Suchergebnisse

This paper reports on a study of now-adult children who grew up in families headed by a parent or parents with learning difficulties. The study set out to use narrative techniques to capture something of their experience through the stories they told about their past and present lives. Narrative researchers invariably find themselves trapped between the richness of their material and the space for writing it up. This paper addresses this conundrum by arguing for the use of composite stories or stereotypes as a methodological device for trying to convey lives "in the round" through the synthesizing function of emplotment.

The legislative highpoint of the social indicators movement in the United States was marked by U.S. Senator Walter F. Mondale's persistent attempts over the period of 1967 to 1973 to enact proposals for the establishment of a Council of Social Advisers and the development of a national system of social reporting. Mondale argued that, by providing an independent accounting of the social state of the nation, a system of social indicators would greatly improve congressional scrutiny in the field of social policy, much as economic indicators were believed to do in the field of economic policy. This bold effort to build a constituency of the future around social scientists is now largely forgotten, but its history illuminates the uneasy relationship between social science and government. This article presents a detailed account of the Mondale Initiative and draws out some lessons still relevant today.

This article addresses the problems of exploring the use of research in the policy process. Measuring the impact or outcomes of policy research raises complex methodological and conceptual issues. How the task is approached and what measures are used depend, for example, on how the nature of the policy-making process is conceived, on what functions research is presumed to play in the making of policy, and on the way in which the relationship between research and policy is presented. Drawing on the wider literature in this field, this article describes and illustrates the three main methods that have been used for studying research use in the policy arena—impact studies, insider accounts, and case studies—and examines their strengths and weaknesses.

Abstract  This report summarizes the findings of a study of court files relating to care proceedings involving parents with an intellectual disability. The authors found that 15.3% of all children subject to care applications in the year 2000 in the courts studied had at least one parent with an intellectual disability. They also found that these children were less likely to be returned home and more likely to be freed for adoption than the children of any other group of parents. The data raise questions about the discriminatory treatment of parents with an intellectual disability in the child protection process.

This paper examines the part played by men in the lives of mothers with intellectual disabilities. The study involved secondary analysis of data from three earlier studies of parenting by people with intellectual disabilities undertaken by the authors. The data challenge the widespread assumption that men are either exploitative or bring troubles of their own to relationships. The findings show that this view presents only a part of the picture and that supportive men were in the majority among the families surveyed. Men's contributions mostly came in the form of increments to their family's human capital rather than through the traditional breadwinner role.

ABSTRACTParental adequacy is widely seen as a function of individual parenting skills. This assumption renders parents with learning difficulties vulnerable to discriminatory treatment in child protection work. A presumption of incompetence leads practitioners to focus on the parents' deficits and intensifies concerns about the welfare of the children. Using case material from a recent study, the authors argue for a wider conception of good‐enough parenting that takes into account the external pressures that impact on family functioning.