The life of children in care in Denmark: A struggle over recognition

Abstract

This article examines the social work practices towards children in care in Denmark. For this purpose, it reworks Honneth’s theory of recognition, so it fits with the axiomatic propositions of the new social studies of childhood. The analysis shows how the life of these children unfolds as a continuous struggle over recognition with negative consequences for their well-being. It is argued that while these struggles take place in face-to-face interactions, the violence of recognition is based on wider social structures, such as the generational order, familization of children’s emotional needs and a problematizing, individualistic diagnostic approach to deviation.

Keywords

Deviation power relations recognition residential care social work

A few years ago, Jakobsen (2010) powerfully problematized how central values in child welfare work such as comfort, security, recognition and appreciation manifest themselves with great ambiguity when converted into practice. Seen from the children’s perspective, some of these practices represent mistrust, patronization and discipline, rather than reflecting the above-mentioned values (Børnerådet, 2012; Leeson, 2007; Warming, 2013). Thus, Jakobsen makes an important point. In contrast to Smith’s call for reaffirming and revitalizing the notion of values in child protection work (Smith, 1997), Jakobsen (2010) concludes that values are not the appropriate point of departure for contemplating the living conditions for children in care (p. 225). However, whereas Jakobsen wishes to abolish values, because they are apparently empty signifiers, and argues that we need more empirical studies of institutional practices (Jakobsen, 2010), Houston and Dolan (2008) suggest a reworked version of Honneth’s social philosophical conceptualization of recognition as a fruitful conceptual toolbox for a reflective practice filling empty (value) signifiers (p. 258).

This article examines the social work practices towards children in care. As suggested by Houston and Dolan, it engages in Honneth’s work; however, it goes beyond the aim of offering a conceptual toolbox towards an analysis of a single, rather long, case. As Flyvbjerg (2006) argues, ‘the case study produces a type of context dependent knowledge’ that is essential to learning and improving professional practice as well as to gain an in-depth understanding of complex social phenomena (p. 211). The case is selected due to its characteristics as what Flyvbjerg (2006) names ‘critical’ (the institution, where it takes place, emphasizes recognition as significant to their social pedagogy) and ‘extreme’ (misrecognition is turned upside-down towards recognition) for the purpose of a rich learning case. Furthermore, for the type of analytical generalization that Halkier (2011) names ‘position’: ‘one example of a broader tendency within perspectivist qualitative research, where the main point is that the contents of expressions and actions are constituted by the forms of social dynamics such as group interactions, negotiations, conversational processes, and discourses’ (p. 293). The aim of the present case is twofold: to bridge the gap between Honneth’s rather abstract philosophical concepts and the reality of practice and to provide empirical in-depth insight into the contextualized complex interplay of actions and power relations that shapes the life of children in care.

Houston and Dolan acknowledge the necessity of such bridging; however, they choose another path, namely, to link Honneth’s original framework to theories of social support (Halkier, 2011: 466–467). This path might be very convenient for social workers, as these theories already provide the knowledge basis of their practice. However, bridging by using exiting theories of social support implies the risk of uncritical incorporation of assumptions and social constructions from these theories such as constructions of what it means to be a (normal) child and of power relations between adults and children.

Likewise, an uncritical adaption of Honneth’s theory implies a risk of adultism, as this theory builds on traditional (development psychological based) constructions of the child, children’s needs and the child–adult relation, which are not in accordance with axiomatic propositions of the new social studies of childhood (Thomas, 2012: 457–458). In this article, I therefore outline a reconstruction of Honneth’s concepts of recognition. The purpose of this reconstruction, and the application of it in the case analysis, is to unfold and demonstrate the analytical potentials of Honneth’s concepts of recognition as a tool of theorizing children’s lived childhoods, namely, the potentials of ‘thinking about the personal along with the public’ and ‘the emotional along with the rational’ (Thomas, 2012: 463).

