Lieve Bradt
Biographic Data
| ID | 169140 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lieve Bradt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lieve |
| FAMILY NAME | Bradt |
| SIGNATURE | BRADT L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ghent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4882-7675 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 112 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 44 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Co-producing knowledge through critical encounters
This article extends the critical turn in participatory research with children by developing critical encounters as a lens to analyse how participation is constituted and constrained in practice. Drawing on two doctoral projects in Belgium, it examines moments of institutional friction, methodological tension, and positional negotiation. These encounters make visible the affective and material relations through which participation unfolds. In dia…
Limits to the participation paradigm? Unpacking the rhetoric of participation in Flemish cultural policy (1990–2024)
In recent decades, the relation between arts and their social impacts has gained prominence in cultural policy and research. In social cultural work, this debate intensified with the rise of participatory arts practices in the mid-1990s, particularly in multicultural, underprivileged urban neighbourhoods. These practices are often framed as tools to combat social and cultural exclusion. However, critical literature increasingly questions this par…
When inclusion excludes
Social mixing or desegregation is frequently presented as a means to reduce inequalities affecting minoritized and low-income communities not only in neighborhoods but also in schools. Building on the emerging literature on school gentrification, this study examines this master narrative by centering the experiences of minoritized working-class families in a gentrifying innercity school in Ghent, Belgium. Using interview data, we argue that socia…
What do we talk about when we talk about leisure? Conceptualising leisure through the lived experiences of vocational pupils
By adopting a unique approach that allowed participants to define leisure from their own perspective, this study employed semi-structured and photo-elicitation interviews to gain a deeper understanding of how young people from vocational education perceive and conceptualise leisure. The analysis revealed four crucial elements that are essential for experiencing leisure: (1) perceived freedom, where individuals have control over their time and act…
Exploring adolescent & youth worker perspectives in co-creating a smoking prevention intervention
Advancing scholarship on rural social work in China
A search of literature spanning 2000-2019 located 45 articles on rural social work in China in peer-reviewed international and Chinese journals, showing that this was an emerging area of research and scholarship. To explore the nature of, and enrich the knowledge base on, rural social work in China, this paper reports on an exploratory study that involved interviews with Chinese researchers (n = 11), who had published on the topic. Thematic analy…
Socioeconomic and sociocultural differences in adolescents’ leisure motivations
This study investigates the leisure motivations of secondary school pupils aged 14-18 in Flanders (Belgium) and examines their relationship with socioeconomic and sociocultural characteristics. Drawing on a diverse sample and employing regression analysis, the findings demonstrate that leisure motivations, assessed using an abridged version of the Leisure Motivation Scale (LMS), are significantly influenced by age, gender, migration background, e…
Carving a Professional Identity for Chinese Social Work Shaped by Universalisation, Indigenisation, and Culturalism
China provides an extremely interesting contemporary case study for the international social work research community, given its questioning of the pertinence of the international definition of social work and stance in relation to the debates surrounding universalisation, internationalisation and indigenisation. This article begins by examining the evolving identity of Chinese social work, grounded as it is in China’s political ideology and socio…
Urban living and the search for new societal metaphors
In recent years, the relation between participatory arts practices and urban living has been a topic of debate. In an increasingly plural urban society, the co-presence of different social and cultural groups has created an urgent need for new ways to relate the right to individual freedom and hence diversity, to the necessity of social coherence. In this search, participatory art has gained in relevance. By addressing missing artistic forms and …
Fearing youth, fostering democracy
Discussions on citizenship always reflect broader political debates on the desired moral fabrics of a society. Evolving from a merely national subject, questions on children and young people’s citizenship and citizenship education have over the past decades gained interest in European policy. Through a thematical-rhetorical analysis of European policy documents, this article engages in the European moral-political discussion on good citizenship a…
Quo Vadis, Homo Digitalis? Reflection on Well-being in Education and the Covid-19 Pandemic in Belgium, Croatia, Poland and Romania/Quo Vadis, Homo Digitalis? Razmišljanje o dobrobitima u obrazovanju i…
The last few decades brought about unprecedented rapid technological change. The COVID-19 pandemic sped it up and forced digitalized citizenship, digitalized teaching and learning, and permanent engagement through the virtual bond. Many processes were moved to the virtual world and those illiterate in digital tools might have felt excluded or left behind. Technological advancements have had many benefits revealed but they have also had multiple n…
Towards a paradigm shift? The potential of participatory arts practices in a context of post-crisis reconstruction
