Trauma: An Ideology in Search of Evidence and its Implications for the Social in Social Welfare

A recent special issue of this journal focussed on the emergence of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) movement as a key driver of Scottish social policy. In this article, we extend the critiques advanced therein by locating ACEs within a wider cultural turn towards psychological trauma which, over the past decade, has become reified as a master theory across social welfare. Yet, the concept is insubstantial and ill-defined, and the claims made for policy based upon it are at best disputable. Its prominence is less evidence-based than it is testimony to how a particular (cultural and professional) ideology, regardless of its intellectual merit, can be insinuated into policy discourse. ACEs, we suggest, is utilised to provide the trauma paradigm with some ostensibly quantifiable substance. We illustrate our argument through reference to the Scottish Government’s National Trauma Training Programme (2020). We go on to consider some of the implications of such ideological capture for the direction of Scottish social welfare policy and practice. The prominence given to trauma perspectives has potentially iatrogenic consequences for those identified or self-identifying as traumatised. At a wider level, it reflects a professional and epistemic privileging of a narrow, ostensibly therapeutic, worldview which, in turn, acts to marginalise ‘the social’ that characterised erstwhile Scottish approaches to welfare.

Training for journalism teacher in the master’s program

The author reveals the conceptual foundations and content of the training course on teaching journalism, which is taught in the master’s program. The article uses the experience of Saint Petersburg State University as a material for analysis. Journalism education is presented as an integrated complex that combines multi-sided social and humanitarian enlightenment, translation of progressive professional ideology and practical training. The course shows the impact of a number of interrelated factors on education. The author characterizes one after another the following factors: normative (laws and official standards of education), personnel (body and qualifications of teachers), professional and practical (industry requests), audience (characteristics of students), and organizational and methodological. None of them can be considered dominant, while each of them dictates some educational parameters that should be taken into account

Professional ambivalence among care workers: The case of doula practice

Doulas are non-medical, privately paid caregivers to women during pregnancy and childbirth, who have entered the maternity care field in recent decades. In a hospital setting, doulas offer women emotional and physical support that supplements clinical care. Drawing on focus groups and interviews with eight doulas working in one Atlantic Canadian city, along with Abbott and Merrabeau’s analysis of the professionalization of ‘caring’ occupations, I consider how doulas navigate the uncertain terrain of their emerging occupation. In general, the work performed by care workers is viewed as an extension of the work women perform in the domestic sphere, for which they are understood to be ‘naturally’ talented. As a result, ‘caring’ occupations need to find ways to emphasize the value of their role and justify the need for adequate pay. While traditional processes of professionalization appear to offer a solution, the credentials associated with being a ‘profession’ – a monopoly over a field and a distinct body of (scientific) knowledge – may not be relevant when evaluating the quality of care provision. I argue that doulas hold ambivalent perspectives towards the nature of their training, the requirements of certification and ‘appropriate’ interactions with clients due to the broader tension between care work and professional ideology.

Data Journalism: International Perspectives

With international awards celebrating outstanding work, courses appearing in universities, regular sections dedicated to it in major publications, and financial packages awarded to help journalists develop interactive digital storytelling skills, “data journalism” has, over the last decade, gained worldwide recognition. Questions still open for exploration include how sustainable is it and how is it manifesting in different parts of the world, with different government policies about making data available. Even so, assumptions that data journalism is a “new” phenomenon have been challenged as researchers continue to dig deeper into its past. Very few will doubt the opportunities and innovations it presents especially insofar as rethinking professional practice and retooling investigative techniques are concerned. But data journalism also presents empirical, ethical and professional challenges especially in regions of the world, where it either hasn’t taken off or it’s struggling to gain ground. While access to groundbreaking statistics and ability to adopt storytelling techniques such as computer graphics and visualizations could trigger others to seek sensational success, data journalism’s first priority is to inform adequately and accurately. Failure to do so leaves journalism, already facing intensified international scrutiny as a result of numerous challenges ranging from lack of public trust to “problems associated with normative values and democracy; the political economy of the news media; the relevance of audiences and public trust; definitions of journalism itself; and the salience of old and new forms of professional ideology,” vulnerable.

Fighting the Enemy Within? Challenging Minor Principles of Professionalism in Care and Welfare

Wilensky’s seminal article on professionals mentions three identifying characteristics besides the familiar specialized knowledge, autonomy and professional ideology. These are the referral principle, which states that professionals should refer clients to a colleague with a different specialty if necessary, the principle of sloughing off, which dictates that professionals allocate less rewarding parts of their job to lesser paid assistants, and the principle of impersonal service delivery, which admonishes professionals to treat clients equally. A changing clientele in health care and social care warrants a reappraisal of these three principles. Population ageing necessitates a reappraisal in health care. The deinstitutionalization of people with psychiatric or mental disabilities necessitates a reappraisal in social care. Referral, sloughing off and impersonal service delivery are professional characteristics that concur with managerial or political objectives. Managers and politicians are partly responsible for their widespread application. Hence, professionals need their help to fight this “enemy within professionalism.”

Evaluating Theories of Environmental Criminology

This chapter examines the strengths and weaknesses of environmental criminology. Environmental criminology’s strengths include the shift in the focus from criminals to conventional people, thus enriching understanding of crime events and their prevention; challenging the view that some sort of “evil” condition generated the evil of crime; rejecting the root causes approach to crime, instead showing the benefits of a situational perspective; and rejecting the “nothing works” professional ideology of criminology in favor of practical solutions to reducing crime. The weaknesses of environmental criminology include neglecting the study of “motivated offenders,” treating them as a given in the crime event; reliance on the concept of “informal social control,” which is often ill-defined and its components left unspecified; and neglecting the role of inequality in the broader social environment.

Starting from the Heart —Some Thoughts on Ways to Promote Teachers' Intrinsic Professional Happiness

Teachers are engineers of human soul and they are supposed to be a happy occupation. But in fact, the occupational stress becomes greater and greater, the burnout becomes more serious and teachers’ happiness is losing. Promoting teachers' professional happiness is not only good for the development of teachers themselves and for the growth of students, but also for the good development of education. So, it is a hot topic to talk about how to promote teachers' professional happiness. From the heart, which means that make the teachers' professional happiness deeper and longer from the intrinsic origin. Building the proper professional ideology, right values and healthy lifestyles, which are good for teachers to know the occupation and relieve the stress, is an important way to promote teachers' intrinsic professional happiness.

Cultures of caring: Healthcare ‘scandals’, inquiries, and the remaking of accountabilities

In the UK, a series of high-profile healthcare ‘scandals’ and subsequent inquiries repeatedly point to the pivotal role culture plays in producing and sustaining healthcare failures. Inquiries are a sociotechnology of accountability that signal a shift in how personal accountabilities of healthcare professionals are being configured. In focusing on problematic organizational cultures, these inquiries acknowledge, make visible, and seek to distribute a collective responsibility for healthcare failures. In this article, I examine how the output of one particular inquiry – The Report of the Morecambe Bay Investigation – seeks to make culture visible and accountable. I question what it means to make culture accountable and show how the inquiry report enacts new and old forms of accountability: conventional forms that position actors as individuals, where actions or decisions have distinct boundaries that can be isolated from the ongoing flow of care, and transformative forms that bring into play a remote geographical location, the role of professional ideology, as well as a collective cultural responsibility.