In Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 179-192
Author(s):  
Julia Brannen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Public Funds ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Research Context ◽  
The Uk

This concluding chapter explores how the specific and broader research context influences which conceptual and methodological developments come to the fore at particular times and become ‘acceptable’, and how they shape the creation of knowledge and understanding. It also looks at future directions for social research. A key concern at the time of this book's writing concerns belonging, as more people are forced to migrate and Britain moves towards exiting the EU. Within this theme, there remain important issues to be addressed, in particular that concern migrants with families in the UK who are left in legal limbo and without recourse to public funds because of harsh immigration and welfare policies. These groups have not received the attention they urgently deserve because of the segmentation of researchers into the separate fields of migration and social policy research. Another issue that requires the attention of those in family studies and with an interest in action research concerns the linkage between families and civil society and civic engagement. Housing, including public housing and especially that for young people, is another topic that is ripe for more research.

Social theory and social policy: a challenging relationship

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Pinker
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Liberal Individualism

In this chapter, Robert Pinker discusses the complex relationship between social theory and social policy in democratic societies, focusing on the work of the philosophers Hilary Putnam and Karl Popper. Pinker first considers the distinction between scientific theory, normative theory and ideology and whether it is possible — or desirable — to design and implement rational social policies in the fractious world of democratic party politics. He then examines the interrelationships between policy making, policy research and public opinion and goes on to describe behavioural and structural models of poverty, as well as how poverty relates to liberal individualism, social inequality, socialism and collectivism. Pinker argues that the development and testing of theories is an essential element in the conduct of social research. He also comments on the work of Amartya Sen on the capability approach and its relevance to poverty analysis.

scholarly journals From the Windrush Generation to the ‘Air Jamaica generation’: local authority support for families with no recourse to public funds

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-150
Author(s):  
Andy Jolly
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Public Funds ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Security Benefits ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The ‘Air Jamaica generation’ of migrants to the UK over the past 30 years has received less political and scholarly attention than the so-called Windrush generation. Children of this generation are often invisible in social policy discussions because they lack the legal right to paid employment, and are subject to the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) rule. This excludes them from accessing welfare provision, including most social security benefits, council housing and homelessness assistance. This chapter examines support under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, one of the few welfare entitlements which children and families with NRPF retain, arguing that, without access to mainstream social security, section 17 is an inadequate safety net to prevent poverty. The chapter concludes that this is rooted in discriminatory legislation and policy, resulting in situations which, while structural in cause, would be viewed as neglectful if perpetrated by a parent or carer.

scholarly journals The Third-party Model: Enhancing Volunteering through Governments, Corporations and Educational Institutes

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEBBIE HASKI-LEVENTHAL ◽  
LUCAS C. P. M. MEIJS ◽  
LESLEY HUSTINX
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Third Party ◽  
The Third ◽  
Fundamental Part ◽  
The Third Party ◽  
Negative Impacts

AbstractVolunteering is perceived as important for creating social capital and civil society, and therefore has become a fundamental part of social policies across most Western countries. In this article, we examine the involvement of governments, corporations and educational institutes in encouraging volunteering, and pinpoint their role in developing volunteering circles. Based on essential concepts presented here (volunteerability and recruitability), we develop the third-party model, and show how third parties get involved. We identify new ways in which these parties can enhance volunteering, and discuss their impact on volunteerability and recruitability. The potential negative impacts of volunteerism and ways in which these can be ameliorated are also acknowledged. Finally, issues that arise due to such involvement are also discussed, thereby offering an important contribution to social policy research in the area of volunteerism.

‘Every Town Should Have One’: Emergency Food Banking in the UK

2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
HANNAH LAMBIE-MUMFORD
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Big Society ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Human Rights Based Approach

AbstractThis article charts the rise of one of the UK's most high profile forms of food banks: the Trussell Trust Foodbank franchise. Employing empirical data it seeks to embed the phenomenon of the growth of Foodbanks within a social policy research context. In the first instance, the role of recent and on-going shifts in the social policy context are examined, notably the importance of welfare diversification under previous Labour governments (1997–2010) and the current public spending cuts, welfare restructuring and Big Society rhetoric of the Conservative−Liberal Democrat Coalition government. The paper goes on to explore the nature of Foodbanks as emergency initiatives, providing relief and alleviation for the ‘symptoms’ of food insecurity and poverty. Data are presented which demonstrate some of the ways in which the Foodbank model and those who run the projects navigate the tension between addressing symptoms rather than ‘root causes’ of poverty and food insecurity. In the face of the simultaneous growth in emergency food initiatives and significant upheavals in social policy and welfare provision, the article culminates with an argument for social policy research and practice to harness and prioritise the human rights-based approach to food experiences.

scholarly journals Saying It Like It Is? Power, Participation and Research Involving Young People

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 228-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Participatory Research ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Housing Estate ◽  
Children’S Agency ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Fundamental Shift ◽  
Insight Into

Developments in the conceptualisation of childhood have prompted a fundamental shift in young people’s position within social research. Central to this has been the growing recognition of children’s agency within the landscapes of power between child participants and adult researchers. Participatory research has rooted itself in this paradigm, gaining status from its principles of social inclusion and reciprocity. While participatory research has benefitted from a growing theoretical analysis, insight can be deepened from reflexive accounts critiquing participation ‘in the field’. This article presents one such account, using the example of an ethnographic study with young people living in a ‘disadvantaged’ housing estate in the UK. It describes how efforts to ‘enable’ young people’s participation were simultaneously embraced, contested, subverted and refused. These, often playful, responses offered rich insight into how the young participants viewed themselves, their neighbourhood, and ‘outsiders’ efforts to give them voice. The article concludes by emphasising the importance of conceptualising participation not simply as a set of methods, but as a philosophical commitment which embraces honesty, inclusivity and, importantly, the humour that can come from this approach to research.

