Concept Of Social Citizenship Research Articles

"It Makes You Feel Good to Help!": An Exploratory Study of the Experience of Peer Mentoring in Long-Term Care.

Social isolation and loneliness in long-term care settings are a growing concern. Drawing on concepts of social citizenship, we developed a peer mentoring program in which resident mentors and volunteers formed a team, met weekly for training, and paired up to visit isolated residents. In this article, we explore the experiences of the resident mentors. As part of a larger mixed-methods study conducted in 10 sites in Canada, we interviewed mentors (n = 48) and analysed data using inductive thematic analysis. We identified three inter-related themes: Helping others, helping ourselves described the personal benefits experienced through adopting a helping role; Building a bigger social world encapsulated new connections with those visited, and; Facing challenges, learning together described how mentors dealt with challenges as a team. Our findings suggest that a structured approach to mentoring benefits residents and helps them feel confident taking on a role supporting their isolated peers.

DEMENTIA WITHOUT BORDERS: BUILDING COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS TO REDUCE STIGMA AND FOSTER INCLUSION

BACKGROUND: The concept of social citizenship is gaining traction in the field of dementia studies, but as a practical tool to guide development of supports and services, it remains poorly understood. A one year project to promote collaboration between University of Washington in Seattle and University of British Columbia in Vancouver addressed this very question. Activities were undertaken so these communities could know each other better, with researchers, service providers and people with dementia connecting to share knowledge and expertise. PURPOSE: The project culminated with a public festival to put into practice and share some of what was learned over the year. METHODS: People with dementia and care partners helped plan “Dementia Without Borders”, held at an international park straddling the border between Seattle and Vancouver. 150 people came from the US and Canada, including many people with dementia, family members and friends. The day began with a community walk and gift exchange, followed by a meal and creative activities including poetry readings, music, an art exhibit, and quilt making. RESULTS: Evaluation was overwhelmingly positive with people expressing a sense of hope and belonging. For some, it was their first time to speak openly about having dementia, and meeting others in this space was a joy-filled experience. CONCLUSIONS: This project has leveraged the symbolic power of an international border to raise awareness of the importance of social connection for people with dementia. We further explore how the notion of “dementia without borders” extends theoretical and practical understanding of social citizenship.

Social citizenship and immigration: Employment, welfare, and effortfulness in online discourse concerning migration to the United Kingdom.

The emerging social psychology of citizenship has made use of qualitative methods to explore people’s understandings of issues such as polity membership and its associated rights and responsibilities. Whereas there is a burgeoning tradition of work on conceptions of polity membership, as well as on civil and political citizenship, relatively little work has thus far focussed on the concept of social citizenship – that aspect of citizenship which ensures that citizens have access to a basic income and standard of living. The present paper explores this in the context of debates over polity membership in relation to European Union (EU) immigration in the United Kingdom. Data collected from posts to an internet discussion forum are analysed using an approach informed by discursive and rhetorical psychologies. The findings indicate a range of arguments in relation to social citizenship that were used by posters to suggest that EU immigration would have a negative effect on the UK, and that such arguments frequently involved particular constructions of groups (e.g. ‘immigrants’, ‘Romanians’, ‘Eastern Europeans’) as likely to claim welfare benefits, or as low-skilled. However, pro-immigration arguments could equally involve outgroup derogation, but in these arguments posters constructed images of sub-groups of British citizens (e.g. ‘white working class Brits’) in order to suggest that immigration solved problems brought about due to the psychological deficiencies of these sub-groups. It is suggested that this constitutes a previously under-explored dimension of immigration discourse, and that renewed attention to social citizenship and welfare can bring these complexities into focus.

From Marshallian Citizenship to Corporate Citizenship: The Changing Nature of Citizenship in Neoliberal Britain

Whilst traditional definitions of citizenship, such as that of T.H. Marshall, have tended to emphasise the relationship between individuals and the State, over the past twenty years or so a new definition of citizenship has become popular which has instead highlighted the relationship between corporations and civil society. The notion of ‘corporate citizenship’ seems to have replaced that of ‘corporate social responsibility’ to outline the key duties that corporations owe to society, namely being profitable, obeying the law, engaging in ethical behaviour and philanthropic endeavours. Yet, this paper seeks to argue that, in adopting the term ‘citizenship’, with all its connotations of reciprocity, corporations also seek to lay claim to certain rights from the state. The corporate citizen may thus appear to be very similar to the individual citizen in terms of the rights it may claim from the state in return for exercising duties to civil society. But in practice the corporate citizen is accorded a special citizenship status, acting in partnership with government to deliver certain rights and to determine who may have access to citizenship. As a result, the very concept of social citizenship as defined by Marshall is altered: citizenship is no longer seen as primarily rights-based, as more emphasis is placed on duties; citizenship is no longer universal as some citizens are seen to be more equal/deserving than others; most importantly, citizenship is no longer defined exclusively vis-à-vis the state, leading to serious problems of accountability.

