Suchergebnisse

The 'problem' of happiness -- 2. A hospitable context for claims-making -- 3. The rhetoric of social problems -- 4. Claims-makers and the news -- 5. Happiness: from prehistory to paradox -- 6. The problem of lies within -- 7. Owning happiness -- 8. Happiness expertise -- 9. The rhetoric of happiness: the inventory of a problem.

Cet article explore les « histoires causales » (Stone, 1989) dans la construction des problèmes sociaux vécus par les peuples autochtones canadiens, et ce, par l'intermédiaire de six documents portant sur les familles autochtones et la parentalité, produits par divers organismes officiels. Deux thèmes récurrents ont été identifiés dans ces histoires causales : « la dépossession culturelle à travers la rupture » et « la parentalité en tant que source de problèmes ». Les solutions tendent à se concentrer sur le développement de la force par le soutien et le renouveau culturel, ce dernier point passant par des discours thérapeutiques et des conseils aux parents ancrés dans une perspective euroaméricaine dominante et glocalisée. Il est avancé ici que l'attention est alors potentiellement détournée des inégalités matérielles, tandis que les discours thérapeutiques et sur la parentalité, discours qui sont glocalisés, peuvent agir comme un cheval de Troie permettant d'intervenir davantage dans la vie familiale et de mieux la surveiller.

Drawing on a study of UK national broadsheets, this article examines the emergence and spread of happiness as a social problem in the UK by drawing on the theoretical insights of social problem constructionism and related social movement theory in terms of the processual, rhetorical, and contextual factors involved in the construction, transmission, and institutionalisation of new social problems. In particular, issue ownership in the realm of process and flexible syntax, experiential commensurability, empirical credibility, and narrative fidelity in the realm of rhetoric are argued to have played an important role in the discursive spread of the happiness problem in this public arena. A socio-political context hospitable to de-politicised and highly personalised constructions of social issues is argued to have played a major contextual role in the construction of the 'happiness problem'.

AbstractIn the short decades since the introduction of positive psychology instigated broader interdisciplinary research, interest in happiness has been growing in academia, the media and public policy. Numerous critiques of these developments have been forwarded from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary traditions. This article discusses three such criticisms: the culture‐bound and normative character of happiness, 'bad science' and scientism, and diminished subjectivity and individualisation. It is argued that criticism, particularly internal criticism, evidences the maturity of the field. However, the depth of some critiques may also indicate that interest in happiness is bound with broader cultural preoccupations and is likely to be superseded.

In 2018, the UK Conservative government issued a 'non-negotiable' instruction for universities to make 'positive mental health' a strategic priority. This was responding to growing pressure from a variety of stakeholders including mental health organisations, student groups and higher education (HE) management who claimed a worsening crisis of student mental health in the UK. We conducted a qualitative media analysis (QMA) of public discussions of student mental health as a social problem in a sample of (a) newspapers and (b) policy documents produced in the UK between 2010 and 2019 using a contextual constructionist approach and Kingdon's policy streams framework. It identifies expansive definitions of mental illness, assumptions that precede evidence-gathering, 'professional exes' as policy entrepreneurs, and solutions that spread risk across institutions. We conclude by discussing the shift away from autonomous subjectivity towards more heteronomous constructions. In so doing it provides an important contribution to sociological understandings of contemporary subjectivity and social policy regarding mental health in HE.