Analysis of Vocational Subject Teachers’ Response for the NCS Learning Module Based on M. Lipsky’s Street-level Bureaucracy Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 793-807
Author(s):  
Seung-jun Song
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Dvorak ◽  
Remigijus Civinskas ◽  
Gintaras Šumskas

This article presents the results of a project funded by the Research Council of Lithuania: ‘Public policy solutions and their improvement to overcome the COVID-19 crisis in Lithuanian municipalities: solution tools and service delivery.’ The research methodology is based on street-level bureaucracy theory and ongoing qualitative research in the form of interviews with social workers and doctors. Interviews were conducted in the Lithuanian municipalities which became the first COVID-19 hotspots in March-April 2020. The aim is to identify the response and coping strategies of street-level bureaucracy. The findings of current research suggest that the workload of street-level bureaucrats increased, the situation changed very rapidly, and there was a constant need to adopt rules and even recommendations issued by the ministry. Fear of COVID-19 infection, a lack of accurate information, uncertainty, and the possibility of allowing staff with children to leave the workplace led to staff shortages. This in turn motivated the administration and the remaining employees to look for suitable coping strategies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (8) ◽  
pp. 1001-1032 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Q. Bosma ◽  
M. J. J. Kunst ◽  
A. J. E. Dirkzwager ◽  
P. Nieuwbeerta

Studies indicated that detainees are not always allocated to treatment programs based on official guidelines. Street-level bureaucracy theory suggests that this is because government employees do not always perform policies as prescribed. This study aimed to assess whether this also applies to the allocation of offenders to treatment in Dutch penitentiary institutions, and aimed to determine which factors influenced this. The proposed questions were addressed by studying a group of 541 male prisoners who participated in the Dutch prison-based Prevention of Recidivism program. Results showed that official guidelines were, in most cases, not leading when referring detainees to programs. Instead, treatment referrals were influenced by a broad range of risk factors, as well as the length of an offender’s sentence.


2021 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
BREYNNER RICARDO DE OLIVEIRA ◽  
MARIA DO CARMO DE LACERDA PEIXOTO

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the implementation of educational policies and the roles of school professionals considering the street-level bureaucracy theory (LIPSKY, 1980). This study assumes that educational reforms elect schools as planning and administration centers, making them and the professionals working there responsible for new attributions which are motivated by improved autonomy, in addition to administrative and educational decentralization. In these contexts, which are marked by schools’ increasing empowerment, the discretionary power exercised by its professionals (teachers, principals, coordinators, among others) is a key element to understanding the availability and implementation of programs and their ability to either influence or change the design of educational policies on a local level. This perspective emphasizes the importance of considering those closer to actions deriving from such policies, that is, the actors who see the bottom-up process because they are in the lower end. According to Lipsky (1980), these are the so-called local policy agents or street-level public agents. As for schools, we understand that to enforce a certain policy, factors such as interpersonal influence, commitments, and informal negotiations are as important as formal processes and regulations. Finally, this study attempts to prove the impacts and contours assumed by changes in school dynamics in terms of translating local educational policies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 20-20
Author(s):  
Angela Perone

Abstract Background: An abundance of long-term care regulations creates a bevy of rights for nursing facility residents, staff, and families. Front-line workers and managers have significant discretion and responsibilities for interpreting these rights. Building on street-level-bureaucracy theory (Lipsky, 2010), which focuses on how front-line workers implement policy, this study examines how staff at various levels (direct care, mid-level professional, top management) resolve conflicting rights. Methods: This study employs a novel advanced multi-method qualitative design with semi-structured staff interviews (n=90), content analysis of long-term care facility policies (n=75), and participant observation of two facilities for a multi-layered comparative case study. Findings: Data analysis revealed variations in staff responses to conflicting rights regarding autonomy and safety (e.g. fall prevention, dementia, coronavirus) and discrimination (i.e. sexual/racial harassment). While harassment was rampant, direct care workers responded more deferentially to residents and often justified harassment as part of a customer service job in one’s home. Staff at all levels relied on teams to develop creative problem-solving approaches, but team composition and discretion varied significantly between facilities and staff levels. While staff included few social workers, staff heavily relied on them to adjudicate conflicting rights. Implications: Conflicting rights impact resident care and relationships among residents, staff, and families. This research provides policymakers and practitioners with new data about how staff resolve conflicting rights, which can facilitate stronger policies to support an overburdened and underpaid long-term care workforce. This research also expands street-level-bureaucracy theory to include managers and reveals how various team approaches can produce diverse solutions.


Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Lauren Bock Mullins

This article explores the similarities and differences between the art of improvisation and street-level bureaucracy. By offering a new framework that points out the similarities between bureaucratic discretion and improvisation, we see how street-level bureaucracy has artistic elements, which can be helpful in expanding our understanding of this phenomenon.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christin Achermann

AbstractThis article analyses how border guards as members of a state organisation shape the movement of non-nationals into the territory of a nation state. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on the Swiss Border Guard (SBG), it explores the rationalities—understood as stabilised ways of reasoning and acting—that characterise practices within this state organisation. Combining organisational and structuration theory with a street-level bureaucracy perspective allows for a differentiated analysis of the various facets of border guards’ everyday work. Four rationalities of border-control practices are identified and compared: security, humanitarian, cost-calculation, and pragmatic rationality. I argue that, by considering both the specific goals and imperatives of border control and the characteristics of street-level bureaucrats acting within a state organisation, these entangled logics explain the complex and incoherent social reality of border control. More generally, the results contribute to organisational theory by pointing to the importance of taking into account that multiple entangled rationalities structure the practices of an organisation’s members.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2-2013) ◽  
pp. 425-440
Author(s):  
Peter Hupe

At the street level of the state public policies get their final form and substance. This being so, discretion is a key concept. The goal of this article is to specify discretion as a research object in the study of street-level bureaucracy. Therefore the theoretical views on discretion prevalent in juridical and other disciplines are explored. Discretion appears to be a multi-faceted concept. This finding has consequences for the analysis of discretion in the explanation of what happens in street-level bureaucracies.


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