de délits, cet article montre comment la médiation peut être une pratiq…
Children's Presence in the Neighbourhood
In this article we discuss some theoretical and methodological perspectives for studying children's neighbourhoods as a social‐pedagogical context. This social‐pedagogical perspective includes a focus in research on a reflective approach based on the acquisition of empirical indicators about the impact of the neighbourhood on children's socialisation. A research outline based on the idea of mapping children's neighbourhoods within their social an…
Do Children Have Rights or Do Their Rights Have to be Realised? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Frame of Reference for Pedagogical Action
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is presented and understood as the primary reference point regarding questions of children’s rights. However, the UNCRC is not a neutral instrument deployed to meet the rights of children: it embodies a specific perception of the child, childhood and citizenship. The interpretation of the UNCRC from the point of view of children’s legal status emphasises the autonomy of children; th…
Recognizing Urban Public Space as a Co-Educator
This article discusses how urban public space impacts upon children's socialization. There are two points of view on the relationship between children and the urban neighbourhood, whether one considers the position of children in urban public space or the position of this environment in children's socialization. One can define the relationship in terms of the need to protect children against the perils of the city; this results in a spatial segre…
Between ‘believers’ and ‘opponents’
Practices in the field of children’s rights presuppose an agreement on what children’s rights are. Consequently, the implementation of more children’s rights is logically better for children. But is this really the case? In this paper, we try to answer this question critically. The problem with this question however is that from the outset, it becomes overshadowed by a highly polarised discussion between what Stammers (2009) calls ‘uncritical pro…
Children's Agency and Educational Norms
Children as social actors' and 'children's participation' are key concepts in present-day discourse and form a significant paradigm shift for the educational sciences, inspired by sociology of childhood. Some critical comments can however be made on how these concepts are transcribed into practice. A historical perspective, connecting the micro and the macro level, investigates how the new paradigm may be linked to discursive fields related to ne…
Irony and Social Work
The logic of managerialism is seen as a rationale for the limited scope for discretion of social workers and also complicates the recognition of the inherently ambiguous nature of social work. In this article, various strategies in dealing with managerialism and ambiguity are identified: social work can either attempt to escape from ambiguity or embrace (the discussion on) ambiguity as an opportunity. It is stated that, although social work can r…
On the frontline or on the side-line? Homelessness care and care avoiders
Homelessness is a social problem which is subject to many definitional issues and problems. These problems can be discerned on both the conceptual and the practical level (Hopper, 1997). Based on research carried out in Ghent, Belgium, this article deals with ways in which social workers involved in homelessness care construe the problem of ‘care avoiders’, who seem to be perceived as a separate category within the homeless population. We show th…
Do Children Have Rights or Do Their Rights Have to be Realised? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Frame of Reference for Pedagogical Action
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is presented and understood as the primary reference point regarding questions of children’s rights. However, the UNCRC is not a neutral instrument deployed to meet the rights of children: it embodies a specific perception of the child, childhood and citizenship. The interpretation of the UNCRC from the point of view of children’s legal status emphasises the autonomy of children; th…
The Emerging Social Pedagogical Paradigm in UK Child and Youth Care
This article is prompted by the finding that social pedagogy—although not a familiar concept in the UK—is now being taken up with greater interest ( Petrie et al., 2006; Lorenz, 2008), especially in the field of early childhood education and residential child and youth care. Social pedagogy is believed to be able to promote shared values and skills across different fields in education and care that were, until recently, sharply distinguished from…
Poverty and Decision Making in Child Welfare and Protection
The influence of socio-economic background factors, such as poverty, on the risk of children to be disproportionately represented and placed in residential care has increasingly been the subject of international research. This article reports on the findings of a research project that focused on the relationship between poverty and child welfare and protection (CWP) interventions in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Using logistic re…
Data Recording and Social Work
