Essay
Essay
The use of vignettes in an international comparative social work research: In-practice and on-practice reflections on practices
Abstract
The aim of this essay is to reflect on the strengths and challenges in qualitative comparative research on personal social services. The specific methodological approach that these reflections emerge from is the application of case vignettes in focus group interviews with social workers, working in different welfare regimes.
We describe the process of vignette construction and implementation in focus group interviews, and relate this to findings in a large international project with researchers and data from Chile, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Findings reveal that some globally spread professional norms prevail when they are applied locally, while others are more formed through welfare systems with strong contextual norms and legal and socio-economic barriers. The strength of the data retrieved from the study is that it makes it possible to separate information on actual practice from information on principles and system norms, thus providing in-practice and on-practice reflections.
Introduction
Introduction
Comparative studies of social policy have contributed for decades to our understanding of the differences between welfare systems, organizational structures and the roles and functions of street-level bureaucrats. These studies have helped us to identify the driving forces behind, and the consequences of, different welfare policies. Earlier on, a substantial part of social policies was usually more or less excluded from welfare state comparisons, namely the personal social services, including child protection work, social work with disadvantaged people and the social care of the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill and the treatment of people addicted to alcohol and substance abuse. Comparisons of these types of policies can be complicated for various reasons. Social services are often decentralized and vary between regions and communities, as well as varying within the mix of the public, non-governmental organizations and private for-profit service providers. Also, they are not easily quantifiable, since they consist of 'people working with people', rather than fixed sums of financial allowances or the number of beds. Additionally, the professionals in these areas often act with a relatively high degree of autonomy, so their personal judgment will affect the services and measures that are offered. Another obstacle in the comparisons of personal social services is that cultural norms affect how they are delimited, and how they incorporate different levels of coercive measures and restrictions in the lives of their service clients.
The aim of this essay is to reflect on the strengths and challenges in qualitative comparative research on personal social services, based on an international project on family complexity in social work. The specific methodological approach that these reflections emerge from is the application of case vignettes in focus group interviews with social workers, working in different welfare regimes. One of the strengths of the data retrieved from the study is that it makes it possible to separate information on actual practice from information on principles and system norms, thus providing in-practice and on-practice reflections.