Martine Noordegraaf

Future Talk: Discussing Hypothetical Situations with Prospective Adoptive Parents

The objective of this study is to contribute towards understanding how welfare and justice discourses become apparent in institutional conversations where social workers involved in child protection have dual professional identities: that of helper and of gatekeeper. In this article we analyse a specific conversational practice in a particular child protection context: social workers asking questions about hypothetical situations in interviews with prospective adoptive parents. We show the nature of these questions in face-to-face interactions between social workers and prospective adoptive parents. In addition, we also analyse how the social workers manage to integrate aspects of testing the capabilities of the prospective adoptive parents while, at the same time, also helping them to become even better prepared parents. Using the method of conversation analysis makes it possible to analyse how the social workers are doing being a gatekeeper and/or helper without spelling that out.

Assessing and displaying suitability for adoptive parenthood: a conversation analysis of relationship questions and answers

Abstract In this study we examine how suitability for adoptive parenthood is assessed and displayed in interactions between social workers and prospective adoptive parents. In particular, we have analyzed relationship questions that are put to couples with and without an observation from the social worker. The answers are featured as very precise, stressing the positive aspects of the relationship but avoiding sainthood, and accompanied with examples that illustrate the stability of the relationship. We concluded that it is not only “what” couples answer but also “how” they answer that is taken into account in the assessment. That is why “being able to finish off each others sentences when giving an answer” and “having the ability to reflect on the relationship” is considered to be a protective factor for adoptive parenthood.

How Social Workers Start to Assess the Suitability of Prospective Adoptive Parents

This article takes a close look at the openings of 12 different Dutch adoption assessment sessions. In the first of a series of 4 adoption assessment sessions, social workers perform different actions that are analyzed in detail. The overall focus is on how contact and relationships are established in the openings, and how the social workers work toward the first topic. We found that adoption assessment is a non-self-evident occasion, and this is due to the potential risk of a negative assessment being made—it is oriented to as a delicate setting. In the openings, social workers take time to explain and justify the need for assessment and construct a relationship in which they claim entitlement to conduct an assessment, while also stressing cooperation with the prospective adoptive parent(s).

Relational ethics as enrichment of social justice: Applying elements of contextual therapy to social work

This article applies insights of the contextual theory and therapy, developed by Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, to the body of knowledge and practice of social work. Social work and contextual therapy share their focus on justice. In social work, it is mainly elaborated as social justice, placed in the discourse of politics and action. Contextual therapy however, elaborates justice as relational ethics; a fundamental element of human relationships, expressed in an innate tendency to care for each other. According to the contextual theory, evoking this reciprocal care enhances human wellbeing. Therefore, next to the focus on social justice on macro level, this article introduces a focus on relational justice on micro level. Relational justice aims at restoring and enhancing relationships within the family, with those who are relevant for the wellbeing of the family, and with the family’s context. A focus on relational justice encompasses a promising resource for human wellbeing, and a constructive framework for a contextual social work approach. Subsequently, applicable interventions from the contextual therapy, derived from a previously conducted qualitative research on the practice of contextual therapy, are tailored to the social work practice. Conclusively, this article states that justice within family relationships is an important element for successfully realizing of social justice.

Book review: Anja Riitta Lahikainen, Tiina Mälkiä and Katja Repo (eds), Media, Family Interaction and the Digitalization of ChildhoodLahikainenAnja RiittaMälkiäTiinaRepoKatja (eds), Media, Family Interaction and the Digitalization of Childhood, Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017; xii + 213 pp., USD120.00 (hbk).

6. Negotiation-based interaction. Chapters 8 (Sell), 10 (Feller), 13 (Weigand) and 21 (Haft) stress the view that the dialogic interaction is a negotiation-based process. By this, contributors mean that the core task of speakers in dialogues is to negotiate their understanding towards the same entity or event in reality by taking their own stances, demonstrating the type and degree of cooperation between speakers. Speakers’ encoding and decoding of the objective world manifest the interaction and integration of contextual elementals of a dialogue, implying the process of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of utterance meaning in the communication.

Book review: Sara Keel, Socialization: Parent–Child Interaction in Everyday Life

This book is the newest addition to the Routledge series ‘Directions in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis’, which is dedicated to publishing the latest work on the study of human conduct and aptitudes, the (re)production of social orderliness and the methods and aspirations of the social sciences. Keel’s contribution fits perfectly with this aim, analysing interactions between parents and (young) children in the light of socialization theory.