From a social pedagogical perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic has (re-)raised the question of what constitutes social bonds. In this article, we focus on participatory art, as a practice that in recent decades has been put forward as a (new) pedagogical project in dealing with complex societal issues, especially in urban areas. Drawing on the connection between participatory art and the urban public realm, our purpose is to explore the potential o…
The Potential of Community Sport for Social Inclusion
Potential of Community Sport for Social Inclusion
A critical review of Chinese and international social work
This article presents a critical analysis of the challenges global social work standards present for mainland China (hereafter China) with its authoritarian political ideology that is in tension with the profession’s universal values grounded in liberal individualism. China is caught between the Scylla of universal standards and Charybdis of indigenisation seeking to adapt social work to its unique sociocultural contexts. Based on our extensive l…
Urban cowboyism’ and beyond
No more colouring outside the lines? Exploring young people’s navigational agency in education
This article highlights the inequality in the Flemish education system, which disproportionately affects youngsters with low socioeconomic status. This inequality is attributed to the human capital approach characterising current educational policies, putting emphasis on educational outcomes. This results in education that homogenises and limits acceptable student behaviour and in which deviations from the norm are met with exclusionary and punit…
When Individual Differences Meet Society
Even though boredom has been shown to be a distinct emotional experience that is prevalent among youth and that predicts a wide range of personal and societal problems, it remains often overlooked and poorly understood. Therefore, based on the Flemish data from the 2018 edition of the International Survey of Children's Well-Being, this article studies boredom proneness among young adolescents (average age = 12 years). Confirmatory factor analysis…
Separating newcomers
This paper focusses on the organisational responses of secondary schools to newly arrived migrant students. In Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), as in many other European regions, newly arrived students are placed in segregated classes that aim to prepare them for integration in mainstream education. Deriving from, on the one hand, academic critiques on the principle of segregated classes and, on the other hand, the autonomy that sch…
Identificational Assimilation Patterns in Young First, Second, 2.5 and Third-generation Migrants
Classical assimilation theory states that migrants’ identification with a receiving country strengthens over generations, whilst identification with the home country weakens. A Flemish survey of first (G1), second (G2), 2.5 (G2.5) and third (G3) generation immigrant youths ( n = 1,587) reveals that the findings for adolescents with a background in the oldest 15 member states of the European Union (EU15) seem to align with classical assimilation t…
Policy attachment in the arts
Debates on arts’ social role have been prominent in cultural policy and research for the past decades. Claims for what the arts “do” to people and the ways in which they can bring about both individual and societal transformation are plentiful, not seldom in association with a wider debate about the rationales for public support of the arts. Consequently, the reflection on participation in the arts, and its implications for cultural policies, has…
From the social to the urban question
Within social work, participatory arts practices have increasingly been put forward as a (new) pedagogical project that creates opportunities to deal with the challenges and complexities of living together in a changing and increasingly plural urban society. The aim of this article is to explore how and why participatory art was assigned this pedagogical role. First, we situate the current debate on participatory art in relation to urban living i…
Electronic information systems as means for accountability
The public sector has been confronted with a mounting claim for accountability. While there are many ways to meet this demand, social work increasingly relies on electronic information systems (IS). Although it has been argued that IS assists services in demonstrating accountability, research sheds light on the pernicious effects of IS as well. For this reason, we interviewed 29 local managers to capture their perspective on the role of IS in cre…
We’d like to eat bread too, not grass’
In recent decades, practices have emerged that combine sport-based and social work strategies with the objective to tackle social problems through the use of sport as a tool. This article focuses on community sport as a particular practice due to its unique structural potential in combatting social inequality. However, it is still unknown how this potential translates into the daily approaches of community sport practitioners. In order to bridge …
Livable streets? Green gentrification and the displacement of longtime residents in Ghent, Belgium
While urban greening initiatives are becoming increasing prevalent, some critical scholars have started to question the neutrality of this movement. Specifically, scholars have demonstrated that urban greening can inflate housing costs and as such give rise to processes of gentrification and displacement. This article examines processes of green gentrification in a particular neighborhood of Ghent (Belgium) that has been profoundly greened during…
Livable streets? Green gentrification and the displacement of longtime residents in Ghent, Belgium
While urban greening initiatives are becoming increasing prevalent, some critical scholars have started to question the neutrality of this movement. Specifically, scholars have demonstrated that urban greening can inflate housing costs and as such give rise to processes of gentrification and displacement. This article examines processes of green gentrification in a particular neighborhood of Ghent (Belgium) that has been profoundly greened during…
Emergence of social work practice in rural China