Social inclusion under Labor in South Australia

Social inclusion policies were championed by the former Rann Labor government in South Australia from 2002 to 2011. In 2011 the Social Inclusion Unit was dissolved by the South Australian government. It is argued that the relatively narrow focus of the former SIU on ‘problem’ communities limited its capacity to provide more than residual solutions. The diminishing political returns on social inclusion also encouraged the South Australian government to abandon this initiative. In 2014 this government has had to grapple with the end of car making in Australia and a declining manufacturing labour force, traditionally a ‘mainstream’ constituency of the Labor Party. The return to ‘mainstreaming’ social policy in South Australia might offer limited space for realignment of social policy with the concept of social citizenship. It might also represent a move away from the functionalist morality of social inclusion. Social inclusion as practiced in South Australia has limited capacity to address generalised social disadvantage. The latter is likely to concern a re‐elected Labor minority government grappling with significant job losses and a declining local economy.

The Ideology of New Public Management, Associational Representation and the Global Financial Crisis

This paper argues that the 2008 financial crisis accelerated a set of long-term dynamics which in turn have undermined two dominant models of state-society relations. On the one hand, the paper examines how the concept of social citizenship is based on a vision of state-society relations, which in recent years has been oriented by a philosophy of marketization of the state and of the relation between citizens and the state. On the other hand, it discusses an emerging emphasis on the role of organised civil society as a different and competing approach to state-society relations. Discussion will centre on how the interactions between these two ideologies and the related practices have impacted on conceptions of the modern state. Among the factors that affect this interaction are the impact of migration, the erosion of welfare states, and the redefined character of social vulnerability which now affect new groups of individuals. The paper considers all these changes as background phenomena which impact on relations between state and society in several ways, but particularly in terms of the meaning of social citizenship

The global, the social and rights. New perspectives on social citizenship

This Guest Editorial explores whether the concept of citizenship, which originated in the city and the nation‐state, travels to the globe and what global citizenship could mean. Introducing a collection of related articles, we focus on social citizenship. We discuss conceptual issues, including modifications of T. H. Marshall's concept of social citizenship, and point at empirical evidence that global social citizenship is taking shape: International human rights have come to be interpreted as encapsulating social citizenship, and are part of multi‐tiered social citizenship; ‘having rights’ is a meaningful expression in the global realm, including binding obligations of states under international human rights, negotiations in multiple sites or even ‘insurgent citizenship’ from below; institution building in the global South – social cash transfers for the poor, land rights or non‐state welfare production in informal settings – is transforming European conceptions of ‘the social’. Global social citizenship materially underpins notions of cosmopolitan belonging and activism.

Understanding personalisation: Implications for social work

SummaryThis article analyses the centrality of the policy of personalisation within adult social care in the UK, with a particular focus on the implications for social work. It starts by considering the genesis of policy and continues by identifying different ways in which personalisation can be understood and hence analysed.FindingsThe article suggests that the dominant theme in the rhetoric of both government and the disability movement associates personalisation with the concept of social citizenship – whereby previously disadvantaged people will be enabled to enjoy the full benefits of society, which had previously been denied to them. By way of contrast, the article suggests that personalisation can also be analysed in relation to the critical perspective of neo-liberalism, postulating the idea that the policy is primarily concerned with the importation of consumerist ideals into social care. The article then considers the administrative dimensions of personalisation, focusing on the potential of the policy to achieve particular financial benefits and arguing that this is taking precedence over other interpretations.ApplicationsThe article concludes by considering the implications of the analysis for the practice of social work. It identifies the implications of the citizenship and neo-liberal perspectives, but concludes that imperatives of budgetary reduction are limiting the opportunities for social workers to practise within the context of personalisation. Consequently, while there is little prospect of substantial social work involvement in the context of statutory services, there may be opportunities for practitioners to engage with the issues in the context of smaller, often user-led organisations.