Social workers operate in an increasingly informational context (Parton, 2008, 2009). In this context, registration and data recording are becoming an important condition for the funding of social work organisations (Jones, 2001). In this article, we argue that the debate on data recording and social work mainly focuses on the question of whether data recording is a threat to or an opportunity for the relational aspects of social work practice. B…
Recognizing Urban Public Space as a Co-Educator
This article discusses how urban public space impacts upon children's socialization. There are two points of view on the relationship between children and the urban neighbourhood, whether one considers the position of children in urban public space or the position of this environment in children's socialization. One can define the relationship in terms of the need to protect children against the perils of the city; this results in a spatial segre…
Professionals' understanding of partnership with parents in the context of family support programmes
Partnership has become a dominant concept in current thinking about the parent–professional relationship within a variety of interventions aimed at child welfare, including family support practice. However, despite the burgeoning policy and research attention, the meaning of partnership in practice remains unclear. Based on interviews with professionals in a family support intervention in F landers (the D utch‐speaking part of B elgium), this pap…
Researching child poverty
Childhood research with children in poverty involves a diversity of dilemmas and complexities. In the context of a recent research project in Belgium, the authors attempt to embrace child poverty as a normative issue created a crisis of representation. In order to untangle this, they situate different methodological approaches in relation to the constructed epistemological windows on child poverty. The authors differentiate between research in wh…
Social Work and the Shift from 'Welfare' to 'Justice
It has become increasingly clear that the emancipatory capacity of social work has been eroded. Several scholars link this to the influence of neo-liberal and ‘Third Way’ thinking. However, it has recently been argued that social work was not only a victim of these new influences, but that it is also very adaptable to the influence of such new ideas (Jordan, 2004) and not very critical about its own role in these changes (Lorenz, 2005). In this a…
From Vagrancy to Homelessness
For centuries, the debate about homelessness concentrated on the ways in which the issue of vagrancy could be dealt with as a criminal problem. In recent decades, this perspective faded out and alternative approaches to dealing with vagrancy were argued for and implemented. In this article, we discuss the emerging reconceptualisation of a repressive approach into a welfare approach to the issue of vagrancy—which is called homelessness later on—as…
Acknowledging ambivalence in a multicultural neighbourhood
In this article, we focus on narrative practices in adult education in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), and reflect on a current project in a multicultural neighbourhood that is socially and economically marked by poverty and where turbulence and conflict are rife amongst local inhabitants. While adult education aims to energize the process of learning to live together in this urban context by making sense of individual narratives o…
Victim—offender mediation as a social work practice
English Based on the Flemish practice of victim–offender mediation for adult offenders, this article shows how mediation can be a social work practice that goes beyond being an instrument for the responsibilization of offenders, but instead recognizes social workers as policymakers. French Basé sur la pratique flamande de la médiation entre les victimes et les auteurs adultes de délits, cet article montre comment la médiation peut être une pratiq…
A singer is a group’
In this article, we seek to merge an insider with an outsider perspective on participatory arts projects, by engaging with the ethnographic turn in arts and promoting the idea of a ‘researcher template’ (Goodley 1999) as a way of enabling reflexivity in practice-led inquiries. Situated at the intersection between artistic, educational and academic work, this template allows us to address and reflect upon the complexities and vicissitudes emerging…
Urban public space and the construction of social life
This paper addresses the question of what meaning urban public space has in relation to the process of children’s socialisation. It builds on data from qualitative research into the social-pedagogical meaning of three contrasting neighbourhoods in the city of Ghent. In this research, the neighbourhood was studied as a social and spatial context in which particular socialising practices are constantly constructed and reconstructed through the ever…
Social exclusion and youth work – from the surface to the depths of an educational practice
The current dominant discourse on social exclusion and youth work depicts inclusion in youth work as an instrument for inclusion in other more pivotal institutions of society. Recent studies have shown, however, that the participation of socially vulnerable young people does not necessarily yield the anticipated inclusions. Suggestions are subsequently been put forward to bring more structure into youth work initiatives. In this article, we asser…
