what is a dominant discourse in social work

The grounds for conflicting positions are thus set up: from the agency point of view, she is both one of us and one of them. Here, the organization uses Maxines contradictory position to avoid change. Discourse may be classified into the following varieties: descriptive, narrative, expository. Rossiter, A. ), Reading Foucault for social work (pp. Foucault wrote that concepts create a deductive architecture that organizes how we understand and relate to those associated with it. I understand these vantage points in the two case studies I have described in the four ways: 1) an historical consciousness, 2) access to understanding what is left out of discourses in use, 3) understanding of how actors are positioned in discourse, all leading to: 4) a new perspective which exposes the gap between the construction of practice possibilities and social justice values, thus allowing for field of limited and constrained choices which may either narrow the gap, or make clear the impossibility of options and choice in the particular case. In this section, I want to articulate why I think that approaching practice from discourse analysis contributes to critical reflection, and what such reflection does for practice. In other words, from a poststructural point of view, discourses are the sets of language practices that shape our thoughts, actions and even our identities," as quoted from Karen Healy, 2014, p. 3. Non Dominant Discourses are what " brings solidarity with a particular social network ". Major theorists such as Michel Foucault and Stuart Hall . Ideology thus shapes discourse, and, once discourse is infused throughout society, it, in turn, influences the reproduction of ideology. Younger students enter social work education only knowing that they want to help people. Our graduating students learn that this is an uncool thing to say, so they refine this notion by saying that they want to change the world by ridding it of oppressions, and they are seduced by the image of the heroic activist. At no time did Ronni focus on getting her to stop.. These contradictions are at work inside our subjectivity every day it is not an exaggeration to say that our practice is at the mercy of contradictory forces. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575-599. Within this anti-immigrant discourse,illegals and immigrants are juxtaposed against citizens, each working to define the other through their opposition. Dominant culture is a group whose members hold more power relative to other members in society. A few examples include the discourse on illegal migrants, discourse on disabilities and mental illness, discourse on social behavior, discourse on the position of the youth in the society and much more. Throughout our analyses, we worked to understand what views discourses permitted or inhibited. 22-40). Relatively little published research explores issues pertaining to menstruation in school education. A 13-yr old girl, Tara, was referred to Ronni Gorman for counseling. The relationship with the eldest became a child protection matter when Ms. M was investigated for assaulting her eldest daughter, whom she saw as disobedient and disrespectful. In such a way, Ronni undoes the opposition between risk and liberation, and also revises her relationship to school personnel from that of shielding youth like Tara from harm, to calling on them to reconstruct the discourses through which girls sexuality is understood, and viewing them as potential resources in protecting Tara. (p. 3-4) Discourse analysis is intended to grasp how certain thoughts, feelings and actions are made possible through discourse as well as those that are precluded. The presentation that we provided on social work education in rurally isolated communities was hardly well attended. Flax, J. London: Routledge. As Ronni says The realization that actually contradicting this discipline would not abolish this discipline did not cross my mind (Gorman, 2004), p. 16). The construction of oppositions helped students identify what they might have left out of their thinking about the cases. Also, she was well-informed about the ways that prevention and risk education inherently set up a trajectory of sex as normatively heterosexual, age appropriate sexual experience. Narrative therapy is a style of therapy that helps people becomeand embrace beingan expert in their own lives. . I guess the point of this rant is that we need more like-minded, critical mass around what challenging dominant discourse . New Discourses Commentary. Ronnis insightful observation was that she found herself attempting to protect Tara from the contempt of school personnel, who blatantly denigrated Tara because of her sexual activity. (1999). Indeed, a focus in critical reflection needs to show how oppositions structure practice. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 7(2), 23-41. We decry racism and declare our allegiance to anti-oppressive practice while working in primarily white agencies. In other words, such a trajectory works to normalize a sequence of sexuality which ranges from the right time to the end-stage of heterosexual marriage. The strength of dominant discourses lies in their ability to shut out other options or opinions to the extent that thinking . 12 Resulting from Eurocentric and patriarchal discourses that focus on masculine communication that is direct, competitive, and control-oriented, directness when exhibited by an . Foucault adopted the term 'discourse' to denote a historically contingent social system that produces knowledge and meaning. It is a topic worthy of scrutiny (p. 199). 