The article begins with a presentation of Honneth’s theory and explains my reconstruction. In section ‘Case presentation’, the case is presented, followed by a case analysis in section ‘Case analysis’. The article is concluded with a discussion of the findings, including a discussion of their generalizability, and the potentials of Honneth’s theory, applied to a single in-depth case, for analysing child welfare work.

Honneth’s theory of recognition

Honneth’s theory of recognition offers a moral philosophically and social psychologically grounded normative foundation of recognition as a moral requirement for social work practice and a coherent framework for theorizing the empty signifier of recognition. The basis is identification of dialectic between the self-relationships and the self–other relationships. This implies that ‘one’s relationship to oneself […] is not a matter of a solitary ego appraising itself, but an intersubjective process, in which one’s attitude toward oneself emerges in one’s encounter with an other’s attitude toward oneself’ (Anderson, 1996: xi). This observation of the dialectic between self-relationships and the self–other relationships is the foundation for thinking the personal along with the public and for the moral requirement of recognition: If human beings are systematically denied recognition, the result will be disorder and (individual as well as societal) pathological development (Honneth, 2007).

Honneth suggests a tripartite conceptualization of recognition in which each type of recognition relates to different dimensions of the self-relationship and types of self–other relationships, the latter conceptualized as spheres of recognition (Honneth, 1995) (Table 1).

Table 1.

Honneth’s types of recognition.

Type	Modes	Self-relationship	Sphere
Emotional	Love and care	Self-confidence	The intimate sphere
Legal	Rights and respect as a morally sane person	Self-respect	The legal sphere
Social	Appreciation and solidarity	Self-esteem	The social sphere

As the three types contribute to different dimensions of the self-relationship, they cannot replace each other. Mutuality is essential to recognition, which involves motivational willingness, that is, requires engagement, and thus is more than just cognitive acknowledgement (Honneth, 2001).

Emotional recognition

Based on object relations theory, Honneth (1995, 2001) regards emotional recognition during early childhood as essential to the formation of a person’s core identity with regard to ways of perceiving and reacting to the social surroundings and to development of fundamental self-confidence and avoidance of development of psychopathological disorders. In my reconstruction, I acknowledge the significance of emotional recognition, albeit taken from quite another starting point, namely, the post-structural conceptualization of subjectivity as a product of ‘continuous unfolding actions’ (Gallacher and Gallagher, 2008: 510). Thus, based on the perspective of subjectivity as fragile and partly depersonalized, the need for emotional recognition goes beyond early childhood. Like young children, older children and adults need caring and loving relationships to establish and maintain self-confidence – and well to note: relationships characterized by mutuality. In contrast to the concepts of secure base and secure attachment patterns (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Bowlby, 1971), emotional recognition involves the sense of being something special for someone else, going beyond just receiving – towards also involving giving – care and love. It is only through such relationships of mutual dependency that the subject (child or adult) can establish confidentiality with his or her resources, attitudes and values and see them received and acknowledged. While care and love constitute the necessary ethical inter-subjective relationship that is the precondition for emotional recognition, care without love implies a latent risk of moral violation (Honneth, 2003: 92). Abuse and rape are forms of disrespect, which will threaten our physical integrity (Honneth, 2003); however, other forms of disrespect include ignorance and deprivation of love, which threaten our psychical integrity and well-being.

Legal recognition

Legal recognition, which constitutes the basic premise for self-respect, is about inclusion in the class of people assigned ‘the status as morally responsible persons’, who are bearers of universal rights in a given community (Honneth, 1995). Although related to rights, legal recognition goes beyond formal rights towards inclusion of potentially all inter-subjective interactions and the perceived outcome of these: Does a person or a group experience being perceived and treated as morally responsible and as sharing the same rights as other members in the society or not? Thus, recognition goes beyond formal acknowledgment towards realization and active support in practice.

