Michael Lavalette

‘Active Citizens’ or ‘Irresponsible Truants’? School Student Strikes against the War

This article looks at the development of citizenship education within schools and assesses its impact on the school strike wave against the war on Iraq that took place during February and March 2003, in part utilizing interview material drawn from active strikers. Although citizenship, as outlined in the Crick Report, should have welcomed young people’s active engagement with the political process, the overwhelming response of the educational establishment was to castigate and punish those who took part in the strikes. In conclusion, the article argues that the actuality of citizenship classes focuses on individual aspects of responsibility and moral education and had little influence on the engaged ‘active citizens’ who demonstrated against war by walking out of their schools.

Democratic language and neo-liberal practice The problem with civil society

English Social workers need to be wary of an uncritical acceptance of the concept of civil society. Despite its democratic veneer it is being utilized by international financial institutions and governments as a cover for privatizing health and welfare services both in the South and in much of the North. French Les travailleurs sociaux doivent se montrer prudents envers l’acception non critique de la notion de socié té civile. En dé pit de son vernis dé mocratique, ce terme est en fait utilisé par les institutions financiè res internationales et les gouvernements pour masquer la ré alité de la privatisation des services de santé et d’aide sociale dans les pays du Sud ainsi que dans bon nombre de pays du Nord. Spanish Trabajo social necesita ser cauto de la aceptació n sin criticismo del concepto de sociedad civil. A pesar de su apariencia democrá tica el concepto ha sido utilizado por instituciones financieras internacionales y gobiernos para ocultar la privatizació n de salud y servicios sociales tanto en el sur como en el norte.

Social work, postmodernism, and marxism

Abstract This article sets out to question two dominant trends in social work theorizing: ‘pure postmodernism and those attempts to revitalize emancipatory social work by combining elements of postmodernism with elements of a broadly Althusserian Marxism. The article starts by addressing the foundations of postmodern theorizing in social work, rejecting its claims for emancipatory theory. It proceeds to look at the concern with language and identity within this paradigm and suggests that, as formulated, neither offers an adequate understanding of the material hardship and oppressions facing clients. Writing from a classical Marxist perspective, the authors argue that the influence of postmodernism is a backward step in trying to understand the poverty, oppression, and inequality facing the majority of social work clients.

The emerging problem of child labour

’Child labour’ is not normally a term associated with the experience of childhood in modem Britain. Rather, it is something which is thought to be a phenomenon of purely historical interest or to be a feature of the Newly Industrialising Countries (NICs). Yet over the last year there has been an increasing interest in the issue of child labour in contemporary Britain. There have been a number of reasons for this.

Undermining the 'north-south divide'? Fighting the poll tax in Scotland, England and Wales

totally misplaced a few days later when on March 31, 45,000 marched in Glasgow against one year of the poll tax and 200,000 demonstrated in London against the implementation of the tax. The marches also saw the most violent outbursts the poll tax has yet caused. Although there was no violence in Glasgow both Cheltenham and London saw violent clashes between protesters and the police. We write this article amidst the political outcry which followed the poll tax ’riot’ in central London on Saturday March 31. This demonstration was followed up three days later by another demonstration in London against the poll tax, this time sponsored by the TUC and Labour Party. The TUC lobby of parliament on Tuesday April 3, was billed as probably the first ’all-ticket’ demonstration in British labour history. On this day the government announced that 20 (now 2 I ) Labour controlled local authorities in England were to be ’poll-capped’ for setting ’excessively high’ poll tax

Casual Lives?: The social effects of work casualization and the lock out on the Liverpool docks

not apply. Taken aback, the dockers decided to discuss the situation with their shop stewards, who had been instructed that day to work at another dock within the Merseyside complex. As the working day finished, the men left the ship and went to the canteen to wait for the stewards. As the first group of five dockers arrived they were met by the Managing Director of the Torside Company, who sacked them for leaving the ship. Bewildered they wandered out to meet the others and tell them what had happened. When they in turn went into the can-

The Scottish state and the criminalisation of football fans

Football crowds have been viewed as a problematic presence from the start of the modern game. ‘Uncontrolled’ working class fans have a contradictory position within football. They help create the atmosphere at matches, pay to enter the grounds and are a source of commercial exploitation but also potentially threaten to disrupt matches or clash with rivals both in and around grounds. For the state, and for the clubs, fans represent a problem of ‘law and order’. How can and should fans be moved about? How can the (particularly) young fans be controlled?

Marx: alienation, commodity fetishism and the world of contemporary social work

This paper offers an outline of Marx’s concept of alienation and his later related concept of commodity fetishism. Building on previously published work on this topic, we argue that the lack of control over our lives and creative activity which for Marx defined alienation and which he saw as being more extreme under capitalism than under any previous mode of production has actually intensified during the era of neoliberalism. Through an examination of the areas of work, sexuality and health we examine the terrible toll that that lack of control and greatly increased commodification is having on our health and relationships. Finally we point to some ways in which an understanding of alienation can contribute to a radical social work theory and practice.

Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist, Anti-imperialist … and Social Worker?

Sylvia Pankhurst was a well-known Suffragette from the period prior to World War 1. It is less well-know that she was also a socialist activist, an anti-racist and a founding member of the British Communist Party. But can we consider her a social worker? This piece looks at Sylvias early life and argues that her radical welfare interventions between 1912 and 1917 mark her out as a pioneer of radical social work interventions

Children’s Rights or Employers’ Rights?

Estimating the extent of child labour has never been an easy task. For obvious reasons, governments in countries characterised by high levels of child labour are notoriously reluctant to seek reliable data, or to publish it where it does exist. Doing so would be to advertise their failure to abide by international child labour conventions, which many have ratified but, for whatever reasons, have failed to enforce. Also, by its nature, much child labour, particularly its more hazardous and exploitative variants — such as child prostitution, child armed combatants, trafficked children — is illegal, ‘hidden’ and difficult to quantify.