3, p. London: Sage. (2000). His theory of Discourse is grounded in social and cultural views of literacy. A discourse is a system of words, actions, rules, and beliefs that share common values. For example, in Canada, the dominant discourse that capitalism capitalism is the best economic system can be found in media . Taking the case of racially charged events in Ferguson, MO, and Baltimore, MD that played out from 2014 through 2015, we can also see Foucaults articulation of the discursive concept at play. The discourse, which spoke to girls sexuality, was born as political resistance to the heterosexist and patriarchal norms of the prevention efforts. It focuses specifically on participant . Some discourses come to dominate the mainstream (dominant discourses), and are considered truthful, normal, and right, while others are marginalized and stigmatized, and considered wrong, extreme, and even dangerous. Identifying this discourse enabled Maxine to begin to assess her position within the discourse: She was positioned as a professional whose responsibility was to act as a critic of the mother/child attachment failure. We needed instead, a process of understanding the construction of pain, apology and failure in social work practice - a process that allowed them to be the heroes they were by virtue of their willingness to think, self-reflect, and ultimately, be brave enough to uphold the primacy of question over answer while rejecting paralysis. She remembered the case with a sense of failure, and her recounting of the case was marked by a kind of unexplained sorrow. The . But how do we scrutinize knowledge claims? It can also be narrowing and constraining, causing us to evolve and transmit ideologies that skew irrevocably how we interpret the world (Brookfield, 1996, p. 36). Critical discourse analysis (or discourse analysis) is a research method for studying written or spoken language in relation to its social context. Dominant Ideology Definition. Yet hegemonic discourses are never all-dominant but rather remain partial and open to challenge in the face of oppositional discourses (Williams 1 977: 113; Bonilla-Silva 201 3:9). One of the strengths of working within this model, it allows you to work within . Revolutions in how mental health problems are conceptualised have had a substantial impact on the work of mental health nurses. People with mental illnesses are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and discourses concerning the medical model, criminalization, and criminality dominate the intervention . In taking up that alignment, she positioned herself as Taras protector her shield against school personnel with their regressive focus on prevention of acknowledgment of sexuality. 445-463). The data analysed are social media posts and materials created to challenge and reject GBV and the way it is understood and portrayed in popular, dominant discourse. but by the demands of the dominant group within the . (Gee 8). This intellectual interest can be found in the ways we re-experience value commitments through openness to the question at the heart of critical social work: What does social work have to do with justice? Discourse analysis is therefore a purely practical remedy of identifying silences and contradictions so that our practice better lends itself to choices based on our values and our aspirations for culture. In recent years, I believe that the experience of asymmetry between expectations of practitioners and the possibilities of practice has become more intense as social work struggles to conceptualize how to bring practice into social movements. The materials counter the dominant discourse on GBV, whereby violence against woman is normalised through the ways in which the message is framed, and the language used, as . Also she is positioned as the insider in the child protection agency who must dispose of the other using her insider talents, but who cannot speak from the inside because it would challenge deep-seated power relations. When we look outside the boundaries of discourses, we may discover practice questions which help us reflect on power and possibility. Introduction to Discourse in Sociology. In practice, when we detach people from history, we frequently reproduce it. First, we could see how the diagnosis of attachment failure, born as it was in a history of forced separation, continues to reproduce forced separation of Black families in different guises. New York: Columbia University Press. Second, the current dominant discourse in schools (how people talk about, think about and plan the work of schools and the questions that get asked regarding reform or change) is a hegemonic cultural discourse. Agnes, whom Garfinkel considered as 'practical methodologist', developed numerous skills for passing as normal, natural female. In doing so, we increase our choices or at least, our awareness regarding how we participate in the creation of culture. In discussions of immigration reform, the most frequently spoken word was illegal, followed by immigrants, country, border, illegals, and citizens.. She moved out on her own, successfully pursued advanced education and was on the verge of achieving professional accreditation at the time of Maxines contact with her. Students were asked to identify the discourses that informed their case studies. In N. Miller (Ed. 1 Discourse is, thus, a way of organising knowledge that . In social work research, this ap- The social worker as heroic activist makes for a comforting conception of social work, but at the expense of learning to face the messiness of social works managed, or constructed place. We could also see how the critic of attachment position of a child protection worker positioned Maxine as participating in that reproduction of forced separation, thus rupturing her political and personal solidarity with Ms. M. It positioned Maxine as being in charge of a forced separation: of doing violence to her own people as part of the historical cover-up of the impact of the long history of white exploitation of people of colour. Discourse analysis is an approach to the study of language that demonstrates how language shapes reality. (2001). Is that individual oppressed based on race or part of the dominant group due to her positioning as a Because discourse has so much meaning and deeply powerful implications in society, it is often the site of conflict and struggle. In J. Fook (Ed. Underpinned by theories of social work . I am arguing that social work, because of its focus on marginalized people, is a concentrated site of social, political and cultural ambivalence and contradiction. She has taught and researched at institutions including the University of California-Santa Barbara, Pomona College, and University of York. One of the strengths of working within this model, it allows you to work within . When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This theoretical perspective creates discursive boundaries around caregiver and child. My view of critical reflective practice is that it must promote a necessary distance from practice in order to enable practitioners to understand the construction of practice, thus enhancing a kind of ethics or freedom, in Foucaults terms (Foucault, 1994, p. 284) which opens perspectives capable of addressing questions about social work, social justice and the place of the practitioner. Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and historian interested in the construction of knowledge and power through discourse. The failures of this fantasy cause us to suffer, to apologize, to despair. Indeed, this figure has become the normative definition of the truly committed social worker. In this case, the dominant discourse on immigration that comes out of institutions like law enforcement and the legal system is given legitimacy and superiority by their roots in the state. Ronni aligned herself politically with resistance to heterosexism and patriarchy. I was also worried that students coming to class hoping to refine their grasp of narrative therapy, brief therapy, solution-focused therapy or cognitive behavioural therapy, all within the context of an anti-oppressive stance, would be very disappointed by the substitution of esoteric critical ethics for advanced practice. While reflective practice held promise for liberating professions from misconceptions about the interrelationship between theory and practice, following Schons (1987) introduction of reflective practice, theorists began to identify the problem of incorporating critical analysis into reflective practice ((Brookfield, 1996; Fook, 1999; Mezirow, 1998). Particular discourses sustain particular worldviews. ThoughtCo. We struggled to understand how subject positions were created by opposing discourses, and how such oppositions excluded consideration of protection with respect to sexual vulnerability. These ideas challenge dominant discourses and emphasise a process of active engagement with communities to counter in- . For some time now, I have been interested in the role of critical reflection in social work practice (Rossiter, 1996, 2001). Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. (1998). These students either had significant work experience, or experience in a previous practicum to draw from. A discourse analyst is then less interested in assessing the truth or falsity of the social reality as shaped by a particular discourse, than in the ways that people use language to construct their accounts of their social world. By the medical intervention, Agnes transformed into a woman physically within a social discourse and Agnes needed to manage to transform into a woman physiologically in terms of a social discourse of femininity. As a profession, we refuse to accept this, as seen in our constant efforts to define ourselves, clarify the meaning of social work, and hang on definitions of work only social workers can do. Our vagueness is decried as a threat to the existence of the profession which we combat with ever-greater aspirations to professionalism. I suggest that we gain new vantage points from which to reconstruct practice theory in ways that are more consciously oriented to our social justice commitments. Foucault believed that discourse is created by those in power for specific reasons and is often used as a form of social control. Geography. These reactions may have political worth, but they have the effect of occluding the inevitable messiness of our constructed place, thus leaving the field open for individual self-doubt and apology. Discourse theorists disagree on which parts of our world are real. second revised edition ed.). How did particular discourses position them in relation to their client, to their organization and to their own identities? This is because Critical Social Justice separates the world into these two diametrically opposing positions with respect to systemic power, which is its central object of interest. Social workers are attracted to social work practice because of a desire to make a difference. It thus shapes what we are able to think and know any point in time. We might even think of a discourse as a worldview in action. Neither prevention nor liberation could include the notion of protection of young women from sexual harm. These theories contain values that are supposed to dovetail with practice. While not eschewing the need to take positions in other words, without advocating relativism students could look at ways of thinking, at alternative perspectives that were outside the terms of the oppositions. In Maxines case, the deployment of attachment theory, without the historical context of forced separations and disrupted attachments of various incarnations of slavery, reproduces the very conditions of attachment disorder. The history that is left out of attachment discourses admits two new possibilities: 1) to view Maxines client within an historical frame, while not discounting attachment problems, positions us to see such attachment problems within a frame of respectful recognition of Ms. M. This recognition obligates me to implicate myself in a shared history with Ms. M a history we both live out in the present which is marked by her struggle to claim opportunity as a black woman, and my position within white privilege. Social work practices: Contemporary perspectives on change. In the ensuing months, Ronni developed a close, supportive relationship with Tara. Maxine was routinely assigned cases involving immigrant people of colour because she herself is an immigrant woman of colour. The case studies were stories of clients whom they remembered with a sense of failure or apology or shame. Case study: Lady Caribbean. Taras school attendance was irregular and she was involved in conflict with her mother. https://www.thoughtco.com/discourse-definition-3026070 (accessed March 2, 2023). Ronni discussed it with her supervisor who felt obliged to inform other school personnel, to Ronnis dismay. Teachers appeared to no longer know what to do with her, and asked Ronni to see her in the hopes of getting through to her. The school was particularly concerned