In the introduction, I mentioned the mistrust, patronization and discipline that many children in care experience from the adult professionals in their everyday life (Leeson, 2007; Morgan, 2009; Warming, 2011, in press). Such attitudes imply deprivation of legal recognition. Elsewhere, I have argued that such attitudes can be explained by the intersection between two societal power relations, namely, the generational order and the power relation between clients and professionals (Warming, 2011, 2013). Though, Honneth designates societal structures as the basis of systematic disrespect, he does not problematize the generational order. Rather the opposite, he takes children’s exclusion from the group of morally responsible persons as natural (Thomas, 2012). From his perspective, the overruling and patronizing attitude of adults appears as an expression of care and adult responsibility. However, a reconstructed version of Honneth’s theory, that takes into account the new social studies of childhood’s denaturalization of the generational order, opens the eyes for its exclusion of children from legal recognition as injustice.

Social recognition

Social recognition addresses the form of social esteem that allows people to relate positively to their concrete characteristics and abilities (Honneth, 1995). It occurs through the relationship to the group, the community or the society, in which the participation and positive engagement of the individual is recognized as being of fundamental value for the community in question (Honneth, 2005). In other words, not merely tolerating this person’s or group’s presence and attempts to do their best (acknowledgement), but actual recognition in the sense of appreciation of his or her active contribution, regardless of whether his or her participation and contribution are similar to or differ from the participation and contributions of other members. For children, social recognition might take place in the school, the home, the peer group or in society as such.

Social recognition is conditioned by – and likewise shapes – the social values and norms as well as the individual’s valuing of and feeling of belonging to the community (Honneth, 2005).

Case presentation

The case derives from my fieldwork in relation to a research project on trust in social work, financed by the Danish Research Council (see http://tillid.ruc.dk/). The research took place in Denmark over a 3-year period involving 16 children aged 8–17 years, of which 7 were in residential care at five different institutions. Most of the nine children living at home had previous experiences with being in residential care. Moreover, the project involved three young people, who had previously been in residential care, now living on the streets.

Doing research with children about sensitive subjects involves numerous careful ethical considerations before and throughout the research process, which – due to limited space – will only be indicated here. I have drawn up information letters about the goal of the research project, the process and (legal limits of) confidence and (restricted) anonymityfor the purpose of informed consent from parents as well as children. When I meet the children, I once again inform them about goals and process, underlining the possibility of total or partly withdrawing from participation. In the interaction with the child, I am attentive to signs of lack of confidence, and in such cases remind the child of the possibility and acceptability of breaks or withdrawing. In case of sad feelings and thoughts, I comfort the child and make sure that a person that the child trusts afterwards takes over. With regard to anonymity, the case analysis approach implies that full anonymity cannot be ensured. The involved parties might recognize the situations, despite I have anonymized so that others will not be able to identify the involved persons. Furthermore, I refrain from including information and citations that might damage the relations between the involved parties or hurt the child.

The case presentation is rather long in order to make the complexity and temporal dimension of children’s struggles over recognition visible. The case in question concerns Julia, who is 16 years old and lives at Bovita, a small residential institution for children. In Denmark, residential institutions are used for a variety of children, and not necessary only as the least resort for the most troubled; however, today the policy moves in that direction. Despite a common overall formal goal of providing ‘support for troubledchildren to create the best possible conditions for growing up in order for them to obtain the same possibilities for personal expression, development and health as their contemporaries’ (Stockholm, 2007: 553), the pedagogical profile of Danish residential institutions varies a lot, and not only in accordance with certain target groups (Bryderup, 2005). The pedagogical profile of Bovita is ‘social pedagogy as relational dialogic work’ (Bryderup and Frørup, 2011) with emphasis on recognition. Despite not having special target groups that they take on, Bovita does not accept the most troubled children.

I have interviewed Julia four times over a 2-year period; made observations at Bovita; interviewed her mother, Jill, and the social case worker, Pat; and read the municipal case documents, diary entries and email conversations between Julia and the social workers (handed over to me by Julia).

When I meet Julia for the first time, she is 14 years old and states that though Bovita is okay, she would prefer to live at home. This, however, is not a possibility, as her parents find it too difficult to have her at home, even just for the holidays. Julia and her parents have had some violent clashes, which Jill recounts as being due to Julia’s interfering and aggressive behaviour. Julia admits that she sometimes become very angry and has to learn to control her temper. However, she also misses empathy from her parents, and especially, she longs for them to show they love her as much as they love each other and her younger sister.

