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European Journal of Social Work | 2014

Power and welfare: understanding citizens’ encounters with state welfare

Jean-Pierre Tabin

The different approaches explained and examined are these of Foucault (genealogy of power), Goffman (power in social interactions), Bourdieu (power in fields), Luhmann (power in systems), neo-institutional theory (power in organisations) and risk theory (power and culture). A succinct presentation of each perspective is made, followed by two examples of researches (case studies of patients, nursing home residents, unemployed people, homeless people and young offenders, from the USA, Denmark, France, Sweden, Canada and Australia). The authors note that these approaches are very different; some are linked with one main author, other with multiples authors; some form a coherent theoretical perspective, and some not. Explaining that ‘power is always at stake in the citizen’s encounters with welfare institutions,’ they argue that the researcher must be ‘able to discern and problematise the complex form of power at play in those encounters’ (p. 126). If the justification of the choice of approaches is rather convincing, we can regret the absence, in a book especially designed for students, of the classic discussion between Marxist and Weberian perspectives upon power. In the conclusive chapter, the authors propose an integration of the different approaches examined, in order to draw a programme for analysing state’s encounter with the citizen. They suggest combining the different perspectives, for example Bourdieu’s perspective with Goffman’s: Bourdieu’s theory of society as consisting as a number of fields can provide an analytical tool with which to analyse the surrounding or ‘outer’ framework for interaction between people (p. 136). The book is ambitious but not fully convincing; in trying to reconcile antinomic perspectives on society, the authors not only pass over the differences between them (e.g. agency in the interactionist perspective is not agency in the theory of habitus), but also discuss similar theories that have not the same ambitions, complexity or the same heuristic value. But this didactic and well-documented book is an interesting tool for teaching power theory to social work students.


European Journal of Social Work | 2011

Social Work Practice Research for the Twenty-First Century

Jean-Pierre Tabin

This book, dedicated to the work of William J. Reid, is mostly based on material presented at an international practice research symposium held in June 2005 at the University of Albany. It aims at providing direction for evidence-based practice (EPB) in social work, i.e. interventions that are based on research validation, the case-relevant questions being generated by practitioners. The book contains 26 short chapters organized in four parts, the first two presenting a historical mapping of social work practice research and the status of EPB in selected areas of social work (in group work research, in social development intervention, in children’s mental health, in aging, in drug use prevention, etc.). Part 3 is dedicated to the dissemination of the task-centered model of social work developed by Reid and Epstein between 1972 and 2000. This evidence-based model focuses ‘on the client’s actions, supported by the social worker, to reduce the client’s problem’ (p. 188). The task-centered models use time limits, ‘focus on the here and now, use transparency and client-driven choice in treatment, and pay careful attention to evaluation’ (p. 190). Reid ‘created a compendium of task or problem-solving ideas for a diverse set of more than 100 problems ranging from addiction to couples conflicts and communication, to common mental disorder of depression and anxiety, to immigration acclimation to a new culture, to unemployment’ (p. 190). The implementation of this model in 11 countries is shortly described (the USA, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan). The last part of the book is dedicated to future direction of EPB and addresses different issues in building social work intervention models through research. This book offers a complete*even if sometimes very succinct*panorama of EPB concepts and program. As it is written in order to promote this kind of social work research, it does not discuss in depth this piece of social engineering inspired by a popperian view of science. It also gives a generally a-critical panorama of the implementation of a controversial model of social work in different regions of the world. These are the two important limits of this book.


