Suchergebnisse

AbstractWorldwide neoliberal policies are transforming the landscape of social work. Studies have shown that these policies increased social workers' caseloads, regulated welfare expenditures, impaired public services' capabilities to attend to the needs of growing demand, transformed social services delivery by implanting new public management methods, and often also worsened working conditions and deteriorated the professional status of social workers. Moreover, these policies have raised both poverty and inequality levels and left their negative marks on social work education, by prioritizing academic disciplines more attuned with the needs of neoliberal regimes. This article seeks to encourage schools of social work, social workers in the social services, and people living in poverty to challenge the harmful impact of this context by engaging in meaningful alliances focused on the fight against poverty and social exclusion. This article presents a long-term partnership project between a school of social work, local public social services, and groups of active clients, to tackle the issue of poverty in Israel. The article describes the project, introduces the theoretical and methodological principles, analyzes achievements and challenges, and finally discusses the potential contribution of such partnerships for the future of the profession.

Grounded on a documentary film-based qualitative research methodology, the article undertakes a social constructivist theoretical analysis of the story of a group of Argentinean fathers whose children were victims of enforced disappearance. It focuses specifically on the impact of the massive use of enforced disappearance on fathers by the Military government in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. The premeditated use of this tactic gave birth to a protest movement named "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo," established by a group of mothers whose children were abducted. Whereas the mothers' role in the context of this historical period of political violence was extensively documented, the question of the fathers' role remains unclear. Based on "Padres de la Plaza: 10 Recorridos Posibles" by director Joaquin Daglio, a documentary film that portrayed the stories of ten fathers whose children were abducted, the article examines the experience of fatherhood in the context of political violence, the impact of enforced disappearance on these fathers, the role of the fathers in the Mothers' protest movement, and the construction of fatherhood under these particular historical and personal circumstances. The article shows how fatherhood is experienced and transformed in the contexts of political violence, specifically in contexts of the institutionalized, state-sponsored violation of human and civil rights.

Hegemonic representations of masculinity and dominant images of fatherhood have usually been linked to the domain of work. This article explores the experiences of men under the hardship of unemployment and the impact of these experiences on the construction of their gender identities, specifically on the construction of their fatherhood identity. In addition, the article examines how culture and national context affect the interrelationship between unemployment and fatherhood. Drawing on a post‐structural constructivist theoretical perspective, the article describes a qualitative study of low‐income unemployed Palestinian fathers inIsrael. The study examines three areas of interest: perceptions of fatherhood, the experience of unemployment and the impact of unemployment on the construction of fatherhood. On the theoretical level, the article proposes a conceptualization of the relationship between unemployment and fatherhood. It argues that in order to generalize the impact of unemployment on fatherhood, we must first examine the context in which gendered and cultural perceptions of fatherhood are embedded. On a policy level, the article offers some recommendations for developing more contextualized, gender‐ and cultural‐sensitive policies for unemployed fathers.

The article seeks to present a theoretical framework for defining class‐competence in social work practice. Social work has made significant progress in enhancing practice competence with respect to contextual factors that transcend social class such as gender, culture, race and ethnicity. But this positive development in overcoming the rigid view, which framed class as the sole explanation of diversity, has obscured the current impact of social class differences in social work practice. This article takes a critical look at the historical approach of the profession to class issues, extends the boundaries of the social class concept beyond its narrow economic dimensions, discusses the relevance of addressing class issues in light of current challenges in social work practice and, lastly, proposes a preliminary definition of class‐competent social work practice.

This article examines how social workers and clients construe their views of poverty. It presents findings of a qualitative study of worker and client perceptions of poverty done in Jerusalem. The study found many similarities in their views of poverty, but also revealed that client views of poverty causality are structural, whereas staff views rest on individual, "culture of poverty theory" approaches. The study shows the complexity of these views and exposes the situational, contextual, interpretive, and discursive nature of these constructions. The article encourages agencies to raise staff awareness regarding the structural aspects of client problems, increase the cultural and gender sensitivity training of the staff, and cultivate a critical dialog with clients as a platform to build enduring alliances.

AbstractThe discretion of street‐level bureaucrats (SLBs) plays a key role in policy implementation. This study offers a new perspective on the meaning of discretion under social policy reforms, which created new structural deficiencies in the work of SLBs and have raised expectations of policy implementation without offering sufficient policy responses. Under such conditions, the discretion of SLBs should be understood as coerced, more so than as a positive element of freedom and choice. As such, SLBs are forced to employ informal practices and provide alternative resources for their clients. Findings indicate a transference of emotional resources from SLBs to clients, aimed at achieving policy outcomes of economically independent citizens, paradoxically accompanied by an awareness of powerful barriers to such conversion. The study contributes both to the understanding of discretion in policy implementation, in the context of an expanding public service gap, and to theories of emotion manifestation in public administration.

AbstractThis study examines the emotional labour of social workers serving families living in poverty. Based on in‐depth interviews and focus groups, the study concentrates on frontline social workers' emotions when faced with increasing levels of poverty, growing caseloads, and neoliberal social policies in Israel. Findings highlight 3 interrelated aspects of the emotional labour of social workers involved with impoverished families: (a) the emotional flooding social workers experience in their professional routines, (b) the various practices of emotional labour they use to cope with the emotional backlash of their encounters with these families including emotional numbness, emotional Othering, and emotional splitting, and (c) confirmation of the harmful influence of institutional policies on their emotional well‐being and ability to respond effectively to the increasing demands of their clients. Based on Hochschild's theory of emotional labour, we maintain that social workers' emotions should be studied in the context of a specific social, institutional, and political background.

AbstractContemporary research on fatherhood describes fatherhood as a multifaceted, dynamic social, and cultural construction, deeply affected by class, race, and gender inequalities. However, critics claim that dominant theories on fatherhood have been mostly elaborated based on middle‐class, Anglo‐centered, dominant, and mainstream fatherhood, whereas non‐hegemonic, marginalized father groups have remained undertheorized. This article echoes this shortfall and proposes to theorize non‐hegemonic fatherhood through a more inclusive theoretical framework capable of describing the social contexts that shape fathers' identities, behaviors, and cultures. Based on intersectional theories, the article argues for a theoretical revision of the ways in which these groups of non‐hegemonic fathers are represented in research. To illustrate this, we provide some examples of studies based on case studies of marginalized fathers in Israel. Israel is rich ground for such research since it is characterized by traditional models of fatherhood, expressed through hegemonic models of masculinity, as well as normative family models in the context of high levels of ethnic and class inequality.

Abstract
Since its very inception, the field of social work has acknowledged the importance of place in shaping communal identity, construing shared meanings and generating collective actions. Nevertheless, the analytical framework of place-making, which enjoys growing interest in other disciplines, has little impact on social work and its incorporation into social work community practice is still embryonic. The place-making perspective is particularly relevant to the multiple challenges faced by community practice in the twenty-first century. This qualitative study aims to encourage the inclusion of place-making analytical perspective in community practice research by examining community practitioners' engagement in place-making processes within the complex context of Israeli Jewish–Arab mixed cities. Based on semi-structured interviews with thirty community practitioners in the public services, the findings reveal that participants were highly engaged in four main interrelated aspects of place-making: shaping the ethnocultural meanings of place, managing the meaning of space in power relations, re-constructing the conflicted meaning of space and framing the history of place. The study illustrates the usefulness of the place-making analytical framework in community practice, especially in the context of increasing contested and divided urban realities.