Julia: The little police officer

At Bovita, Julia only occasionally has problems controlling her temper. At a meeting including Julia, Jill, John, a social worker from Bovita, and Pat, they discuss one of the exceptions. John says, ‘Things has gone quite well, Julia is developing positively,manages well in school and has succeeded to get an after-school job. However two weeks ago we had an episode: Will you tell us about it, yourself Julia?’ Julia nods reluctantly and explains that she, on the school bus, had been observing some boys bullying and hitting a younger boy. ‘And I don’t like bullying – especially not bullying of young kids’, she says. Thus, she asked the bus driver to do something about it, but as he did not react, Julia took over responsibility. She confronted the bullies, but as she could not make them stop by talking to them, she hit one of them and said, ‘Don’t ever bully again!’

Although John admits that he can identify with Julia’s way of reacting, he emphasizes that it is not an appropriate way of acting and that Julia still has to ‘work on herself’: ‘It was the little police officer inside you, we saw again – you have to learn to put her away’. John explains that the bullies’ parents had complained about Julia and even had considered reporting her to the police, but that he and a teacher had mediated between Julia and the boys’ parents. Jill adds that this is an example of Julia’s problem with her temper and that Julia has to learn not to interfere in other people’s matters and to handle conflicts without using violence and threats. Pat nods, signifying that she realizes the problems that Julia’s way of reacting might create; however, she also introduces a new perspective:

If I were the younger boy, I would think about you as my hero, and actually you did try to solve the problem without violence, but nobody listened to you – but you didn’t give up – you did, what you were able to do in the situation, and I actually think, that it was quite courageously done.

Plans for Christmas

After the discussion of this incident and some other subjects, I follow Pat and Julia to Julia’s room, where they have a long conversation about almost all aspects of Julia’s life. Among other things, they talk about Christmas. Julia wants to celebrate the holiday at home, but her parents do not think it is possible to meet her wish. Thus, it has been arranged that Julia can stay with one of the Bovita staff members during Christmas. This is fine with Julia, albeit she would prefer to celebrate Christmas at home. Julia tells us that she used to have a nice tradition of baking Christmas cookies with a friend of her family (an elderly woman). Pat encourages Julia to keep with this tradition and offers contacting the woman to set up a date. However, they have already almost fixed a date, which for Julia is the highlight of the Christmas holidays, as she has no other plans.

The loving staff couple

When Pat asks about the life at Bovita, Julia tells us that despite being happy generally speaking, she finds it problematic that the director and a staff member have become lovers, as it affects their care for the children negatively in terms of being more concerned of each other than of being there for the children. Pat agrees that this is not acceptable and appreciates Julia telling her about the relationship: ‘If you didn’t tell me about such matters, I wouldn’t be able to do my job’. She asks if Julia wants her to do something about it. However, Julia thinks, the children and the staff should try to solve the problem themselves, but that she will get back to Pat, if they do not succeed.

In a subsequent interview, Julia tells me that the children and staff have not yet solved the above-mentioned problem, and that they have been told that it is none of their business. However, she believes that if they do not succeed, Pat will be able to solve the problem. Based on previous experiences, Julia feels confident that Pat will voice her opinion and do so in a powerful manner: ‘She is their boss in a way – it is from the municipality that they get their pay, so they listen to what she says’, Julia explains.

Children have the right to have a social network

The next meeting between Julia, Pat and John takes place just after Christmas. Jill is supposed to participate, but cancels at the last moment. I go together with Pat to observe the meeting. On our way, Pat tells me that the cookie-baking date was cancelled, as Jill had called John to forbid it. Furthermore, the tense relationship between Julia and her family has escalated. Thus, the contact is even more limited. Pat explains how she strives to mediate and promote a better child–parent relationship, however apparently for the moment without success.

