Suchergebnisse

Our study sought to refine our understanding of professional distress by examining the experience of healthcare social workers in the following three Canadian provinces: Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick. Thirty semi-directed interviews were conducted to explore the social workers' social representation of professional distress and its ties to professional identity and growing organizational constraints. Attitudes, work–life imbalances, and negative workplace experiences were found to increase the subjective experience of distress. Current psychosocial and organizational contexts of front-line practitioners are contributors to their professional distress, a matter further exacerbated by the misrepresentation of social work by colleagues and service beneficiaries.

Dans cette recherche exploratoire sur les représentations sociales des gestionnaires d'entreprises, deux logiques naturelles ont été repérées à l'origine des pratiques liées à l'embauche de personnes aux prises avec des problèmes de surconsommation de substances psychoactives. D'un côté, le discours dominant est structuré autour de l'importance de la productivité pour l'entreprise et autour de la toxicomanie, considérée comme un problème de l'individu. De l'autre côté, un discours périphérique apparaît comme fondé sur l'idée que l'entreprise a une certaine fonction sociale à assumer et que la source de la toxicomanie est aussi externe à l'individu, c'est-à-dire qu'elle provient de son milieu familial, social ou de travail. Les représentations sociales de l'entreprise et de la toxicomanie, qui organisent ce discours des gestionnaires, indiquent une dynamique de changement.

Les parents entendants d'un enfant vivant avec une surdité (PEES) sont aux prises, dès le début, avec une réalité peu familière qui occupe rapidement une place considérable dans leur vie. Cela est dû, entre autres, à l'arrivée quasi immédiate d'une gamme de services professionnels, ce qui sollicite un engagement de la part des PEES. Dans cet article, nous analysons l'engagement des PEES à partir de la théorie des représentations sociales. Vingt-neuf parents entendants ayant un enfant vivant avec une surdité dans la province de Québec (Canada) ont participé à notre enquête mixte combinant la technique d'évocation et des entrevues semi-dirigées. Nos résultats ont permis de montrer comment les représentations sociales de la surdité, de la parentalité et des services professionnels façonnent l'intensité et l'orientation du processus d'engagement des PEES auprès de leur enfant.

AbstractOur article concerns the social representation of social work held by professional social workers in a Canadian healthcare setting. While there have been extensive theoretical debates on the professional identity of social workers, little is known about the representation of social work held by practitioners themselves. To better understand the viewpoints of practitioners, we performed an integrated content analysis of 30 semi-directed interviews focussing on the question of professional identity with clinical social workers practicing in three Canadian cities. The analysis identified four elements organising the social representation of social work: 'counselling for support', 'empowerment and respect', 'social justice' and 'compassionate vocation'. Each element has implications for the daily practice of the profession, the cultivation of resilience and the core values of social work. This article further discusses the respondents' perception of outside views of the profession and explores the tensions between the values of social work and its implementation in an institutional setting. This research seeks to open new lines of inquiry about social work based on the experiences and points of view of front-line practitioners. In proposing our representational analysis of the professional identity of social workers, we hope to further the understanding of social work in general.

Cet article étudie la représentation sociale des services de santé mentale chez les personnes dites dépressives en contexte francophone minoritaire au Canada. Des entrevues semi-dirigées ont été réalisées auprès de 44 personnes s'identifiant comme francophones et anglophones. Ces dernières proviennent de Moncton, Ottawa, Sudbury et Winnipeg et ont fait l'expérience d'un épisode dépressif. L'analyse lexicographique complétée par l'analyse intégrée de contenu a fait ressortir trois grands schèmes sociocognitifs de la représentation sociale des services, qui agissent sur l'acceptabilité sociale des services de santé mentale chez les personnes francophones vivant en situation minoritaire : 1) la nature impersonnelle des compétences expertes des professionnels de la santé, 2) la facette médicale de l'identité dépressive et 3) la perte perçue du contrôle dans le contexte de soins. L'acceptabilité sociale des services de santé mentale est discutée également en fonction de la configuration de la représentation sociale des services selon l'âge.

Previous research in sociology has shown that what is considered as sanity or mental health is described according to a social ideal. Mental health problems have been theorized as a deviance from such norms. Depression, in particular, has been the object of sociological contemplation due to its divergence from a Western social normativity focused on functionality, adaptation and productivity. This research adds to this body of work on depression as a deviation from social norms. It seeks to address a gap within the literature, by exploring the ways in which the "post-depressive" state may be defined in accordance with social norms. As such, it analyzes the links between "post-depression" and normality, from the perspective of individuals having lived with depression. 46 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Canadians individuals who have experienced depression. Results from our content analysis show that the absence of depression was often synonymous with normality and characterized by the following dimensions: a positive attitude; the potential to take action; functionality and performance; self-management; a positive relationship with others; and the notion of meaningful projects. Our results show that participants do not define the absence of depression following psychiatric or clinical indicators, as recorded in the DSM, and that they do not consider it to be a return to an anterior, pre-depression, state. Rather, post-depression is idealized, perceived as a state of unfailing conformity to social expectations and norms.

The role of communication in a pandemic emergency is crucial because it contributes to the spread of collective interpretations of the crisis that drive community responses. Based on the social representations' theory approach, and specifically relying on the notions of collective symbolic coping and polemical social representations, the study presents 10 country-based case studies of public communication with the aim of exploring the social representations of COVID-19 during the first wave of the outbreak. Multiple communication sources from 10 countries in 5 geo-cultural contexts (Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, Africa) were selected and analyzed: institutional websites; international/national/local newspapers and news channels; national/international press agencies; and social media platforms. Results highlighted the prevalence of multivocality and polemical social representations, along with outgroup blaming and stigmatization processes, the use of military and naturalistic metaphors, antinomies, and discourse polarization. Implications for effective public communication in crisis management are discussed.