Sandra M Leotti
Biographic Data
| ID | 323531 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sandra M Leotti |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sandra M |
| FAMILY NAME | Leotti |
| SIGNATURE | LEOTTI S M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wyoming |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2807-8478 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Mapping the Landscape of Trauma-Informed Care in Social Work
Trauma-informed care (TIC) has gained significant traction in social work over the last decade, becoming a key organizing principle despite a dearth of empirical evidence attesting to its effectiveness. Addressing this paradox, our scoping review examines TIC’s conceptualization and application in the field, exploring its theoretical underpinnings and empirical support. We analyzed 131 peer-reviewed articles from 2012 to 2022, following Arksey an…
The Nexus of Resistance and Neoliberalism in Social Work and Social Welfare
This study intervenes in a growing scholarly dialogue about neoliberalism in social work and social welfare by addressing the undertheorized concept of resistance. We conduct a scoping review of 54 articles published from 2008–2023 to answer two questions: how is resistance discussed in relation to neoliberalism, and what are the practice elements of resistance? Findings highlight resistance as a diverse phenomenon enacted in relation to context-…
Regulating the Mind
The concept of “insight” plays a critical role in child protection court decisions yet remains poorly defined and potentially problematic. Through critical discourse analysis of case files from one African American mother's four-year fight to regain custody of her infant son, this study examines how insight functions as a discursive practice to reproduce systems of power and control. Using Gee's (2014) analytical framework, we show how insight op…
Compassionate' Control
The contemporary Defund the Police movement has renewed interest in social work's role in public safety, leading some to call for increased police-social work collaborations. However, claims regarding the potential virtues and pitfalls of social work-police collaborations are largely ahistorical. To contextualize current debates, a systematic investigation into the evolution of social work and its relationship with law enforcement is necessary, p…
Pandemic possibilities
Over the last decade we have witnessed increasingly critical appraisals of neoliberalism among social work researchers, educators, and practitioners across the globe. There is growing awareness that neoliberal ideology and its manifestation in institutional arrangements constitute major barriers to social, political and economic justice. However, awareness and critique must always be accompanied by affirmative visions of transformation. We believ…
Failed Mothers, Risky Children
Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines how high-impact journals in the field of social work discursively construct criminalized mothers and their children. Findings reveal a discourse that reflects and reproduces dominant and pervasive narratives of motherhood and childhood, constructing criminalized women as failed mothers and their children as a priori defective, at risk, and therefore vulnerable and in need of early interventio…
Child Welfare and Social Work Education
Social work has long been involved in child welfare practice. Though lauded as well- intended and admirable work, the profession's involvement in the child welfare system is fraught with contradictions, ethical tensions, and a legacy of historical trauma and deep mistrust in Black and Native American communities. Challenging this legacy requires an honest look at how schools of social work participate in policies and practices that work to uphold…
Unpacking the worlds in our words
Critical discourse analysis is a rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field of inquiry that combines linguistic analysis and social theory to address the way power and dominance are enacted and reproduced in text. Critical discourse analysis is primarily concerned with the construction of social phenomena and involves a focus on the wider social, political, and historical contexts in which talk and text occur, exploring the way in which theories of…
Criminal Legal Systems and the Disability Community
While the scale and scope of the criminal legal system is often discussed with attention to racial disproportionalities, the fact that disabled people are overrepresented at all points in the system is less discussed by social workers. Disabled people come into contact with the criminal legal system as suspects, defendants, incarcerated persons, victims, and witnesses. Compared to people without disabilities, disabled people are more likely to ex…
The Keepers and the Kept
Current trends in women’s criminalization reflect historical patterns of racism, gender conformity, and enforcing normality. This paper traces key shifts in policy and discourse on women’s punishment in the United States from the mid 19th century to contemporary times. Additionally, this paper reflects on social work’s role in the history of responding to criminalized women and its involvement in prison reform efforts. I argue that the profession…
The imaginative failure of normal
The COVID-19 pandemic has struck a forceful blow to an already faltering economic and political system. Decades of neoliberal capitalism have left us with extreme domestic and global inequality, a climate disaster, and the death of democracy. Now, in the midst of a global pandemic, any solace found in the toxic status quo has all but vanished. We are faced with an event of major historical significance, the effects of which are sure to be vast an…
Creating academic-community partnerships to jointly enhance advocacy and research on violence and disability
Full, meaningful, and equitable participation of people with disabilities at every stage of the research process allows for the creation of partnerships that jointly advance research and advocacy around violence and disability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
Social Work With Criminalized Women
Drawing on findings from a Foucauldian-inspired critical discourse analysis, this article examines the hegemonic ways in which social work engages with criminalized women. Utilizing the analytic of governmentality, I explore the construction of criminalized women in contemporary social work discourse and ask how those constructions support and shape practice with criminalized women. Results show that knowledge production in social work serves as …