At the meeting, Pat brings up the cancelled cookie-baking date. She emphasizes that Julia has a right to see members of her social network and asks what actually happened. John explains that he did not know what to do, when Jill called to forbid it. He had tried to call Pat for supervision, but she was out of her office. Pat answers,

Yes, sometimes I am out of offices for days, but you do have my private phone number. In the future, when there are such important matters, I want you to call me at home. The way that this matter has been handled, overriding Julia’s rights and desires, is not acceptable.

The longing for love and a home

After some months, I visit Julia again. Her communication with her parents has now totally ceased, and she seems resigned and despondent. Although, she still thinks of Bovita as an okay place to stay due to the friendly and supportive attitude of the staff, she does not think of it as home: ‘A home is a place, where you belong, where you live together with people that mean something special to you’, she explains.

Case analysis

Case analysis from the perspective of emotional recognition

Julia sincerely longs for inclusion in the family, but is rejected. This is, according to what Pat, Julia and Jill in different ways narrate, a painful outcome of a long story. However, whereas this course leaves Julia lonely and without the sense of being something special for someone, and deprived from giving and taking emotional support in a mutually dependent relationship, the other family members have such relationships with each other. Julia has no one. In her everyday life, she lives with caring, emphatic and supportive adults and friendly peers; however, she lives with no one for whom she is ‘something special’. The staff members care for her, but nobody needs her care and love.

Pat recognizes how hard the problematic family relationship is for Julia and how acutely she struggles for emotional recognition. Thus, for years Pat has striven to mediate between Julia and Jill, albeit apparently without success. The consequences in relation to Julia’s self-confidence and her ways of relating to other people are easily observable: She increasingly withdraws and does not expect to be loved. Despite this observation, and very limited optimism regarding the future possibilities of improving the relationship between Julia and her family, no one has considered thinking of alternatives, such as working on the relationship between Julia and her everyday care persons and peers, which might offer much better potential for emotional recognition. This is not surprising, as the significance of peers for children’s identity and well-being is generally almost ignored in residential care facilities (Emond, 2012; Stockholm, 2007), and the staff’s emphatic, friendly and supportive attitude lives fully up to expectations of relational dialogic work (Bryderup and Frørup, 2011). However, if children are placed outside the home, they very likely might need emotional recognition from ‘their new family’, be it a foster family or the staff members and peers at a residential institution, as this is where they live. This is especially the case, if the children’s emotional relationships with their parents and siblings are problematic, restricted or totally disrupted. Just working on improvement on these relationships – no doubt important as they are – implies deprivation of emotional recognition in the children’s everyday life with negative consequences for the children’s self-confidence and self–other relationship. In this light, as well as in the often unsuccessful attempts of improvement of the child–parent relationship, it is not surprising that many placed children, as well as adults, who have been placed as children, report low self-confidence and loneliness (Cameron and Maginn, 2008; Frederiksen, 2012; Nielsen, 2001; Warming, 2005).

In common sense (Western) thinking, emotions of love are often romanticized and mystified as something that just happens to you, goes beyond any rationality, impossible to predict or regulate. Honneth (1995) likewise identifies emotional bonds as something that cannot be demanded or decided, and though he suggests going beyond romanticism and mysticism in the conceptualization of love, the genesis of emotional bonds remains a black box in his theorizing. In the sociology of emotions, the focus, inspired by Goffman’s work, has been on the role of emotions in regard to social order, everyday interactions and hierarchy rather than on how social bonds emerge and are strengthened (Branaman, 2002). Scheff and Retzinger’s (1991) work, however, provides an understanding of emotional bonds as building up, being sustained and violated through verbal and non-verbal communication of empathy, care, dependency and exclusiveness. Following this line of thinking does not contradict the idea that love cannot be demanded or decided. However, it does imply that the chances of emergence of intimate relationships and growth of social bonds can be counteracted or facilitated by discourses, governance strategies and professional attitudes.