Following massive socioeconomic reforms over the past three decades, social work in the People’s Republic of China (hereafter China) has developed at an unprecedented pace. To respond to social issues arising from accelerated economic development, the government has launched a large-scale programme to train a professional social work workforce of 1.45 million by 2020. Social work in mainland China has developed, and continues to develop, rapidly …
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…
Separating newcomers
This paper focusses on the organisational responses of secondary schools to newly arrived migrant students. In Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), as in many other European regions, newly arrived students are placed in segregated classes that aim to prepare them for integration in mainstream education. Deriving from, on the one hand, academic critiques on the principle of segregated classes and, on the other hand, the autonomy that sch…
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…
Policy attachment in the arts
Debates on arts’ social role have been prominent in cultural policy and research for the past decades. Claims for what the arts “do” to people and the ways in which they can bring about both individual and societal transformation are plentiful, not seldom in association with a wider debate about the rationales for public support of the arts. Consequently, the reflection on participation in the arts, and its implications for cultural policies, has…
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…
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…
What do we talk about when we talk about leisure? Conceptualising leisure through the lived experiences of vocational pupils
By adopting a unique approach that allowed participants to define leisure from their own perspective, this study employed semi-structured and photo-elicitation interviews to gain a deeper understanding of how young people from vocational education perceive and conceptualise leisure. The analysis revealed four crucial elements that are essential for experiencing leisure: (1) perceived freedom, where individuals have control over their time and act…
Giving young people a well-rounded education
Policymakers strongly stimulate young people’s participation in organised leisure activities because it is believed to provide young people with important ‘work’ skills and attitudes. Special attention is paid to the underrepresented working-class youth. To stimulate (especially working-class) parents to play an active ‘guiding’ role, policymakers often assume that they have to be made aware of the educational benefits of engagement in leisure ac…
Revisiting the notion of cohesion in community sport
Research has focused on the question if and how leisure can create social cohesion and can alleviate cultural segregation in divided community contexts. Community sport in particular is believed to create socio-cultural cohesiveness, as it aims at a sense of community, a task in which regular sports often seem to fail. However, the experiences of participants in relation to socio-cultural cohesiveness in community sport remain absent in the exist…
Creating Transparency through Electronic Information Systems
Over the past few decades, governments all over Europe have drawn upon a diversity of Electronic Information Systems (EISs). One of the aims of these EISs is the creation of a transparent Child Welfare and Protection (CWP) system. In that context, Gillingham and Graham (2016) argue that the implementation of EISs in social work has made the daily work of practitioners visible in ways that social workers in the 1970s and 1980s would have find unim…
Structural assimilation in young first-, second- and third-generation migrants in Flanders
Assimilation theory assumes that differences between migrants and non-migrants disappear over generations. We report on a Flemish survey study conducted with young first- (G1), second- (G2) and third- (G3) generation migrants (n = 1,587). The results showed that G1 and G2 had lower chances of being in educational tracks preparing for higher education than non-migrants. Further, G1 and G3 migrants with a background in the oldest fifteen members of…
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…
Identificational Assimilation Patterns in Young First, Second, 2.5 and Third-generation Migrants
Classical assimilation theory states that migrants’ identification with a receiving country strengthens over generations, whilst identification with the home country weakens. A Flemish survey of first (G1), second (G2), 2.5 (G2.5) and third (G3) generation immigrant youths ( n = 1,587) reveals that the findings for adolescents with a background in the oldest 15 member states of the European Union (EU15) seem to align with classical assimilation t…
From the social to the urban question
Within social work, participatory arts practices have increasingly been put forward as a (new) pedagogical project that creates opportunities to deal with the challenges and complexities of living together in a changing and increasingly plural urban society. The aim of this article is to explore how and why participatory art was assigned this pedagogical role. First, we situate the current debate on participatory art in relation to urban living i…
Service Users with Experience of Poverty as Institutional Entrepreneurs in Public Services in Belgium
In this article, we report on a qualitative and interpretative research project in which we gained in‐depth knowledge about dynamics in ten federal public policy units in Belgium where a service user with experience of poverty was employed. Starting from an institutional theory perspective, it was argued that these service users with experience of poverty can possibly feature as institutional entrepreneurs or agents of change who initiate a criti…
Governmental Rationales for Installing Electronic Information Systems
Various authors have argued that electronic information systems (EIS) do not necessarily improve the responsiveness of social work. One of the main reasons given for these failings is the flawed implementation of EIS by professionals. However, we argue that the ongoing debate fails to be explicit about governmental rationales for installing EIS. This article presents the findings of a content analysis that aimed to uncover the governmental ration…