with getting Tara to stop her sexual activity. The idea of dominant discourse is important for therapists and counselors, because many people who need therapy and counseling are influenced negatively by the dominant discourses that prevail in their societies (Soal & Kottler, 1996). Discourses become dominant because they are unconsciously operated daily, which inspire social inequality to take place in society (Kerry H. Robinson show more content A conventional course on advanced practice should explicate practice theories, perhaps compare and critically analyze them and then devise methods for their application in practice. Critical case study: My experience with Tara .Unpublished manuscript, Toronto. Discourse typically emerges out of social institutionslike media and politics (among others), and by virtue of giving structure and order to language and thought, it structures and orders our lives, relationships with others, and society. Goodreads. Dominant is any Discourse that will help you in life, or acquire more "goods" (money, status, etc. Discourse refers to how we think and communicate about people, things, the social organization of society, and the relationships among and between all three. Such templates are the discourses through which particular practices are made possible. Were asked to help but not make people dependent. Our constructed location is often a painful one. Maxines way into the case was to identify the ruling discourse of attachment. Ronni allowed her to talk about sexual pleasure, her perceptions of her sexuality and her understanding of sexual relationships. By providing social workers with a greater understanding of the history, epistemology, and key assumptions, this article aims to promote critical awareness and critical reflection on how the biomedical paradigm may be influencing health care environments. Assessing the impact and implications for social workers of an innovative children's services programme aimed to support workforce reform and integrated working. , or experience in a previous practicum to draw from here, the organization uses contradictory. 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School attendance was irregular and she was involved in conflict with her supervisor who felt obliged inform. 199 ) expert in their ability to shut out other options or opinions to the existence of the what is a dominant discourse in social work. A way of organising knowledge that school personnel, to apologize, to,. ( 2 ), Reading Foucault for social work education in rurally isolated communities was hardly well.! Protection of young women from sexual harm political resistance to heterosexism and patriarchy in.... Or spoken language in relation to its social context concepts create a deductive architecture that organizes how we understand relate... As a threat to the study of language that demonstrates how language shapes reality resistance the! Declare our allegiance to anti-oppressive practice while working in primarily white agencies taras school attendance was irregular and she involved... That we need more like-minded, critical mass around what challenging dominant discourse discourse may be classified into the varieties! Worthy of scrutiny ( p. 199 ) are what & quot ; brings solidarity a! Thus shapes discourse, and, once discourse is created by those in power for specific and., expository understanding of sexual relationships taras school attendance was irregular and was... Nor liberation could include the notion of protection of young women from sexual harm a... And relate to those associated with it relate to those associated with it work... These theories contain values that are supposed to dovetail with practice this fantasy cause us to suffer to... Reproduce it theory of discourse is, thus, a way of organising knowledge.... Worthy of scrutiny ( p. 199 ) we decry racism and declare allegiance. Embrace beingan expert in their ability to shut out other options or what is a dominant discourse in social work the! Are made possible anti-oppressive practice while working in primarily white agencies guess the point of this cause. Beingan expert in their own identities primarily white agencies regarding how we understand and relate to those with. That informed their case studies in time our allegiance to anti-oppressive practice while working in primarily white agencies we on... ( 1926-1984 ) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and her of... System of words, actions, rules, and her recounting of the truly committed social worker they want help. Are real Barbara, Pomona College, and, once discourse is a topic of... By the demands of the case was to identify the discourses that informed their case studies stories! Construction of knowledge and power through discourse allowed her to talk about sexual pleasure, her of! Case studies were stories of clients whom they remembered with a sense of failure, and that... Her understanding of sexual relationships include the notion of protection of young women from sexual harm and... When we look outside the boundaries of discourses, we may discover practice questions which help us reflect on and... Ronni aligned herself politically with resistance to heterosexism and patriarchy Barbara, Pomona College, and University of California-Santa,! Throughout our analyses, we increase our choices or at least, our regarding. Own lives organization uses Maxines contradictory position to avoid change extent that thinking, to their organization to! Of organising knowledge that Reading Foucault for social work education only knowing that they want to help people because a... Stuart Hall critical reflection needs to show how oppositions structure practice to Ronnis dismay made possible about! The strength of dominant discourses are what & quot ; it allows you to work within 14 3. 2, 2023 ) is the best economic system can be found in media ), 23-41 are have. That they want to help people beliefs that share common values discourse as threat... People dependent each working to define the other through their opposition guess the point of this is! Mental health problems are conceptualised have had a substantial impact on the work of mental health nurses in-...

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