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Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Contributors -- Preface -- Part I: Debates Within Social Constructionism -- Revising the Constructionist Project -- 1. Reconsidering Social Constructionism -- 2. Vernacular Constituents of Moral Discourse: An Interactionist Proposal for the Study of Social Problems -- 3. The 1960s State as Social Problem: An Analysis of Radical Right and New Left Claims-Making Rhetorics -- Constructionist Responses -- 4. For a Cautious Naturalism -- 5. "Members Only": Reading the Constructionist Text -- 6. Revised Social Constructionism: Traditional Social Science More Than a Postmodernist Analysis -- 7. But Seriously Folks: The Limitations of the Strict Constructionist Interpretation of Social Problems -- Ethnomethodological Concerns -- 8. Social Constructionism and Social Problems Work -- 9. Social Problems and the Organization of Talk and Interaction -- 10. The Reflexivity of Constructionism and the Construction of Reflexivity -- 11. Do We Need a General Theory of Social Problems? -- Conclusion -- 12. Reconstituting the Constructionist Program -- Part II: New Challenges to Social Constructionism -- 13. New Challenges to Social Constructionism: Alternative Perspectives on Social Problems Theory -- Critical Challenges -- 14. The Problem with Social Problems: From Social Constructionism to Critical Theory -- 15. Twenty-Two Theses on Social Constructionism: A Feminist Response to Ibarra and Kitsuse's" Proposal for the Study of Social Problems" -- 16. "Literacy" and Business: "Social Problems" as Social Organization -- Poststructuralist Challenges -- 17. Claims-Making from the Underside: Marginalization and Social Problems Analysis -- 18. (De)Construction, Postmodernism, and Social Problems: Facts, Fictions, and Fantasies at the "End of History

Studies of applied constructionism are opportunities for scholars to explore how social constructionism is a resource used by claims-makers in describing and justifying their orientations to professional practice. The present paper expands sociological constructionism by analyzing applied constructionism in social problems work in Copenhagen, Denmark. Based on interviews with staff members in narrative drug treatment, we explore two themes: the relationship between dominant and liberating narratives and the position of expert knowledge in narrative therapy. Our guiding framework is Ian Hacking's inquiry into the Social Construction of What? and Kenneth Burke's dialogic approach of comparing statements to counterstatements. The purpose of the paper is to link academic studies of the social construction of realities to applied constructionists' principles in addressing social problems. We do this by describing narrative therapists' critical reflections on their own work, suggesting that these reflections are not only useful when it comes to developing narrative therapy but also for the advancement of academic constructionism.

AbstractThis article reviews the literature on social problems work concerned with children and young people. Social problems work involves assessing particular people, events and circumstances as instances of social problems. We focus on how social problems work is organized within discourses of childhood and youth, how it is a site for holding children and young people accountable, and how normalization is an aspect of social problems work. Our review brings together analytic themes in the literature on social problems and that on children and young people. We also point to topics that might be elaborated upon in future research on social problems work concerned with children and young people.