Fairy Fictions, White Women As Helping Professionals
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Bell & Howell Information and teaming 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 USA "FAIRY FICTIONS": WHITE WOMEN AS HELPING PROFESSIONALS Kerstin Roger A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto @Copyright by Kerstin Roger (1998) National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1+1 of canaci, du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Welington Street 395. rue Wellingbn Ottawa ON KIA ON4 OîtawaON K1AON4 Canada Canada Your fi& Votre dlemwe Our Ne Nom référence The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant a la National Librq of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la fome de microfiche/£ihn, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantid extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may Se printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Abstract "Fairy Fictions": White Women as Helping Professionals The education and practice of the social service provider is shaped through an historical context that is deeply racialized. A number of pedagogical tools have attempted to provide the educator and leamer of the social senices with ways of addressing both personal identifications and professional practices. However, such pedagogical tools have not sufficiently addressed how deeply invested the identity of the white social service provider is in these historical and social constructions. This research employs both an historical stance as well as a psychoanalytic analysis in order to investigate the processes by which white female helping professionals are inscribed into a representation and discourse of respectability, into the nation Canada, and as social subjects within im perialism. This research has been conducted through open-ended interviews with fifteen white women who were being educated, or were already practicing, as private psychotherapists subsequent to previous work in more community based social service agencies. This shift from a more public site of helping to a more private one illustrates a significant hierarchy that occurs between women in the helping professions. The fifteen women's narratives illustrate this shift through ongoing discursive conflicts between 1) their desire to be seen as innocent and kind helping professionals, and 2) their desire to disrupt their own experiences of marginality and subordination through the acquisition of these new psychotherapeutic skills, and 3) the access they gain to the more respectable setting of the private psychotherapy office in the context of other helping professions. The method of analysis includes a discourse analysis that assumes language to be productive of social relations regarding race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability and other marginal identifications. The identifications that emerge throughout the women's narratives depend on personal and professional negotiations in a way that marks the presence of whiteness. In this way, the management of whiteness as one cornponent of their identification threads throughout the narratives and reflects a desire for respectability and status in the context of the helping professions. The thesis raises crucial questions about the education of the public and the private social service professional. As the thesis illustrates, how these women can be seen as 'white women' and become professional 'helpers' depends on a historically regulated desire for resistance against dominant frames yet is also marked by a desire for innocence within their participation in relations of power. This thesis suggests that the education of the social service provider must include an historical analysis of race in order to provide a more solid resistance to deeply ernbedded imperial frames. Acknowledgements This six year process would have been impossible without the guidance and challenges offered by my committee. Dr. Sherene Razack sparked a rigorous examination not only of the thesis question, but of my subject position as a white academic, and she helped me to bring clarity to the thesis. Thank-you for the continuous energy and cornmitment you gave this thesis. To Dr. Kari Dehli goes my gratitude for support, inspiration and insight. Dr. Kathleen Rockhill offered crucial theoretical challenges that will allow me to continue to expand my work beyond this project. Thank-you. I could not have done this degree without the discussions and support of Barbara Heron, Sheryl Nestel, Donna Jeffery, Mona Oikawa, Yvonne Smith, and from afar, Carol Schick. Thank you especially to Dr. E. Etororna for your continuously unconditional warm words; to Dr. T. Mueller for your help in the last week of editing; to Dr. L. Davis (not only) for six years of late night phone calls; thank you to those who have heard my papers, challenged my thoughts, helped to clarify conflicts, influenced my direction and sustained my inspiration. Thank you also to my colleagues in clinical practice (especially Joyce, Pat and Ross), my training supervisors, and my clients, al1 of whom have made rny life more meaningful, and without whom this thesis could not have happened. To my family: Mutti, Vati, Margerit, Lloyd, Lucas and Madeleine for everything. To Toronto friends: Carol, Joan, Jiro, Rennie, Susan for rnany essential evenings 'away'. To Winnipeg friends: Bev, Karen, Roberta for your quality of life. To Karim: who has inspired and challenged me throughout the iast six years. To Dr. D. Powers: who refused to give up. Lastly and never in the least: to my two cats, my black piano, and the Sun filled porch for sanity. Table of Contents .. Abstract ...................... .. ..................................................................................... II ... Acknowledgements .................................. .................................................... ii i Chapter One ......................................................................................................... Central Thesis Focus ..................................................................................... 3 How the Thesis Question Emerged................................................................ 3 My Professional Affiliation to the Interviewees .............................................. 9 General Methodology ................................................................................... 13 Grounded Theory ......................... .. ....................................................... 16 Relevance to Education and Research .............................. ... ...............*.....20 Demographics ............................................................................................. -23 The Researcher and Interviewer .................................................................. 27 Presenting the Theoretical Framework: Imperialisrn as a Frame ................. 31 Discourse and the Social Subject .................................................................35 A Definition of Race:An lnterlocking Construction ........................................39 W hy Whiteness? .......................................................................................... 45 Developing Respectability as a Marker of lmperialism .................................50 Chapter Two lntroducing Childhood Race Relations ........................................................ 58 The Historical Context of European lmperialism ..........................................60 Social and Moral Refom in Canada ............................................................ 63 The Interviews .............................................................................................. 68 The Canadian Family and the White