Ben Anderson-Nathe

What Makes it Feminist?: Mapping the Landscape of Feminist Social Work Research:

Social work as an academic discipline has long included women and gender as central categories of analysis; the social work profession, started and maintained largely by women, has been home to several generations of feminists. Yet, social work is curiously and strikingly absent from broader multidisciplinary discussions of feminist research. This article explores contemporary feminist social work research by examining 50 randomly selected research-based articles that claimed feminism within their work. The analysis focused on the authors’ treatment of the gender binary, their grounding in theory, their treatment of methodology, and their feminist claims. Feminist social work researchers are invited to reconceptualize feminisms to include third-wave feminist thought and more explicitly engage theory and reflexivity in their work.

Nurturing “Critical Hope” in Teaching Feminist Social Work Research

Despite the congruence between critical feminist values and the cardinal values of the social work profession, feminist research in social work has lagged behind its feminist cousins in the social sciences, particularly in terms of critical uses of theory, reflexivity, and the troubling of binaries. This article presents as praxis our reflections as researchers, teachers, and feminists inside social work. We draw from a review of feminist social work research and offer suggestions for teaching critical feminist approaches in social work research. Incorporating critical feminist values and research practices into social work research courses creates the potential for greater integration of research, practice, and the principal values of our profession.

Big Data for Child and Youth Services

The role of data in the development and implementation of social policy is undeniably on the rise. Data increasingly drives everything from funding allocations to service design, and from program evaluation to the development of targeted interventions for specific population groups. Sometimes this is not such a bad thing; scarce resources (or the perception of resource scarcity) call for informed decision making, and data is without a doubt one element in this. At other times, this data-centric way of organizing the public sphere has significant drawbacks; for one thing, it tends to privilege particular ways of understanding social relations and of legitimizing knowledge, and thus contributes to exclusion and marginalization. In recent years, the concept of data as a generic value has given way to the new buzzword for this decade: Big Data. Big Data is differentiated from other forms of data in that it seeks to encompass “whole” processes, including the complex network of myriad levels and spheres of social relations in an effort to improve our work in social policy by ensuring that processes traditionally seen to be outside the core of intervention are nevertheless considered as valued components of social engineering. Most commonly, Big Data is associated with health care policy, because it is widely recognized that health is the outcome of not only high end, medical interventions, but also, and perhaps more so, of every day activities, such as exercise, good nutrition, low-stress, and so on. Big Data is a relatively new field, but it is gaining traction in a wide range of fields and industries, post-secondary education among them; many universities across North America have established Institutes of Big Data and have started the process of trying to figure out what data to collect and how to manage the vast number of data values that are involved. For now, at least, the whole enterprise seems to be just that—an enterprise of research that serves the interests of those party to it, and perhaps also a range of corporate interests seeking to expand their hold on information. For this reason, it is important for scholars in the human services to maintain a critical perspective vis-à-vis the rise of Big Data as an industry onto itself. We have learned from so many other initiatives that aggregate unique and sometimes ideologically challenging social issues that such work can do at least as much harm as good. Concerns also involve data privacy. As data are increasingly available (from what Web sites we visit to how often—and with whom—we text) to corporations and governments, and as more people use new technologies

In Search of New Ideas

In spite of the proliferation of research and writing about children and youth over the course of the past few decades, precious little has changed for the young people about whom we are most concerned. On the one hand, advances in psychology, neuroscience, and even more practice-oriented professions such as child and youth care practice, social work, and other human services, have indeed given us confidence that we can make a difference in the lives of even the most marginalized and vulnerable young people. Our current focus on evidence-based practice, and its first cousin, program evaluation, has ensured that we invest our time and effort mostly where we know seemingly desirable outcomes are likely. In fact, many academic careers are furthered by the need to know whether the things we do, the interventions we propose and act on, and the programs and services we design produce the outcomes we are seeking from and in the young people whom these programs serve. It is not our intention to be critical of the excellent work that has been done in this respect. At the same time, however, we are conscious that all the evidence we have mounted, and all of the program evaluations we have undertaken, have had little or no positive impact at all on the young people who are chronically left out. In fact, in many cases the focus on evidence-based practice at the expense of other ways of being with youth—relational engagement, sport and recreation, authentic caring, and the like—has compounded the alienation and marginalization of many children and young people already on the fringes of our service networks. We think one reason for this unfortunate reality is that our efforts are driven by fairly dated and often misplaced ideas about what constitutes desirable outcomes to begin with. So long as we continue to seek social, moral, and political conformity from young people, effectively seeking to recreate ourselves and our social structures with no critical examination, there will be a substantial group amongst these young people who get lost or who won’t conform to the evidence. We then conveniently construct these young people as the exceptions, or as excessively damaged, or as somehow not meeting the criteria for our research studies and program evaluations in the first place. They, rather than our assumptions and predetermined desired outcomes, remain the problem. Child & Youth Services, 33:1–4, 2012 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0145-935X print=1545-2298 online DOI: 10.1080/0145935X.2012.665317