European Journal of Social Work | 2011

Whose poor? Social welfare and local political boundaries

Jean-Pierre Tabin; Arnaud Frauenfelder; Carola Togni; Véréna Keller

The right to live somewhere is the sign and the condition for local belonging. Since every society helps its own poor, domiciliation constitutes the basis of a lifeline for the poor. This has two obvious consequences. First, this organization establishes a local community supervision upon the poor (their behaviour, their movements, etc.), linking them to their parish or their commune. Second, it excludes the poor who are without domiciliation, thus creating poor vagabonds. It also has a third consequence, which is at the core of this article: the policies of social assistance contribute to defining territorial belonging. The process of designating populations entitled to claim financial assistance thus raises the question of what being a member of a group formally means. If every society helps its own poor, the way in which membership is conceived, handled as a theme and institutionalized within the society proves to be eminently variable between the end of the nineteenth century and today. It moves through three dominant ideal types (stability, mobility, dignity) which do form a sequence but do not thoroughly replace each other.


Social History | 2009

The recipients of public welfare: the example of two Swiss cantons around 1890

Jean-Pierre Tabin; Arnaud Frauenfelder; Carola Togni; Véréna Keller

In democratic societies the legislator holds the power to define and impose legitimate representations of the world. In other words, it institutes society ‘by establishing a common judicial and political sphere, setting the rules that ensure the daily functioning of democratic life and the relations between groups and individuals’. As a body of regulation, arbitration and delimitation it produces norms, as well as discourses on these norms. The analysis of the legislator’s debates (not on the rhetorical level, but on that of the content and ideas employed), in regard to social and archival elements allowing for an understanding of the impact of the developed policies, offers an insight into the changes at play. When it began to legislate on matters of social policy at the end of the nineteenth century, the state (in Switzerland as in other European countries) intervened in a field which up to then had essentially been reserved for private charity and the church. Because of that, the new legislation marked a change in the conception of social assistance: it was no longer a private matter. It was a time of intense exchanges in the social laboratories of the new century: Bismarckian social insurance was an alternative to charitable assistance, allowing for mediation between antagonistic components of the social body. While such social insurance did not appear in Switzerland at that time, debates about it often served as a canvas for parliamentary interventions on welfare, which shows that the alternative was known. Thus, for example, the authorities in the canton of Vaud, during discussion related to the 1888 Loi sur l’assistance des pauvres et les enfants malheureux et abandonnés (Act on Welfare for the Poor and Abandoned and


Genèses | 2006

Les destinataires de l'assistance publique. L'exemple de deux cantons suisses vers 1890

Jean-Pierre Tabin; Arnaud Frauenfelder; Carola Togni; Véréna Keller

En legiferant en matiere d’assistance sociale, l’Etat fixe des regles et de cette maniere norme en meme temps qu’il produit des statuts et des comportements. Le pauvre qui demande assistance doit non seulement posseder un statut qui officialise son appartenance au cercle des destinataires potentiels, mais, en plus, il est tenu d’etre dans une des situations ciblees par l’assistance publique. Mais quels sont les statuts et les situations reconnus ? Cet article tente de repondre a cette question sur la base des debats autour de la legislation d’assistance dans deux cantons de Suisse romande vers 1890.


Archive | 2004

Le « tourisme social » : mythe et réalité. L'exemple de la Suisse latine

Jean-Pierre Tabin; Véréna Keller; Kathrin Hofmann; Sophie Rodari; Anne-Lise Du Pasquier; René Knüsel


Journal of Comparative Social Work | 2015

The Normative Impact of Unemployment Insurance: A European Perspective

Jean-Pierre Tabin; Raluca Enescu


Deviance Et Societe | 2002

Les nouvelles régulations politiques de la question sociale : illustrations en Suisse d'un phénomène « global »

Jean-Pierre Tabin


European Journal of Social Work | 2015

Social work – social development. Vol. I: Human rights and social equality: challenges for social work/Social work – social development. Vol. II: Environmental change and sustainable development/Social work – social development. Vol. III: Global social transformation: the role of social workers

Jean-Pierre Tabin


European Journal of Social Work | 2014

Building the client's relational base: a multidisciplinary handbook

Jean-Pierre Tabin

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Carola Togni

University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland

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Véréna Keller

University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland

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Laurence Ossipow

University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland

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Isabelle Csupor

École Normale Supérieure

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