Journal of Sociology current issue

Neoliberalism, New Public Management and the human service professions: Introduction to the Special Issue

Connell, R., Fawcett, B., Meagher, G. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:19:38 PST

Steering teachers: Working to control the feminized profession of education

Brennan, M. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:19:38 PST

Changes in public sector management need to be unpacked for different sectors to understand their impact in a particular country. This article focuses on the governance of the feminized profession of teaching in Australia, the single largest professional grouping in the country. Neoliberal assumptions have been built into teachers’ work through policy change in three related ‘waves’. The first wave in the 1980s installed managerialism in public education by recentralizing curriculum policy, establishing ‘self-managing’ schools, and downsizing infrastructure. The second wave in the 1990s steered teachers’ work through federal intervention into curriculum, and individualization of teachers’ work in contexts of marketization; this wave consolidated a national political role in education. The third wave in the 2000s emphasized the codification of knowledge through establishment of standards and criteria for teacher employment and promotion. The article concludes that the governance efforts to steer teachers’ work by neoliberal assumptions have been significantly, but not totally, effective.

Should the nurse change the light globe?: Human service professionals managing risk on the frontline

Sawyer, A.-M., Green, D., Moran, A., Brett, J. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:19:38 PST

Over the last two decades New Public Management, de-institutionalization and the growth of community care have radically altered the landscape of human service delivery in Australia. As a consequence of these changes, human service agencies have been compelled to develop mechanisms for regulating and managing the risks involved in frontline community care — and the management of risk is now pivotal to the practices of professional workers in this field. British research suggests that the emphasis on risk gives rise to greater monitoring and administrative supervision of workers and a focus on managerial rather than therapeutic skills. This article presents some early findings from an Australian study that finds a very different picture. Based on interviews with 24 social workers and nurses employed in community care, we found that these workers expressed a strong sense of agency when interpreting and negotiating the risk management policies of their respective organizations, and were focused primarily on the needs of their clients rather than bureaucratic procedures.

Gendered organizational dynamics: The elephant in the room for Australian allied health workforce policy and planning?

Schofield, T. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:19:38 PST

Australian governments have reported an impending ‘crisis’ with workforce shortages in the health sector expected to deepen over the next decade. The allied health professions, however, have barely rated a mention despite the fact their retention rates are low and they are expected to play an expanded and more preventive role in the future. This article examines current Australian public policy approaches to the allied health professions in relation to workforce shortages. It identifies the dominance of technocratic representations of the problem, noting that these have become more pervasive and robust with the New Public Management (NPM). Recent Australian sociological discussion suggests that technocratic ‘framing’ of allied health workforce shortages is limited by its failure to address the role of organizational and institutional dynamics. Such an analysis advances prevailing policy-based problematizations of allied health workforce shortages, but is itself constrained by the lack of acknowledgement of the gendered character of Australian health services organization and the role this may play in allied health workforce shortages.

A case of mistaken identity: The social welfare professions and New Public Management

Healy, K. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:19:38 PST

Social welfare professions have been highly exposed to the corrosive effects of New Public Management (NPM) on professional identity and influence. In this article, I argue that ambivalence from within the social welfare professions, and in society more generally, towards professional recognition of these occupations enables NPM to enact an agenda of de-professionalization. Further, gendered assumptions about professional identity, and particularly about the caring professions in which there is a high concentration of women workers, are pivotal to the destabilization of the professional social welfare workforce. I draw on examples from the Queensland Department of Child Safety workforce reforms to illustrate how NPM discourse intersects with, and is enabled by, well-established ambivalence towards professional recognition within and outside the social welfare professions. I suggest that a gender analysis can deepen our understanding of the substantial impact of NPM on social welfare professions and can enable these professions to develop effective responses to the substantial threats they now face.

Managing health care under New Public Management: A Sisyphean challenge for nursing

Newman, S., Lawler, J. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:19:38 PST

The drive to reform the public health care system became a common feature of Australia’s political and economic landscape from the early 1980s. Health care reform in Australia has been underpinned by New Public Management (NPM) which was promoted as providing more transparent policy and empowering managers to manage service delivery. However, these claims are a fallacy and nursing and nursing care have been affected adversely and severely. General (generic) management structures have replaced established nursing management structures and the distance between politics (politicians) and health service managers has narrowed to the extent that there is now an unprecedented level of political interference in the daily management of health services, in direct contrast to the tenets of NPM. This article reports on the ‘reformed’ health care environment as experienced by nurse managers. They reported that their ability to manage nursing services and provide professional and clinical leadership has been seriously diminished, as has their work satisfaction, motivation and commitment. They also report uncertainty about their future as well as the future of nursing itself.

The 'return to community': Challenges to human service professionals

Fawcett, B., Hanlon, M. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:19:38 PST

In Australia and the United Kingdom over the past two decades, the way human service professionals have been involved in ‘communities’, whether defined by ‘place’, ‘interest’ or ‘exclusion’, has varied with the political complexion of the government in power. This has resulted in both opportunities for and constraints on human services practice and community participation. In this article, the terminology and the conceptual frames associated with work both in and with communities are critically scrutinized. However, it is also contended that spatial analysis and social entrepreneurship can enable those working in the field to respond productively to the New Public Management and ‘Third Way’ approaches that have shaped the policy context of human services practice. It is argued that a form of spatial analysis and of social entrepreneurship can be used to facilitate meaningful participation in decision-making processes in a variety of communities and to re-forge social connections at a range of levels.