Institutional ethnography as a feminist approach for social work research

Kuronen, Marjo

doi:10.4324/9780429019999-9

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These experiences often have negative concrete consequences in women's lives, worsening their already vulnerable situations. However, both service users and professionals are embedded within the same relations of ruling (Smith 1987, 3) of the welfare service system and are part of its organisational order (Hicks 2009;Høgsbro 2017;Kuronen 2020). These include national policies and legislation, local procedures and organisational guidelines as well as practices structuring the welfare service provision.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By ruling relations, Smith (2004, 79) refers to the "internally coordinated complex of administrative, managerial, professional and discursive organization that regulates, organizes, governs and otherwise controls our societies". Institutional ethnography allows us to focus on the service system without losing the standpoint of women and the connection with their experiences as its service users (Kuronen 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Finnish welfare service system from the standpoint of women in vulnerable life situations

Virokannas¹,

Salovaara

Krok³

et al. 2020

Women, Vulnerabilities and Welfare Service Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this chapter, the authors analyse how the Finnish welfare service system, as it consists of different institutions and professionals, meets or fails to meet the needs of women in varying vulnerable life situations. The participants are women with severe substance abuse problems, women sentenced for committing a crime and poor lone mothers living on basic social benefits. The findings show that women's experiences of encounters with welfare professionals as well as their access to and use of the services share a number of characteristics. They described several barriers and problems related to the complexity of the service system. These included receiving only limited support for basic needs combined with the experiences of stigmatisation and the lack of trust in professionals and problems with face-to-face interaction with them. There is a moral stigma on these women, who have failed both as 'active citizens' and as 'decent women'. The welfare system does not recognise their specific needs as women. The guiding principle of the Finnish welfare service system is gender equality rather than a feminist or gendersensitive approach, and women-specific welfare services are rare.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finnish welfare service system from the standpoint of women in vulnerable life situations

Virokannas¹,

Salovaara

Krok³

et al. 2020

Women, Vulnerabilities and Welfare Service Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Within these settings, the worker does not operate independently. They are subject to regulations and work procedures and are part of broader work culture (Kuronen, 2020; Montigny, 2021; Perez‐Vaisvidovsky et al, 2022). However, the research tends to focus on caseworkers' characteristics, perspectives, and prejudices, as described above, rather than account for systemic and relational aspects.…”

Section: Gaps In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Family practice with fathers, social care, and capabilities

Perez‐Vaisvidovsky

2023

J of Family Theo & Revie

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aim of this article is to offer a novel theoretical perspective on family practitioners' engagement with fathers, through the lens of theories of social care and capabilities. The paper shows how research on low engagement of fathers in family‐ and child‐related social interventions has advanced along three main axes: (a) giving voice to fathers, (b) analyzing workers' perceptions, and (c) what works analysis of father‐oriented programs. I point to several problems in existing research: the absence of a unifying theoretical framework and the lack of sufficient attention to issues of relationality and agency. Theories of care and the capabilities approach are offered as a framework. Applying these theoretical frameworks to existing research on father engagement raises new questions and directions for further studies, mainly in two directions: first, relationality and the configurations of relations and power within families and within welfare systems, and second, the effect of agency on father engagement.

show abstract

“…Even though controlling aspects of the service system and professional practices cannot be avoided, those should not be hidden and denied either. However, a gendersensitive approach and understanding is still needed and is widely missing not only in social work but also in all welfare services, in some countries more than in others (Kuronen 2020), and services specifically for women are rather marginal in the service system, especially in public welfare services.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is important to improve and develop the practices in which professionals encounter women as service users. However, we should not blame individual practitioners who are part of the organisational order of the service system (Høgsbro 2017;Kuronen 2020). Instead, the focus should be on developing the welfare service system as a whole to better meet the needs of women in vulnerable life situations and in the most marginalised positions in societies.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%