scholarly journals Visual methods and voice in disabled childhoods research: troubling narrative authenticity

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice McLaughlin ◽  
Edmund Coleman-Fountain
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Photo Elicitation ◽  
Visual Methods ◽  
Research Practice ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
The Social ◽  
Age Appropriate ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Do So

Visual methods are a popular way of engaging children and young people in research. Their growth comes out of a desire to make research practice more appropriate and meaningful to them. The auteur approach emphasises the need to explore with young participants why they produce the images they do, so that adult researchers do not impose their own readings. This article, while recognising the value of such visual techniques, argues that their benefit is not that they are more age appropriate, or that they are more authentic. Instead it lies in their capacity to display the social influences on how participants, of any age, represent themselves. The article does so through discussion of an Economic and Social Research Council research project, which made use of visual and other creative methods, undertaken in the UK with disabled young people. The research involved narrative and photo elicitation interviews, the production of photo journals, and creative practice workshops aimed at making representational artefacts. Through analysing the photography, the journals and interviews the article examines what it was research participants sought to capture and also what influenced the types of photographs they gathered and the type of person they wanted to represent. We argue that they aimed to counter negative representations of disability by presenting themselves as happy, active and independent, in doing so they drew from broader visual iconography that values certain kinds of disabled subject, while disvaluing others.

scholarly journals Qualitative Longitudinal Research for Social Policy – Introduction to Themed Section

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Corden ◽  
Jane Millar
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Family Formation ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Birth Cohorts ◽  
Process Of Change

Understanding the nature and process of change over time is an important part of social research. Large-scale longitudinal studies, such as the various birth cohorts and the British Household Panel Survey, have transformed the way in which we understand the relationships between individual lifecourse, family formation and dissolution, economic and social change, and social policy. Qualitative methods for longitudinal research are not yet as well established in social policy research as quantitative methods, but they are attracting increasing interest. The papers in this themed section were first presented at a Social Policy Association sponsored workshop held in London in November 2005. The main aim of the workshop was to explore the challenges of using such data for policy-related research, focusing in particular on data analysis and interpretation.

The Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect: A Study of Young People

2001 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Brooker ◽  
Graham Kelly ◽  
Pat Cawson ◽  
Corrine Wattam
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
Young People ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Child Abuse And Neglect ◽  
Abuse And Neglect ◽  
Size Type ◽  
Physical Neglect ◽  
The Uk

Describes a survey among young people about experience of abuse or neglect, conducted by BBMRB Social Research for the NSPCC in connection with their Full Stop campaign. It was known that crimes against children tend to be underreported. A key objective was to provide robust and reliable benchmarks for the measurement of child abuse and neglect and public attitudes to them. Research challenges which had to be resolved were: how abuse should be defined; context, approach and presentation of the study; how to maximise response rate and minimise/account for bias; data collection method; size, type and composition of the sample (a crucial issue, discussed in some detail); questionnaire design; memory and recall; interviewer briefing and fieldwork issues; confidentiality and ethics. The very sensitive questionnaires had to be well piloted. CAPI was essential because of the complexity of potential interviews. Key results are summarised (a full report is available: ‘Child Maltreatment in the United Kingdom’, Cawson, Wattam, Brooker and Kelly, 2000), under the following heads: physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional or psychological maltreatment, sexual abuse. The results have suggested that the present child protection system in the UK is inadequate in several respects, and raises important questions for public policy, and for the need for continuing research in this area.

Report1: Impact of Covid-19 on young people aged 13-24 in the UK- preliminary findings

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liat Levita ◽  
Jilly Gibson Miller ◽  
Todd K. Hartman ◽  
Jamie Murphy ◽  
Mark Shevlin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Young People ◽  
Emotional Regulation ◽  
Health Anxiety ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Need For Support ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Recovery ◽  
The Impact

COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented disruption of normal social relationships and activities, which are so important during the teen years and young adulthood, and to education and economic activity worldwide. The impact of this on young people’s mental health and future prospects may affect their need for support and services, and the speed of the nation’s social recovery afterwards. This study focused on the unique challenges facing young people at different points during adolescent development, which spans from the onset of puberty until the mid-twenties. Although this is an immensely challenging time and there is a potential risk for long term trauma, adolescence can be a period of opportunity, where the teenagers’ brain enjoys greater capacity for change. Hence, the focus on young people is key for designing age-specific interventions and public policies, which can offer new strategies for instilling resilience, emotional regulation, and self-control. In fact, adolescents might be assisted to not only cope, but excel, in spite of the challenges imposed by this pandemic. Our work will feed into the larger societal response that utilizes the discoveries about adolescence in the way we raise, teach, and treat young people during this time of crisis. Wave 1 data has already been collected from 2,002 young people aged 13-24, measuring their mental health (anxiety, depression, trauma), family functioning, social networks, and resilience, and social risk-taking at the time of the pandemic. Here we present a preliminary report of our findings, (Report 1). Data collected 21/4/20- 29/4/20 - a month after the lockdown started).

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