Children’s rights education and social work
Despite the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the interest in developing a theoretical grounding for children’s rights education seems to be rather limited. This article argues for a better understanding of children’s rights education as a distinctive practice in social work. Two different conceptions of children’s rights education are identified: as an implementation strategy and as social action. Their releva…
Between Institutional Inclusion and Invisibility? The Case of Flemish Homelessness Care
Over recent decades, vagrancy has been deinstitutionalised and a welfare approach has been developed in which the problem definition of “vagrancy”, perceived as a criminal problem, has shifted into a problem of “homelessness”, defined as a poverty problem. In this article, we discuss the findings of a case study in Ghent, Belgium, in which the implications of this welfare approach to homelessness in social work practices are examined. The researc…
Voluntariness as legitimation for social work interventions
Based on research into homelessness care, in this article we discuss the dominant interpretation of voluntariness as an individual characteristic. It will be demonstrated that this conceptualization runs the risk of becoming a tool to select those clients for whom short-term reachable goals can be set, and that clients are obliged to accept the conditions which are set by social work initiatives. We argue for an understanding of voluntariness as …
Parent-worker relationships in child welfare social work
The involvement of parents within child and family social work has become an important research topic during the past few decades. Within this research, a lot of attention is paid to partnership, which is recognised as a dominant concept in current thinking about the parent–worker relationship in present-day practice. The debate on parent–worker relationships, however, seems to be mainly focussed on the individual relationship between the parent …
Social work and parent support in reaction to children's antisocial behaviour
This article focuses on STOP4‐7, an ecological early intervention programme for children with serious behavioural problems in Belgium, which includes social skills training for children, management training for parents and classroom management training for teachers. We argue how this type of social work benefits from empirical research on its effects on children and parents. Yet social work research that addresses these questions needs to extend …
Recurrent Variations on a “Youthful” Theme
Ever since the 19th century–when the Unitarian state came to be–Western countries have accepted the principle of (state) intervention in the interest of the child.1 1 Cf. G. Tillekens (Ed.), Het opgelegde leren. Hoofdstukken uit de geschiedenis van de school (Nijmegen, 1986). T. Peters and L. Walgrave, “Maatschappelijk‐historische duidingen bij het ontstaan van de Belgische jeugdbescherming”, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, XX (1978) 2,…
Recurrent Variations on a “Youthful” Theme
Ever since the 19th century–when the Unitarian state came to be–Western countries have accepted the principle of (state) intervention in the interest of the child.1 1 Cf. G. Tillekens (Ed.), Het opgelegde leren. Hoofdstukken uit de geschiedenis van de school (Nijmegen, 1986). T. Peters and L. Walgrave, “Maatschappelijk‐historische duidingen bij het ontstaan van de Belgische jeugdbescherming”, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, XX (1978) 2,…
Children's Agency and Educational Norms
Children as social actors' and 'children's participation' are key concepts in present-day discourse and form a significant paradigm shift for the educational sciences, inspired by sociology of childhood. Some critical comments can however be made on how these concepts are transcribed into practice. A historical perspective, connecting the micro and the macro level, investigates how the new paradigm may be linked to discursive fields related to ne…
Children's Presence in the Neighbourhood
In this article we discuss some theoretical and methodological perspectives for studying children's neighbourhoods as a social‐pedagogical context. This social‐pedagogical perspective includes a focus in research on a reflective approach based on the acquisition of empirical indicators about the impact of the neighbourhood on children's socialisation. A research outline based on the idea of mapping children's neighbourhoods within their social an…
Do Children Have Rights or Do Their Rights Have to be Realised? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Frame of Reference for Pedagogical Action
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is presented and understood as the primary reference point regarding questions of children’s rights. However, the UNCRC is not a neutral instrument deployed to meet the rights of children: it embodies a specific perception of the child, childhood and citizenship. The interpretation of the UNCRC from the point of view of children’s legal status emphasises the autonomy of children; th…
Recognizing Urban Public Space as a Co-Educator
