Re-Constructing Children’s Identities: Social work knowledge and practice in the assessment of children’s identities. Jane Thomas This thesis is submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Cardiff School of Social Sciences Cardiff University April 2010 UMI Number: U585453 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U585453 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. 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Acknowledgments I am very grateful for the academic guidance of my two supervisors Dr. Sally Holland and Professor Andrew Pithouse. Both offered me encouragement and support throughout the process and have provided me with constructive and at times challenging advice. My sincere gratitude is also extended to all the children, parents and carers and practitioners who took part in this study and who gave their time and their views so freely. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their patience and support. Summary This thesis is an exploration of how social work practitioners learn about and assess children’s identities within the Core Assessment process contained within the Framework for the Assessment o f Children in Need and their Families . A qualitative case study was conducted within one childcare team in a local authority in South Wales with participation from key stakeholders involved in the assessment process: practitioners, parents, carers, and the subject children. Thirteen social work practitioners and eleven parent/carers participated in semi-structured interviews that explored what they understood identity to mean together with their appraisals of assessments of children’s identities. Access to children was gained with consent of the parent/carers, with ten children taking part in a multi-method research strategy aimed at ascertaining children’s own accounts of their identities. Core Assessment documents and interview data were analysed utilising textual analysis. The data from the children has been reproduced, wherever possible, verbatim to ensure their voices are made prominent within the study. The key findings are that the assessment of children’s identities is an intricate, iterative task that poses practitioners with considerable practical and moral issues. Practitioners appear to utilise artistry in their management of the assessment task, commonly not making explicit the sources upon which their assessments of children’s identities are based. It would appear that practitioners prefer to present their assessments of children’s identities in the form of a narrative account, of which ownership of the details remains very much in the hands of the practitioner. Within this thesis subtle yet important differences between how practitioners, parents, carers and children construct identities is unearthed. It is posited that practitioners’ assessments of children’s identities do not reflect the individuality of the child and the reasons for this are explored. Also the adequacy of the Assessment Framework as a tool for assessing children’s identities is questioned. It is suggested that the Assessment Framework restricts practitioners’ assessments of children’s identities to little more than constrained accounts of any child : thus ignoring the uniqueness of the subject children. It is demonstrated that in using the Assessment Framework, practitioners often struggle to employ their own nuanced knowledge of the subject child. The complexities practitioners encounter in managing the task of assessment is considered. Some practitioners appear to invoke some sense of the fluidity and subjectivity of identities, suggesting an appreciation that there may be many different ways to perceive another. Other practitioners assert some singular and true identity that should be unearthed though the assessment process. More generally, the thesis reveals that practitioners typically construct children’s identities within the familiar framework of developmental and object-relational theories. The implications of this for children to be constructed as passive objects, whose identities are seen as more simplistic, less sophisticated than adult identities, is critically examined. The limits and potential of contemporary assessment practices with regard to children’s identities is also explored. It is suggested that greater inclusion of the views of parents, carers and subject children in assessment is needed if practitioners are to move away from a constrained re-construction of children’s identities and to present instead accounts that more authentically reflect the individual identities of the subject children. List of tables and figures. Page Table 1: Details of the practitioners 89 Table 2: Age of subject children at time of assessment 90 Table 3: Parent/carer interview composition 90 Table 4: Ages of child research participants 92 Table 5: Methods with children 104 Table 6: Photographs within photo diaries 228 Figure 1: The Assessment Framework Triangle 8 Figure 2: Case study data sources 81 Figure 3: The process of individualisation to standardisation 246 Figure 4: The Scottish Government’s ‘My World’ Assessment Triangle 251 i Contents Page Acknowledgements i Summary ii List of tables, figures and charts iii Chapter 1: Introduction Introducing the research focus 1 Locating the research 3 Social constructionism and social work 3 The research setting 6 Assessment procedures 6 Structure of the thesis 10 Chapter 2: Discursive interpretations on the meaning of children and childhoods Introduction 13 Childhood as a social construction 14 The re-telling of old tales: the thematic discourses of childhood 16 The romantic/innocent child discourse 17 The discourse of the Puritan child 21 The discourse oftabula rasa 26 The Children’s Rights discourse 29 The Quality of Life framework 32 Summary 35 Chapter 3: Theorising Identities Introduction 36 Theory in practice 36 Social work theory as a social construction 39 Applying identity theory to practice 41 Multiple identities? The concept of a multiplicity of selves 43 Incremental identities? The concept of a developing sense of self 46 Identity and social interaction 48 Object relations: The concept of relationality 51 Identities in attachment theory 54 The social organisation of identities: The concept of roles 56 Summary 59 Chapter 4: Contemporary themes in assessment practice Introduction 60 Practitioners’ use of the Assessment Framework 60 The ambiguity of ‘assessment’ 64 The use of knowledge and evidence in assessments 68 Inter-agency work in assessments 72 Assessment work with (and without) clients 75 Summary 77 Chapter 5: Methodology Introduction 78 Epistemological position of the enquiry 78 Choosing the research method 80 Gaining access and the sampling process 83 Ethical issues and confidentiality 86 Sample characteristics: The assessment documents 87 Sample characteristics: The practitioners 88 Sample characteristics: The subject children 89 Sample characteristics: Parents and carers 90 Gaining access to children and gaining children’s continued consent 91 Research and analysis methods 92 Textual analysis of the documents 93 Verbal constructions of identities - The interviews 97 Checking and clarifying: The use of questionnaires 100 Promoting Competence - Multi-methods with Children 100 Photo diaries 105 Who knows me best? 105 What I know about my social worker/what my social worker knows about me 105 A story about me 106 My ideal social worker 106 Interviews 106 Drawings 107 Re-presentation of views and feedback 108 Summary 109 Chapter 6: The artful construction of identities as an assessment task Introduction 111 The value of narrative 111 The use of information in assessments of identities 113 Locating sources of information 118 ‘Its about getting into the real environm ent Building on the mundane and intimate 120 The multiplicity of identities - Balancing different perspectives of the child 122 Theorising identities - Using theory in assessment 127 Constructing relational identities: Attachment as a proxy for identity 128 Socio-genealogical connectedness - the concept o f coherence 131