Notes on Same-Sex Marriage Concerns for Feminist Social Workers

Using a critical feminist and social work lens, this article argues that the mainstream gay rights movement and its singular focus on marriage has consistently neglected the most marginal among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities and has instead focused on advancing the interests of elite and advantaged lesbian and gay people. We link professional obligations and values outlined in the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics to feminist and queer (both activist and scholarly) critiques of the gay marriage movement in three main ways. First, we explore the priorities of LGBT communities and draw on data that suggest there are more pressing needs than marriage equality for LGBT communities of color, who are poor, transgender, hold precarious citizenship, or are without citizenship. We then trouble that issue of marriage being upheld as the LGBT priority, as this diverts resources from these more pressing needs. Second, we look at marriage in Capitalist America and how marriage is used as a form of privatization and a tool of neoliberalism. Finally, we discuss the diversity of queer families and how they really live, while highlighting that the marriage movement stigmatizes and dismantles protections for nonhegemonic family structures. In moving forward, we argue that social workers must engage more critically with the many intersectional issues related to the gay marriage movement than it has in the past and employ feminist social work values and principles when working with LGBT communities.

Investigating Not-Knowing: Research Methodology

SUMMARY Phenomenology offers a unique and useful approach to understanding how people experience events or phenomena. The method is particularly instructive in exploring how youth workers experience and make sense of moments of not-knowing in the context of their professional relationships with young people. This chapter provides an introduction to phenomenological research, including its theoretical foundations and procedures. The research methods of this study, including participant recruitment, interview format, data analysis, and presentation, are included, as are the five themes associated with the experience of not knowing what to do: (a) the paralysis of stuckness, (b) features of despair, (c) humiliation and the fear of being found out, (d) questions of vocation and calling, and (e) the transition from not-knowing to knowing.

Whose Stories are These

SUMMARY Phenomenological research investigates the meaning of lived experiences for participants, as well as the implications of those experiences. This chapter presents brief biographical sketches of 12 youth workers who participated in a phenomenological investigation of the experience of self in moments of not-knowing what to do. Each participants characteristics, professional location in the broad field of American youth work, and circumstances surrounding the experience of not-knowing are described.

Trending Rightward: Nationalism, Xenophobia, and the 2016 Politics of Fear

Wewrite this editorial as 2016 comes to a close andwe reflect on the year as it passes. This was a year of unprecedented social and political upheaval inmuch of the world. The global refugee crisis continues, with countless deaths, unimaginable destruction, and global powers shutting their doors while jockeying for control over the spoils. Images of displaced children and families, bleeding andwashed up on foreign shores, have dominated the global media. Nations across the global north and west have been shaken by violence within their own borders, and these nations’ leaders have in many cases used the public’s fear of violence to enact increasingly restrictive and isolationist policies to limit immigration, scrutinize and conduct surveillance on newcomers, and fuel nationalist fervor. In the United Kingdom, the Brexit decision to leave the European Union came in large part as the result of these fears – of violence, of displacement, of disenfranchisement at the hands of newcomers. Germany’s Angela Merkel faces heightened criticism for her open-door policies toward waves of principally Syrian immigrants, particularly in light of recent acts of violence in Berlin. Paris and Brussels remain under increased military presence as the French presidential election leans toward farright leaderMarine Le Pen and a platform of isolationism and xenophobic responses toward refugees and immigrants. And of course, in theUnited States, Donald Trump rode to theWhite House on a campaign characterized by nationalism, isolationism, xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia, and proudly disparaging behaviors and attitudes toward women, people with disabilities, LGBTQ people, and more. Over the course of this year, we have seen no shortage of commentary and speculation about how and why these events have occurred. In the United States, pundits comment on the Democratic party’s failure to court white working-class voters, point the finger at the media and its sensationalized treatment of the entire election, and suggest that Trump’s populist movement (and its alt-right fringe) finally found a spokesperson. Brexit is often chalked up to a fundamental disbelief that “this could ever happen,” coupled with everyday people’s cultivated anxieties around immigration, “radical Islam,” vulnerability to terrorism, and economic disenfranchisement. A similar rhetoric undergirds countless examples of this global drift rightward. But our interest here is less about what has given rise to this movement toward conservatism and nationalism than about what it means for the most vulnerable members of our local and global communities. Taking the case of the United States as an example, we worry about the implications of a Presidential administration willing to seriously consider creating a Muslim registry, denying immigration or entry to Muslim people, and enforcing the mass deportation of up to 11 million