This article discusses how urban public space impacts upon children's socialization. There are two points of view on the relationship between children and the urban neighbourhood, whether one considers the position of children in urban public space or the position of this environment in children's socialization. One can define the relationship in terms of the need to protect children against the perils of the city; this results in a spatial segre…
Social work and parent support in reaction to children's antisocial behaviour
This article focuses on STOP4‐7, an ecological early intervention programme for children with serious behavioural problems in Belgium, which includes social skills training for children, management training for parents and classroom management training for teachers. We argue how this type of social work benefits from empirical research on its effects on children and parents. Yet social work research that addresses these questions needs to extend …
Social Work and the Shift from 'Welfare' to 'Justice
It has become increasingly clear that the emancipatory capacity of social work has been eroded. Several scholars link this to the influence of neo-liberal and ‘Third Way’ thinking. However, it has recently been argued that social work was not only a victim of these new influences, but that it is also very adaptable to the influence of such new ideas (Jordan, 2004) and not very critical about its own role in these changes (Lorenz, 2005). In this a…
Victim—offender mediation as a social work practice
English Based on the Flemish practice of victim–offender mediation for adult offenders, this article shows how mediation can be a social work practice that goes beyond being an instrument for the responsibilization of offenders, but instead recognizes social workers as policymakers. French Basé sur la pratique flamande de la médiation entre les victimes et les auteurs adultes de délits, cet article montre comment la médiation peut être une pratiq…
Social exclusion and youth work – from the surface to the depths of an educational practice
The current dominant discourse on social exclusion and youth work depicts inclusion in youth work as an instrument for inclusion in other more pivotal institutions of society. Recent studies have shown, however, that the participation of socially vulnerable young people does not necessarily yield the anticipated inclusions. Suggestions are subsequently been put forward to bring more structure into youth work initiatives. In this article, we asser…
The Emerging Social Pedagogical Paradigm in UK Child and Youth Care
This article is prompted by the finding that social pedagogy—although not a familiar concept in the UK—is now being taken up with greater interest ( Petrie et al., 2006; Lorenz, 2008), especially in the field of early childhood education and residential child and youth care. Social pedagogy is believed to be able to promote shared values and skills across different fields in education and care that were, until recently, sharply distinguished from…
Children’s rights education and social work
Despite the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the interest in developing a theoretical grounding for children’s rights education seems to be rather limited. This article argues for a better understanding of children’s rights education as a distinctive practice in social work. Two different conceptions of children’s rights education are identified: as an implementation strategy and as social action. Their releva…
Data Recording and Social Work
Social workers operate in an increasingly informational context (Parton, 2008, 2009). In this context, registration and data recording are becoming an important condition for the funding of social work organisations (Jones, 2001). In this article, we argue that the debate on data recording and social work mainly focuses on the question of whether data recording is a threat to or an opportunity for the relational aspects of social work practice. B…
Parent-worker relationships in child welfare social work
The involvement of parents within child and family social work has become an important research topic during the past few decades. Within this research, a lot of attention is paid to partnership, which is recognised as a dominant concept in current thinking about the parent–worker relationship in present-day practice. The debate on parent–worker relationships, however, seems to be mainly focussed on the individual relationship between the parent …
On the frontline or on the side-line? Homelessness care and care avoiders
Homelessness is a social problem which is subject to many definitional issues and problems. These problems can be discerned on both the conceptual and the practical level (Hopper, 1997). Based on research carried out in Ghent, Belgium, this article deals with ways in which social workers involved in homelessness care construe the problem of ‘care avoiders’, who seem to be perceived as a separate category within the homeless population. We show th…
Between ‘believers’ and ‘opponents’
Practices in the field of children’s rights presuppose an agreement on what children’s rights are. Consequently, the implementation of more children’s rights is logically better for children. But is this really the case? In this paper, we try to answer this question critically. The problem with this question however is that from the outset, it becomes overshadowed by a highly polarised discussion between what Stammers (2009) calls ‘uncritical pro…