If only they had a file on every pupil’
During the past years, combating truancy has been high on the political agenda. However, throughout Europe one can observe that despite the numerous action plans and anti-truancy measures, truancy rates continue to rise. In this article, we focus on Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) as a case study to get a better grip on the mismatch between the general truancy policy and the everyday reality of truancy. Based on the analysis of (1) …
Carving a Professional Identity for Chinese Social Work Shaped by Universalisation, Indigenisation, and Culturalism
China provides an extremely interesting contemporary case study for the international social work research community, given its questioning of the pertinence of the international definition of social work and stance in relation to the debates surrounding universalisation, internationalisation and indigenisation. This article begins by examining the evolving identity of Chinese social work, grounded as it is in China’s political ideology and socio…
Urban living and the search for new societal metaphors
In recent years, the relation between participatory arts practices and urban living has been a topic of debate. In an increasingly plural urban society, the co-presence of different social and cultural groups has created an urgent need for new ways to relate the right to individual freedom and hence diversity, to the necessity of social coherence. In this search, participatory art has gained in relevance. By addressing missing artistic forms and …
Towards a paradigm shift? The potential of participatory arts practices in a context of post-crisis reconstruction
From a social pedagogical perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic has (re-)raised the question of what constitutes social bonds. In this article, we focus on participatory art, as a practice that in recent decades has been put forward as a (new) pedagogical project in dealing with complex societal issues, especially in urban areas. Drawing on the connection between participatory art and the urban public realm, our purpose is to explore the potential o…
Electronic information systems as means for accountability
The public sector has been confronted with a mounting claim for accountability. While there are many ways to meet this demand, social work increasingly relies on electronic information systems (IS). Although it has been argued that IS assists services in demonstrating accountability, research sheds light on the pernicious effects of IS as well. For this reason, we interviewed 29 local managers to capture their perspective on the role of IS in cre…
We’d like to eat bread too, not grass’
In recent decades, practices have emerged that combine sport-based and social work strategies with the objective to tackle social problems through the use of sport as a tool. This article focuses on community sport as a particular practice due to its unique structural potential in combatting social inequality. However, it is still unknown how this potential translates into the daily approaches of community sport practitioners. In order to bridge …
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…
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…
The Social And Political Construction Of Early Childhood Education
We analyse two foundational social problems regarding early childhood education. The first, in the late nineteenth century, is infant mortality, a social problem that constituted the historical legitimation for the first crèches. The second, the prevention of school failure, is very topical today. By analysing these examples in their historicity, taking into account social, political, economical and scientific contexts, it becomes clear that earl…
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 …
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…
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…
If only they had a file on every pupil’
During the past years, combating truancy has been high on the political agenda. However, throughout Europe one can observe that despite the numerous action plans and anti-truancy measures, truancy rates continue to rise. In this article, we focus on Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) as a case study to get a better grip on the mismatch between the general truancy policy and the everyday reality of truancy. Based on the analysis of (1) …
Parental Encouragement and Autonomy-granting and Adolescents’ Use of Organized and Unorganized Leisure Time
Research on parents’ role in adolescents’ leisure spending tends to focus on parental encouragement based on the assumption that it is positively associated with adolescents’ participation in (beneficial) organized leisure. Few studies have, however, investigated how parental encouragement and autonomy-granting relate to adolescents’ organized and unorganized leisure spending. Multilevel analyses of data based on a survey of adolescents and their…
Governmental Rationales for Installing Electronic Information Systems
Various authors have argued that electronic information systems (EIS) do not necessarily improve the responsiveness of social work. One of the main reasons given for these failings is the flawed implementation of EIS by professionals. However, we argue that the ongoing debate fails to be explicit about governmental rationales for installing EIS. This article presents the findings of a content analysis that aimed to uncover the governmental ration…
Policy Rationales for Electronic Information Systems
Child welfare and protection (CWP) has engaged in the introduction of Electronic Information Systems (EIS), such as electronic recording, assessment and decision-making tools. It has been argued that EIS have adverse consequences in which governments are conceived as homogeneous entities that install EIS for self-interested purposes. Consequently, research focuses on how social workers evade/reshape the sometimes pernicious effects of EIS. Insuff…
Structural assimilation in young first-, second- and third-generation migrants in Flanders
