Not seeing the elephant in the room: How policy discourses shape frontline work with child poverty

Abstract

Based on strong discourses of individualization, active welfare reforms in Denmark have changed the financial security of vulnerable families and increased numbers of children are growing up in poverty. This study investigates how poverty is reflected in frontline workers' categorizations of children considered vulnerable. Empirically, the study draws on qualitative group interviews with 56 informants and descriptive results from two surveys with almost 2000 respondents each. Findings are analysed using Foucault's theory of disciplinary power. The findings give an important insight as to how policy discourse influences and steers the moral and professional judgement in the frontline and why social work with vulnerable clients takes on particular forms. The results show that frontline workers implement and reproduce an individualised discourse found in recent social policy reforms while overlooking societal structures defining the individual's possibilities. In particular, poverty is left unrecognised, as categorizations of ‘normal’ versus ‘vulnerable’ revolve around family relations and perception of personal shortcomings of the parents.

Searching for “the usual suspects”: The role of discretion and target group constructions in the frontline of policy implementation

“…Figure 3 gives a strong indication that socially marginalized families are the primary focus, also when doing preventive social work and early detection. This finding is very much in line with the results from the qualitative interviews that also revealed a strong focus on marginalized families and on children already known to the social administration (Nørup & Jacobsen, 2021).…”

“…Figure 3 gives a strong indication that socially marginalized families are the primary focus, also when doing preventive social work and early detection. This finding is very much in line with the results from the qualitative interviews that also revealed a strong focus on marginalized families and on children already known to the social administration (Nørup & Jacobsen, 2021). Thus, even though the initial findings show a strong support for the new policy and an equal focus on all three layers of prevention, when it comes to the operationalization of what should be prevented and who should be targeted, the results show a strong and uniform focus on tertiary prevention.…”

“…Several studies have shown how frontline workers categorize their clients by dividing them into different categories such as deviants, dependents or deserving (Hupe & Hill, 2007; Jilke & Tummers, 2018; McGann et al, 2020; Musheno & Maynard‐Moody, 2003; Schneider & Ingram, 1993; Schram et al, 2009) or in the case of vulnerable children; normal, worrying or at risk (Harrits & Møller, 2013; Nørup & Jacobsen, 2021). Our findings expand the frontline workers' role as policymakers even further.…”

“…In our analysis, the item measuring financial hardship as a risk factor does not load sufficiently enough on the underlying "Socially marginalized families" factor, and is therefore not included in the latent variable, but placed as a manifest variable in the models. Recent Scandinavian qualitative studies also point to the fact, that frontline workers do not consider financial hardship a social problem that should be addressed in the same way as other traditional social problems associated with marginalized families (Nørup & Jacobsen, 2021).…”