The Emotional Politics of Social Work and Child Protection

Warner, Joanne, Joanne Warner

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781447318422
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781447318460
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Political Propaganda
• Index: Social Sciences

For several decades, social work and child protection systems have been subject to accelerating cycles of crisis and reform, with each crisis involving intense media and political scrutiny. In understanding the nature and causes of this cycle, little attention has been paid to the importance of collective emotions.

Using a range of cases from the UK, and also considering cases from the Netherlands, the US and New Zealand, this book introduces the concept of emotional politics. It shows how collective emotions, such as anger, shame, fear and disgust, are central to constructions of risk and blame, and are generated and reflected by official documents, politicians and the media. The book considers strategies for challenging these 'emotional politics', including identifying models for a more politically engaged stance for the social work profession.

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Table of contents

• Cover page
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Notes on the author
• Acknowledgements
• one: Introducing emotional politics
• two: ‘Heads must roll’? The politics of national anger and the press
• three: Hidden in plain sight: poverty and the politics of disgust
• four: From crisis to reform: the emotional politics of child rescue and commemoration
• five: Risk, respectability and the emotional politics of class
• six: The emotionality of official documents: the serious case review as an active text
• seven: Comparative perspectives: cultures of difference and convergence
• eight: Towards a new emotional politics of social work and child protection
• Appendix
• References