The Discursive Construction of Risk
Given the concurrent phenomena of mass incarceration and neoliberal evolutions in the welfare state, it is inevitable that criminalized women will encounter social workers in their everyday lives. Under the conceptual lens of governmentality, social workers play a central role in reinforcing and interrupting processes of criminalization. This critical discourse analysis examines knowledge production in social work as an important site of engageme…
Community-Based Participatory Research to Adapt Health Measures for Use by People With Developmental Disabilities
Community-Based Participatory Research to Adapt Health Measures for Use by People With Developmental Disabilities Christina Nicolaidis, MD, MPH, Dora Raymaker, PhD, Marsha Katz, Mary Oschwald, PhD, Rebecca Goe, Sandra Leotti, Leah Grantham, Eddie Plourde, Janice Salomon, Rosemary B. Hughes, and Laurie E. Powers, PhD, The Partnering With People With Disabilities to Address Violence Consortium* What Is the Purpose of this Study/Review? • The Partne…
Community-Based Participatory Research to Adapt Health Measures for Use by People With Developmental Disabilities
Researchers should consider using participatory approaches to adapting instruments so people with DD can be validly included in research
The Discursive Construction of Risk
Given the concurrent phenomena of mass incarceration and neoliberal evolutions in the welfare state, it is inevitable that criminalized women will encounter social workers in their everyday lives. Under the conceptual lens of governmentality, social workers play a central role in reinforcing and interrupting processes of criminalization. This critical discourse analysis examines knowledge production in social work as an important site of engageme…
Social Work With Criminalized Women
Drawing on findings from a Foucauldian-inspired critical discourse analysis, this article examines the hegemonic ways in which social work engages with criminalized women. Utilizing the analytic of governmentality, I explore the construction of criminalized women in contemporary social work discourse and ask how those constructions support and shape practice with criminalized women. Results show that knowledge production in social work serves as …
The Keepers and the Kept
Current trends in women’s criminalization reflect historical patterns of racism, gender conformity, and enforcing normality. This paper traces key shifts in policy and discourse on women’s punishment in the United States from the mid 19th century to contemporary times. Additionally, this paper reflects on social work’s role in the history of responding to criminalized women and its involvement in prison reform efforts. I argue that the profession…
Failed Mothers, Risky Children
Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines how high-impact journals in the field of social work discursively construct criminalized mothers and their children. Findings reveal a discourse that reflects and reproduces dominant and pervasive narratives of motherhood and childhood, constructing criminalized women as failed mothers and their children as a priori defective, at risk, and therefore vulnerable and in need of early interventio…
Compassionate' Control
The contemporary Defund the Police movement has renewed interest in social work's role in public safety, leading some to call for increased police-social work collaborations. However, claims regarding the potential virtues and pitfalls of social work-police collaborations are largely ahistorical. To contextualize current debates, a systematic investigation into the evolution of social work and its relationship with law enforcement is necessary, p…
Community-Based Participatory Research to Adapt Health Measures for Use by People With Developmental Disabilities
Researchers should consider using participatory approaches to adapting instruments so people with DD can be validly included in research
Child Welfare and Social Work Education
Social work has long been involved in child welfare practice. Though lauded as well- intended and admirable work, the profession's involvement in the child welfare system is fraught with contradictions, ethical tensions, and a legacy of historical trauma and deep mistrust in Black and Native American communities. Challenging this legacy requires an honest look at how schools of social work participate in policies and practices that work to uphold…
Criminal Legal Systems and the Disability Community
While the scale and scope of the criminal legal system is often discussed with attention to racial disproportionalities, the fact that disabled people are overrepresented at all points in the system is less discussed by social workers. Disabled people come into contact with the criminal legal system as suspects, defendants, incarcerated persons, victims, and witnesses. Compared to people without disabilities, disabled people are more likely to ex…
Community-Based Participatory Research to Adapt Health Measures for Use by People With Developmental Disabilities
Community-Based Participatory Research to Adapt Health Measures for Use by People With Developmental Disabilities Christina Nicolaidis, MD, MPH, Dora Raymaker, PhD, Marsha Katz, Mary Oschwald, PhD, Rebecca Goe, Sandra Leotti, Leah Grantham, Eddie Plourde, Janice Salomon, Rosemary B. Hughes, and Laurie E. Powers, PhD, The Partnering With People With Disabilities to Address Violence Consortium* What Is the Purpose of this Study/Review? • The Partne…
Community-Based Participatory Research to Adapt Health Measures for Use by People With Developmental Disabilities
Researchers should consider using participatory approaches to adapting instruments so people with DD can be validly included in research
The Discursive Construction of Risk
Given the concurrent phenomena of mass incarceration and neoliberal evolutions in the welfare state, it is inevitable that criminalized women will encounter social workers in their everyday lives. Under the conceptual lens of governmentality, social workers play a central role in reinforcing and interrupting processes of criminalization. This critical discourse analysis examines knowledge production in social work as an important site of engageme…
