In the Danish employment system social workers have the important institutional task of trying to establish a labour market perspective for each cash benefit recipient, even when the client has other problems in addition to unemployment. The client’s ‘capacity for work’ must be documented and described. In this article we examine the dilemmas that occur in the interaction between clients and social workers. We show how clients try to evade the demands of labour market related identities in their negotiations with social workers. Our analysis focuses on two cases, selected from a vast qualitative material, that represent cases in which the client’s dissatisfaction becomes apparent. The results indicate that clients are active participants who resist, protest against and sometimes even avoid the identities offered by the employment system.
Healthy and active ageing has become an ideal in Western societies. In the Nordic countries, this ideal has been supported through a policy of help to self‐help in elder care since the 1980s. However, reforms inspired by New Public Management (NPM) have introduced a new policy principle of consumer‐oriented service that stresses the wishes and priorities of older people. We have studied how these two principles are applied by care workers in Denmark. Is one principle or logic replacing the other, or do they coexist? Do they create tensions between professional knowledge and the autonomy of older people? Using neo‐institutional theory and feminist care theory, we analysed the articulation of the two policy principles in interviews and their logics in observations in four local authorities. We conclude that help to self‐help is the dominant principle, that it is deeply entrenched in the identity of the professional care worker and that it coexists with consumer‐oriented service and without major tensions in the logics identified in their practices.
Complaints of insomnia were inquired about in a questionnaire survey of 6 268 persons (2 801 men, 3 467 women, mean age 50.5 years, range 45-57 years) in 40 different occupational groups. Among bus drivers 18.9 % complained of having rather or very much difficulty falling asleep. Among female cleaners, male teachers, male directors, and male physicians the respective percentages were 18.8, 18.0, 3.7, and 4.9. Disturbed nocturnal sleep was complained of the most often by male laborers (28.1 % waking up at least three times a night), female cleaners (26.6 %) and female hospital aides (26.4 %). Disturbed nocturnal sleep was rare among male physicians (1.6 %), male directors (7.4 %), female head nurses (8.9 To), and female social workers (9.4 %). Complaints of waking up too early in the morning were the most common among female laborers (13.2 % often or always), male construction workers (9.1 %), and female cleaners (8.4 To). They were rare among male physicians (1.6 %), male directors (1.8 Yo), nurses in outpatient wards (1.2 Yo), and female bathers (2.0 '70). Sleeping pills were used the most frequently by male gardeners (7.1 % were frequent or habitual users), female social office workers (5.8 %), and male construction workers (5.4 %). Some aspects of work which could explain the differences are discussed.
In this article, we explore how the institutional category 'unemployed' is specified in everyday practice when implementing an active employment policy. We illustrate the process of categorisation as an aspect of the in situ positioning and self-representation of the client by examining one social worker-client talk: how the category unemployed is shaped and 'translated' when the client negotiates her situation with the social worker. Two types of category revisions are identified. First, the employability of the client, rather than her unemployment situation, is the issue under negotiation. Second, the client introduces new categories that are compatible with the demands of the employment system. She contributes by drawing on discursive resources related to the category of 'active job seeker' but does this with an own agenda of looking for a suitable job. The analysis elucidates the client's contribution to institutional practice and discusses constitutive and constituted elements of categorisation.
English This article focuses on the use of the vignette method in social worker teams and thereby collective or shared aspects of practice, which cannot be reached through a presentation of a vignette separately to the individual members of the team. A video vignette case was presented to four social worker teams in connection with a focus group session in order to compare the teams’ assessment of the client. The negotiations in the focus groups accentuate how teams interpret the same client in different ways and actualize questions as to where these differences stem from and what they are related to. The results support two methodological conclusions that we discuss in the article: that it is beneficial to use vignette in a multi-method design when comparing teams and that a focus group context is an advantage, when the characteristics of the team should be accentuated, while individual differences become secondary. Danish Denne artikel sætter fokus påbrug af vignettemetoden i socialarbejderteam og dermed kollektive aspekter af praksis, der ikke kan studeres ved at præsentere en vignette separat for enkelte medlemmer af et team. En videovignettesamtale mellem socialarbejder og klient blev præsenteret for fire socialarbejderteam i forbindelse med et fokusgruppeinterview med henblik påat sammenligne teamenes vurderinger af klienten. Forhandlingerne i fokusgrupperne synliggjorde, at teamene fortolker den samme klient forskelligt og førte til spørgsmål om, hvor disse forskelle stammer fra og hvad de er relateret til. Resultaterne understøtter to metodologiske konklusioner, som vi diskuterer i artiklen. For det første er det gavnligt at bruge videovignettemetoden i et multimetodedesign, når sigtet er at sammenligne teamenes vurderinger. For det andet er fokusgruppemetoden en fordel, når interessen er rettet mod at studere karakteristika ved teamene i stedet for individuelle forskelle.
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