RESEARCH UNDERWAY

"Sink or swim": understanding family service provision with a cultural context

Doctoral research

University of Sydney

PhD candidate: Kirsty Thompson

Overview

This study sought to understand how features in the practice context itself shape the practice of family service provision. Framed within the work of Jerome Bruner, it examines family service provision as a cultural practice.

The research questions addressed the constructs of cultural narrative, agency and identity. The first question involved identifying and exploring the cultural narrative of family service provision, as perceived by family service providers, including its transmission and generation within the historical and prevailing institutional narratives. The second question examined the models of agency and identity in family service provision, exploring the way they are informed by, and indeed inform that practice context.

The study employed a narrative approach and utilized qualitative techniques in document review and focus groups and individual interviews with thirty-two family service providers.

Findings reveal that the current cultural narrative of family service provision consists of a number of themes that identify the nature and value of family service provision and which by their transmission, direct family service providers towards what is expected of them in practice. Ultimately, the perception of conflicting expectations and possibilities defined the practice context and led to practice being described as a "sink or swim" situation. Family service providers engaged in a common social process through which they sought to manage their contested practice setting.

Four socio-cultural level narratives emerged which describe variations in the patterns of agency and identity of family service providers across this process: "Swimming across the current;" "swimming against the current;" "go with the flow" and "drowning." The findings are discussed and recommendations made in relation to the consideration of context in education, policy, practice and research.

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