The imaginative failure of normal
The COVID-19 pandemic has struck a forceful blow to an already faltering economic and political system. Decades of neoliberal capitalism have left us with extreme domestic and global inequality, a climate disaster, and the death of democracy. Now, in the midst of a global pandemic, any solace found in the toxic status quo has all but vanished. We are faced with an event of major historical significance, the effects of which are sure to be vast an…
Creating academic-community partnerships to jointly enhance advocacy and research on violence and disability
Full, meaningful, and equitable participation of people with disabilities at every stage of the research process allows for the creation of partnerships that jointly advance research and advocacy around violence and disability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
Social Work With Criminalized Women
Drawing on findings from a Foucauldian-inspired critical discourse analysis, this article examines the hegemonic ways in which social work engages with criminalized women. Utilizing the analytic of governmentality, I explore the construction of criminalized women in contemporary social work discourse and ask how those constructions support and shape practice with criminalized women. Results show that knowledge production in social work serves as …
Unpacking the worlds in our words
Critical discourse analysis is a rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field of inquiry that combines linguistic analysis and social theory to address the way power and dominance are enacted and reproduced in text. Critical discourse analysis is primarily concerned with the construction of social phenomena and involves a focus on the wider social, political, and historical contexts in which talk and text occur, exploring the way in which theories of…
Criminal Legal Systems and the Disability Community
While the scale and scope of the criminal legal system is often discussed with attention to racial disproportionalities, the fact that disabled people are overrepresented at all points in the system is less discussed by social workers. Disabled people come into contact with the criminal legal system as suspects, defendants, incarcerated persons, victims, and witnesses. Compared to people without disabilities, disabled people are more likely to ex…
The Keepers and the Kept
Current trends in women’s criminalization reflect historical patterns of racism, gender conformity, and enforcing normality. This paper traces key shifts in policy and discourse on women’s punishment in the United States from the mid 19th century to contemporary times. Additionally, this paper reflects on social work’s role in the history of responding to criminalized women and its involvement in prison reform efforts. I argue that the profession…
Pandemic possibilities
Over the last decade we have witnessed increasingly critical appraisals of neoliberalism among social work researchers, educators, and practitioners across the globe. There is growing awareness that neoliberal ideology and its manifestation in institutional arrangements constitute major barriers to social, political and economic justice. However, awareness and critique must always be accompanied by affirmative visions of transformation. We believ…
Failed Mothers, Risky Children
Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines how high-impact journals in the field of social work discursively construct criminalized mothers and their children. Findings reveal a discourse that reflects and reproduces dominant and pervasive narratives of motherhood and childhood, constructing criminalized women as failed mothers and their children as a priori defective, at risk, and therefore vulnerable and in need of early interventio…
Child Welfare and Social Work Education
Social work has long been involved in child welfare practice. Though lauded as well- intended and admirable work, the profession's involvement in the child welfare system is fraught with contradictions, ethical tensions, and a legacy of historical trauma and deep mistrust in Black and Native American communities. Challenging this legacy requires an honest look at how schools of social work participate in policies and practices that work to uphold…
Compassionate' Control
The contemporary Defund the Police movement has renewed interest in social work's role in public safety, leading some to call for increased police-social work collaborations. However, claims regarding the potential virtues and pitfalls of social work-police collaborations are largely ahistorical. To contextualize current debates, a systematic investigation into the evolution of social work and its relationship with law enforcement is necessary, p…
Mapping the Landscape of Trauma-Informed Care in Social Work
Trauma-informed care (TIC) has gained significant traction in social work over the last decade, becoming a key organizing principle despite a dearth of empirical evidence attesting to its effectiveness. Addressing this paradox, our scoping review examines TIC’s conceptualization and application in the field, exploring its theoretical underpinnings and empirical support. We analyzed 131 peer-reviewed articles from 2012 to 2022, following Arksey an…
The Nexus of Resistance and Neoliberalism in Social Work and Social Welfare
This study intervenes in a growing scholarly dialogue about neoliberalism in social work and social welfare by addressing the undertheorized concept of resistance. We conduct a scoping review of 54 articles published from 2008–2023 to answer two questions: how is resistance discussed in relation to neoliberalism, and what are the practice elements of resistance? Findings highlight resistance as a diverse phenomenon enacted in relation to context-…
Regulating the Mind
The concept of “insight” plays a critical role in child protection court decisions yet remains poorly defined and potentially problematic. Through critical discourse analysis of case files from one African American mother's four-year fight to regain custody of her infant son, this study examines how insight functions as a discursive practice to reproduce systems of power and control. Using Gee's (2014) analytical framework, we show how insight op…
Political science (16 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (7 works) · Criminology (7 works) · Social Work (7 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (7 works) · Law (6 works)