Though Pat makes great effort to facilitate Julia’s chances of emotional recognition, her effort is framed by discourses, which reserve mutual emotional bonds to ‘the private sphere’, the biological family and related networks – not to professional work. Thus, Pat is not attentive to the importance of encouraging formation of emotional bonds between Julia and the professionals and peers at Bovita. Neither are the director and the staff, even though they state emphasis on recognition and relational work: Their focus is on care and professional goal-directed treatment, similar to what I found in the other institutions, and is likewise echoed in Egelund and Jakobsen’s (2009) findings. This focus can be traced to the developmental psychological knowledge regime of the naturally developed child (criticized in the new social studies of childhood, for example, by James et al. (1998)). It is further promoted through a governmental accountability agenda with various technologies of goal setting, assessment and so on, an agenda that cuts across the European welfare regimes (Banks, 2007). The result is a discursive construction of children as ‘objects’ for adult care, and regarding children, who fail development in accordance with the norms of natural development, as ‘objects’ for professional treatment, rather than persons with whom you can actually get emotionally involved. At some residential institutions, it is even regarded as a problem if emotional recognition occurs between a child and a staff member – as not professional and not appropriate for treatment strategy, whereas other strive for a more warm and family-like milieu.¹ In a British context, Kendrick (2013: 77) likewise finds a tension in staff’s roles between professional distance and acknowledgement of the significance of ‘authentically warm parenting’ for children’s well-being (as argued by Cameron and Maginn (2008)). Although the life at Bovita is sought to be family-like and a focus is put on relational pedagogic development of emotional bonds between staff members and children, it is not an object of systematic social pedagogical work.

Such social pedagogical work could start with close attention to every first sign or sprout of emotional bonds followed by further possibilities. Julia actually likes one of the staff members better than the others: ‘She is not so professional – more human; once she asked me to assist at a private party in her home, maybe she likes me a little bit better than she likes every other child, here’. This observation can be regarded as a little sprout of an emotional recognition, which if it is given care and priming might grow into a real friendship (that is a non-romantic and non-erotic love relationship). First, by care and priming, I refer to encouragement of the social worker to spend time exclusively with the child for the purpose of building up a relationship; second, attention to how the staff members speak about the relations and about the children is essential, and how these talks are shaped by governing technologies. As Gergen (1997) points out, discursive constructions are significant to our sensing and emotions. Thus, the staff’s way of speaking about the children as a group and as individuals influences their way of experiencing and interpreting the children’s talk and actions and thereby the staff’s sympathy, empathy and motivation for engaging emotionally with a certain child.

Case analysis from the perspective of legal recognition

Like emotional recognition, legal recognition appears as something that is counteracted by power relations, and thus has to be struggled for in Julia’s life. The most striking example is the cancelled cookie-baking date: Despite a hegemonic discourse on social networks as a resource in children’s lives, which have to be optimized, and acknowledgement of Julia’s very scarce social network as problematic, Julia’s formal right to social network (Serviceloven, § 71) is violated by the cancellation of the date. I argue that this paradox arises from the generational order and a discourse of the importance of recognizing parents’ rights and position as parents (also present in research, for example, Hayes and Houston, 2007; Madsen, 2009). This discourse was displayed when John chose to conform to Jill’s demand. However, his statement ‘that he didn’t know what to do’ also indicates an ambivalence; that he is also aware that this is a violation of Julia’s rights. Regarded from the perspective of legal recognition, such a violation, in addition to being deprivation of a social network, has negative consequences for Julia’s self-respect by means of the experience of being treated as less moral sane than other people. Due to the generational order, children in general are objects for such violating acts; however, children, who, like Julia, are regarded as problematic, are even more exposed (Aldrige and Luchjabroers, 2011).

Another example of rights being violated is the fact that the bullies’ parents planned to report Julia to the police. This is not a normal procedure when two children have a conflict, not even if the conflict is violent – so how does this unusual reaction come to their minds? Egelund and Jakobsen (2009) argue that for more than a hundred years, social policy ‘has defined the problems of disadvantaged children as basically individual’ and internal (p. 277). I would argue that this individualizing discourse position children in care as less moral sane than other children.