Acknowledging ambivalence in a multicultural neighbourhood
In this article, we focus on narrative practices in adult education in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), and reflect on a current project in a multicultural neighbourhood that is socially and economically marked by poverty and where turbulence and conflict are rife amongst local inhabitants. While adult education aims to energize the process of learning to live together in this urban context by making sense of individual narratives o…
Urban public space and the construction of social life
This paper addresses the question of what meaning urban public space has in relation to the process of children’s socialisation. It builds on data from qualitative research into the social-pedagogical meaning of three contrasting neighbourhoods in the city of Ghent. In this research, the neighbourhood was studied as a social and spatial context in which particular socialising practices are constantly constructed and reconstructed through the ever…
Irony and Social Work
The logic of managerialism is seen as a rationale for the limited scope for discretion of social workers and also complicates the recognition of the inherently ambiguous nature of social work. In this article, various strategies in dealing with managerialism and ambiguity are identified: social work can either attempt to escape from ambiguity or embrace (the discussion on) ambiguity as an opportunity. It is stated that, although social work can r…
Victim-offender mediation and social work
The role of social work in the restorative justice field remains largely unexplored. This article reports on the findings of focus groups conducted with mediators of juvenile and adult mediation practices in Flanders (Belgium) to gain more insight into how mediators perceive their professional role and to what extent they refer to individual and structural dimensions of social work practice. Implications for future social work involvement and res…
Professionals' understanding of partnership with parents in the context of family support programmes
Partnership has become a dominant concept in current thinking about the parent–professional relationship within a variety of interventions aimed at child welfare, including family support practice. However, despite the burgeoning policy and research attention, the meaning of partnership in practice remains unclear. Based on interviews with professionals in a family support intervention in F landers (the D utch‐speaking part of B elgium), this pap…
Researching child poverty
Childhood research with children in poverty involves a diversity of dilemmas and complexities. In the context of a recent research project in Belgium, the authors attempt to embrace child poverty as a normative issue created a crisis of representation. In order to untangle this, they situate different methodological approaches in relation to the constructed epistemological windows on child poverty. The authors differentiate between research in wh…
Between Institutional Inclusion and Invisibility? The Case of Flemish Homelessness Care
Over recent decades, vagrancy has been deinstitutionalised and a welfare approach has been developed in which the problem definition of “vagrancy”, perceived as a criminal problem, has shifted into a problem of “homelessness”, defined as a poverty problem. In this article, we discuss the findings of a case study in Ghent, Belgium, in which the implications of this welfare approach to homelessness in social work practices are examined. The researc…
From Vagrancy to Homelessness
For centuries, the debate about homelessness concentrated on the ways in which the issue of vagrancy could be dealt with as a criminal problem. In recent decades, this perspective faded out and alternative approaches to dealing with vagrancy were argued for and implemented. In this article, we discuss the emerging reconceptualisation of a repressive approach into a welfare approach to the issue of vagrancy—which is called homelessness later on—as…
Voluntariness as legitimation for social work interventions
Based on research into homelessness care, in this article we discuss the dominant interpretation of voluntariness as an individual characteristic. It will be demonstrated that this conceptualization runs the risk of becoming a tool to select those clients for whom short-term reachable goals can be set, and that clients are obliged to accept the conditions which are set by social work initiatives. We argue for an understanding of voluntariness as …
We Make the Road by Walking
In this article, we discuss a research project focusing on the ways in which children in poverty spend and experience their leisure time. We argue that the dominant conceptualisation of leisure time participation reduces poverty to a lack of social and cultural capital, marginalising poor children as passive objects of socialisation. Inspired by the interpretative paradigm of lifeworld orientation, three insights are identified throughout poor ch…
Sociology (26 obras) · Political science (21 obras) · Social Work Education and Practice (15 obras) · Law (13 obras) · Psychology (13 obras) · Social Work (13 obras) · Homelessness and Social Issues (12 obras) · Social science (12 obras) · Children's Rights and Participation (10 obras) · Law (9 obras)