Marketising social protection in Europe: two distinct paths and their impact on social inequalities

PurposeCurrently, different experiments in (partially) outsourcing public social protection to the market are observed. This paper seeks to identify two very different paths to outsourcing social protection: fragmentation of social protection on the one hand (in personal savings accounts) and amalgamation of social protection on the other (in life‐course savings schemes).Design/methodology/approachThis study is theoretically based on the combination of three concepts which allow changes in social citizenship to be analyzed by means of social policy change and changes in resource flows. First, on the concept of life‐course regimes as put forward by Kohli; second, on the concept of social citizenship as proposed by Marshall; and third, on the concept of flows of resources related to these rights. The theoretical and methodological linkage of these concepts was first applied by Frericks.FindingsThese very different concepts of outsourcing social protection have implications for social inequalities, new insecurities and foreseeable under‐insurance. This is because, on the one hand, social protection redesign changes the obligatory character of social insurance, and on the other, it changes the social construction of the “adequately” protected which may no longer correspond to the factual situation of various groups of citizens.Originality/valueThe outlines of upcoming gaps in social protection, however, cannot adequately be grasped by the differentiation between “insiders” and “outsiders” of welfare systems. Although these gaps are related to status, they are more the result of life‐course trajectories, life‐course timing and age, implying that both the two current policy paths change intra‐ as well as inter‐generational differences in social protection. The characteristics of the two policy concepts and their foreseeable implications for social inequalities are analysed.

European Social Citizenship and Gender: The Part-time Work Directive

This article considers whether the development of European rights for workers implies a European social citizenship. It analyses the debate during the preparation and adoption of the EU Directive on part-time work in 1997, which guarantees part-time workers (who are primarily women) the same pay and working conditions as full-time workers. Was the concept of social citizenship discussed during its preparation and adoption? What kind of gender equality was involved: are women granted equal access to the European market or equal outcomes? We conclude that the Directive involves industrial rather thansocial citizenship, but ideals of social citizenship were nevertheless at stake during its preparation.

Paradise Paved? Reflections on the Fate of Social Citizenship in Canada

The aim of this paper is to assess the potential of the concept of social citizenship for articulating progressive policy development in Canada. I argue that the revisioning of social citizenship is hampered by a recent notion that it is part of the superseded welfare policy paradigm of the past. Many analysts characterize a shift in the objectives of Canadian social policy as a move away from a 'golden age' policy paradigm, which emphasized the social rights of citizenship, to a neo-liberal paradigm promoting market citizenship. I suggest that there is an overstatement in the current literature of the extent to which social citizenship rights were ever realized, or even pursued, in Canada. There are two tendencies toward over-generalization in the literature that obscure a more complex picture of social policy development in Canada. The first concerns the relationship between social policy and the social rights of citizenship. The blurring of these two concepts underlies some of the overstatement in the literature about the past implementation of social citizenship rights. The second tendency to over-generalization relates to the observation of a paradigm change in social policy orientation. While things may be shifting, there are grounds to believe that this is largely a within-paradigm intensification--from mean and lean, to meaner and leaner. Finally, I suggest that the conceptual foundations of the social rights of citizenship must be re-worked in a way that acknowledges contestation over the terrain and quality of the 'social' and that challenges the distinctness and priority of the 'market'. There is a continuing need to strengthen and promote the social rights of citizenship as a discursive and practical challenge to neo-liberal interpretations of the 'good' society as a 'market' society. This would involve contesting the claim that the market is the arbiter of the quality of life, and claiming the market itself as a social arena.

Conceptualizing citizenship: young people and the transition to adulthood

This paper examines the relationship between citizenship and young peoples’ social identities. The concept of social citizenship is explored in the context of contemporary debates about the transition to adult status. In the light of recent calls for an education for citizenship, at both compulsory and post‐compulsory levels, the paper makes a timely contribution to the ongoing discussion of what constitutes social citizenship, by whom and to what end. The paper has three main sections. In the first, Marshall's (1950) contribution to our modern‐day understanding of citizenship is examined. In the second section the paper particularly addresses the connections between young people, adulthood and citizenship. In the final section attention is turned to the problems of combining citizenship with other, complex, aspects of young peoples’ social identities. In doing so the paper offers a critique of the concept of active citizenship.

Un État-providence contesté et fragmenté. Le développement de la citoyenneté sociale en France. Comparaisons avec la Belgique, l'Allemagne, l'Italie et la Suède

A fragmented and contested welfare State The development of social citizenship in France. Comparisons with Belgium, Germany, Italy and Sweden The paper begins with a discussion of the problems raised by the concept of social citizenship and the development of comparative measurement indicators. A typology of welfare states reflecting the institutional structure of the major social insurance systems is proposed, followed by a brief review and discussion of the development of social welfare legislation in France. The measurement and description of social rights are based on indicators on social citizenship in an original database whose content is outlined. The development of social rights in France within three social insurance programs from 1930 to 1985 is compared with that found in Belgium, Germany and Italy, as well as in Sweden, often considered the model welfare state.