Assimilation theory assumes that differences between migrants and non-migrants disappear over generations. We report on a Flemish survey study conducted with young first- (G1), second- (G2) and third- (G3) generation migrants (n = 1,587). The results showed that G1 and G2 had lower chances of being in educational tracks preparing for higher education than non-migrants. Further, G1 and G3 migrants with a background in the oldest fifteen members of…
Service Users with Experience of Poverty as Institutional Entrepreneurs in Public Services in Belgium
In this article, we report on a qualitative and interpretative research project in which we gained in‐depth knowledge about dynamics in ten federal public policy units in Belgium where a service user with experience of poverty was employed. Starting from an institutional theory perspective, it was argued that these service users with experience of poverty can possibly feature as institutional entrepreneurs or agents of change who initiate a criti…
Creating Transparency through Electronic Information Systems
Over the past few decades, governments all over Europe have drawn upon a diversity of Electronic Information Systems (EISs). One of the aims of these EISs is the creation of a transparent Child Welfare and Protection (CWP) system. In that context, Gillingham and Graham (2016) argue that the implementation of EISs in social work has made the daily work of practitioners visible in ways that social workers in the 1970s and 1980s would have find unim…
Emergence of social work practice in rural China
Following massive socioeconomic reforms over the past three decades, social work in the People’s Republic of China (hereafter China) has developed at an unprecedented pace. To respond to social issues arising from accelerated economic development, the government has launched a large-scale programme to train a professional social work workforce of 1.45 million by 2020. Social work in mainland China has developed, and continues to develop, rapidly …
From the social to the urban question
Within social work, participatory arts practices have increasingly been put forward as a (new) pedagogical project that creates opportunities to deal with the challenges and complexities of living together in a changing and increasingly plural urban society. The aim of this article is to explore how and why participatory art was assigned this pedagogical role. First, we situate the current debate on participatory art in relation to urban living i…
Electronic information systems as means for accountability
The public sector has been confronted with a mounting claim for accountability. While there are many ways to meet this demand, social work increasingly relies on electronic information systems (IS). Although it has been argued that IS assists services in demonstrating accountability, research sheds light on the pernicious effects of IS as well. For this reason, we interviewed 29 local managers to capture their perspective on the role of IS in cre…
We’d like to eat bread too, not grass’
In recent decades, practices have emerged that combine sport-based and social work strategies with the objective to tackle social problems through the use of sport as a tool. This article focuses on community sport as a particular practice due to its unique structural potential in combatting social inequality. However, it is still unknown how this potential translates into the daily approaches of community sport practitioners. In order to bridge …
Livable streets? Green gentrification and the displacement of longtime residents in Ghent, Belgium
While urban greening initiatives are becoming increasing prevalent, some critical scholars have started to question the neutrality of this movement. Specifically, scholars have demonstrated that urban greening can inflate housing costs and as such give rise to processes of gentrification and displacement. This article examines processes of green gentrification in a particular neighborhood of Ghent (Belgium) that has been profoundly greened during…
Giving young people a well-rounded education
Policymakers strongly stimulate young people’s participation in organised leisure activities because it is believed to provide young people with important ‘work’ skills and attitudes. Special attention is paid to the underrepresented working-class youth. To stimulate (especially working-class) parents to play an active ‘guiding’ role, policymakers often assume that they have to be made aware of the educational benefits of engagement in leisure ac…
Revisiting the notion of cohesion in community sport
Research has focused on the question if and how leisure can create social cohesion and can alleviate cultural segregation in divided community contexts. Community sport in particular is believed to create socio-cultural cohesiveness, as it aims at a sense of community, a task in which regular sports often seem to fail. However, the experiences of participants in relation to socio-cultural cohesiveness in community sport remain absent in the exist…
Separating newcomers
This paper focusses on the organisational responses of secondary schools to newly arrived migrant students. In Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), as in many other European regions, newly arrived students are placed in segregated classes that aim to prepare them for integration in mainstream education. Deriving from, on the one hand, academic critiques on the principle of segregated classes and, on the other hand, the autonomy that sch…
Identificational Assimilation Patterns in Young First, Second, 2.5 and Third-generation Migrants
Classical assimilation theory states that migrants’ identification with a receiving country strengthens over generations, whilst identification with the home country weakens. A Flemish survey of first (G1), second (G2), 2.5 (G2.5) and third (G3) generation immigrant youths ( n = 1,587) reveals that the findings for adolescents with a background in the oldest 15 member states of the European Union (EU15) seem to align with classical assimilation t…
Political science (34 works) · Sociology (34 works) · Law (18 works) · Psychology (17 works) · Public relations (17 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (15 works) · Social science (14 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Politics (11 works)