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Full-Text Articles in Social Work

Municipal Diverging From “Bureaucracy:” A Case Study Of Organizational Image In Housing Services, Shawn T. Flanigan Ph.D. Jun 2019

Municipal Diverging From “Bureaucracy:” A Case Study Of Organizational Image In Housing Services, Shawn T. Flanigan Ph.D.

Journal of Public Management & Social Policy

This article presents a case study of efforts of a workforce development unit within a local public housing authority to recraft its image as separate from the larger housing authority, in order to better attract participants to its optional supportive services. Using qualitative interview data with Section 8 voucher recipients and public housing authority staff, and descriptive quantitative data from a larger dataset, and drawing on theories of street-level bureaucracies and agency-client interactions, the case study finds that service recipients perceive the housing authority as a largely compliance-oriented organization that is overly bureaucratic, excessively regulating of private spheres of family …


"All The Flowers May Die, But The Thistles Will Live": Sex Trafficking Through The Eyes Of A Police Officer-Researcher, Robert Chrismas Feb 2019

"All The Flowers May Die, But The Thistles Will Live": Sex Trafficking Through The Eyes Of A Police Officer-Researcher, Robert Chrismas

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article is a description of the research I conducted on the sex industry in Manitoba, Canada, from 2016-2017. I interviewed 61 people, of which six were political leaders, 23 were social workers, 24 were police officers, and eight were sex industry survivors. About half of the practitioners I interviewed are also sex industry survivors. As a veteran police officer with 35 years of law enforcement experience, my research journey was unique from conducting the interviews to reporting my findings. These are some of my experiences and the lessons I learned about gathering and sharing the stories of sex industry …


Myth Or Reality? Exploring Intergenerational Social Assistance Participation In Ontario, Canada, Tracy A. Smith-Carrier, Amber Gazso, Stephanie Baker Collins, Carrie Smith Jan 2019

Myth Or Reality? Exploring Intergenerational Social Assistance Participation In Ontario, Canada, Tracy A. Smith-Carrier, Amber Gazso, Stephanie Baker Collins, Carrie Smith

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Is there an intergenerational causal link in social assistance (SA) participation? There is a dearth of research addressing this question, yet the discourse of ‘welfare dependency’ is hegemonic. The limited research that does attempt to tease out a causal link in intergenerational SA participation remains equivocal. Qualitative research is largely absent in welfare scholarship; research that might provide a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics underlying SA receipt. We employ an inductive qualitative analysis, using procedures from grounded theory, to understand SA participants’ experiences and perspectives on intergenerational SA usage. We find that the two causal mechanisms underlying intergenerational SA …


Social Construction, Knowledge Utilization, And The Politics Of Poverty: A Case Study Of Washington State’S General Assistance Reform, Yu-Ling Chang Jan 2019

Social Construction, Knowledge Utilization, And The Politics Of Poverty: A Case Study Of Washington State’S General Assistance Reform, Yu-Ling Chang

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper addresses a gap in welfare reform literature by investigating the social constructions of poor people in state policymaking within the context of diminishing General Assistance (GA) after the Great Recession. Using Social Construction and Policy Design Theoryand thematic content analysis of Washington State’s legislative archives, I found that the negative constructions of GA recipients as deviants with undesired psychological and behavioral problems were associated with the reform direction toward a regulated, punitive model. These constructions, intersecting with the ideologies of personal responsibility and work ethic, contribute to the dismantling of the social safety net for the Washington’s poorest …