The Voice of Young People

In at least some parts of the world, there are increasing efforts on the part of service providers to consider the voices of young people involved in child and youth services. Very often, this takes the shape of asking young people how they are experiencing such services, what they like and what they don’t like, and what sort of recommendations they would make to professionals as they continue to refine or re-design their services. In some countries, even policymakers are increasingly interested in what young people have to say, and in some cases, national or regional policies, laws and regulations have been adjusted to reflect the feedback from young people. All of these developments are positive; they point to a more inclusive and perhaps more democratic way of thinking about child and youth services. Perhaps the inclusion of the voices of young people also reflects a level of frustration amongst policy makers in particular with the mediocrity of service outcomes in much of the child and youth serving sectors. The services are expensive, and poor outcomes make it difficult to rationalize such expense. In recent years, the voices of young people have spurned an entirely new “industry” in the child and youth serving sectors. Sometimes this industry is referred to as “youth engagement;” other times it is referred to as “youth voice” or some other combination of the terms “youth,” “engagement,” “leadership,” and “voice.” Practices within this industry vary widely. Sometimes, professional approaches are reflected in the process of collecting youth voices, and young people are asked to participate in focus groups, interviews, or the completion of surveys. In other settings, youth voice consists of the “cream of the crop” of “youth leaders” offering feedback on advisory boards or occupying symbolic but functionally powerless positions on agency boards. Increasingly, we can identify far more creative approaches to engaging or soliciting the voices of young people that include performance arts, especially theatre, as well as various forms of visual arts and story telling media. Even more advanced approaches seek to build youth advocacy groups, networks of young people in care or with some other common biographical feature, and authentic integration of young people onto decision-making bodies within agencies or even in policy circles. The slowly emerging perspective that youth services ought to be informed by young people themselves represents enormous progress in many respects, but it also results in some challenges for which we perhaps are

Where Things Are Located

For much of our post-World War II history, we have located children and youth, child and youth services, and human service professionals in a particular place, such as, for example, a service setting, a city, a country, or a specific ambulant service. This is consistent with the way in which the world was (re-)organized following the war. Although nation-states have existed for centuries, their entrenchment as place, and therefore as place for children and youth and child and youth services, became absolute and ever-promoted following the war. National identities shaped responses to the needs of children and families, and even to which of those needs became recognized as worthy of public attention or intervention. As a result, we have today as many models of service provisions as we have nation-states, each characterized by its own relationship to culture, national identity, legal context and bureaucratic process. Attempts at global solutions to common problems, while significant and promising in some respects, have not on the whole weakened the hold of the nation-state on the way children and youth experience human services. A global children’s-rights regime, for example, such as the almost universally signed United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, still encounters national challenges and incongruence with national policy regimes, cultures and bureaucratic processes. International cooperation in relation to development projects, humanitarian activities and foreign aid, are themselves also not outside of the purview of the nation-state, and are always contingent on the ongoing support of nation-states. In turn, as these projects are delivered with the support of the nation-state, their impact becomes associated with the care and responsiveness of that same benefactor state. Consequently, the state’s interest in providing services is at least in part based on the public perception of the state for its action; aid and development become self-serving behaviors of the nation-state as much as benevolent or humanitarian responses. For some time now, we have recognized that in spite of the nation-state, globalization in the economic realm has unfolded with unrelenting speed and in far-reaching ways; corporate activities, along with the flows of finance, capital, products, and business services, are occupying a global space that is no longer fully contained or even managed by the nation-state. A similar recognition with respect to social relations has not, however, unfolded in Child & Youth Services, 34:311–313, 2013 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0145-935X print=1545-2298 online DOI: 10.1080/0145935X.2013.859890