Julia is not alone in her struggle for legal recognition, as Pat does not only acknowledge Julia’s rights but fights to defend these rights – and actively deconstructs social constructions of her as ‘not as morally sane as others’ – but rather the opposite – as exceptionally morally sane by narrating her as a hero. Far from all children in care are that lucky. Nevertheless, recognition appears as a continuous struggle, spread out across different spheres of life and caused by the generational order and the social constructions of Julia as a child, who deviates from the norms in the meaning of normality and desirability.

Case analysis from the perspective of social recognition

When Julia talks about her everyday life at Bovita and in school, it is as a tolerated – however, not actually a valued – member. Mostly, those around her accept that she is the way she is, but do not really appreciate her special personality and contributions. Her experience with one of the female staff members is the only exception. By contrast, the episode in the school bus can at best be interpreted as an example of plain tolerance. This is the case when John admits that he can identify with Julia’s way of reacting, albeit narrates Julia’s reaction as problematic rather than as a positive contribution. He cooperates with the teacher from the school on broader toleration of Julia’s reaction through mediation between Julia and the bullies’ parents. However, none of them appreciate Julia’s protection of the younger boy and her attempt to fight bullying and domination.

The lack of appreciation vis-a-vis Julia’s reaction from John and the teacher is paradoxical in the light of the fact that the eradication of bullying is a high prioritized issue in almost every Danish school – so why is Julia deprived recognition of her contribution to this? The obvious explanation is Julia’s use of violence, which is regarded as not acceptable – apparently even though she only does so as the ‘last option’. Furthermore, the categorization of Julia as a ‘little policeman’, as ‘too interfering’, and the problematizing view of her probably play a serious role in John’s and the teacher’s interpretation.

Both in research and in Danish social work practice, we are witnessing a growing attention to how categorizations and the (problematizing or resource oriented and appreciative) discourses and practices shape the social space of positions and possible actions: that the latter promotes empowerment while the former clientization (e.g. Hundeide and Armstrong, 2011; Mesmer and Hitzler, 2011). At Bovita, the staff members are very attentive to recognizing personal characteristics and actions of the children, for instance, that Julia gets high grades and manages to earn extra pocket money, however, not her positive contributions to collectivity. They are – like a majority of such institutions – attuned to the development of the individual child rather than to the relation between the individual and the collective (Egelund and Jakobsen, 2009). Thus, the limited social recognition of Julia appears as not only coming from the problematizing of her personality but also from the individual-oriented approach to pedagogical work and children’s development. In contrast, Pat’s focus is more relational in her struggle for recognition of Julia, as is her appreciation of Julia’s actions and personal traits. An example is her response to Julia’s telling her about the staff couple who were in love, as she states that it helps her to do her job because the issue is important for the quality of the social care at Bovita. It is a different kind of appreciation than that which could recognize Julia as an individual, for example, one might imagine Pat saying that it is good and important that Julia confides in her because it is good for a child to have someone to confide in.

Closing discussion: A stand-alone case or struggles over recognition as a general phenomenon?

The case analysis shows how the life of Julia unfolds as a continuous struggle over recognition with negative consequences for Julia’s well-being. While these struggles take place in face-to-face interactions, the systematic violation of all three forms ofrecognition appeared to be based on intersecting logics of the generational order, familization of children’s emotional needs and the problematizing, individualistic diagnostic approach to children in care.

As Julia’s struggles for recognition were related to the wider discursive social constructions and power relations, and as the chosen case represents an institution, which emphasizes recognition in their pedagogy, it is likely that her struggles is not a stand-alone case. It is rather a more general phenomenon – however, not a general phenomenon without ambiguities and exceptions, as care practices vary significantly between institutions (Bryderup, 2005) and between staff members within an institution. This was exactly what we learned from explorative child-led workshops, carried out in the first phase of the research project from which this case is taken, and what was confirmed later on through a survey (Lavaud et al., 2013). In the workshops, the children portrayed themselves as ‘overlooked’ (an umbrella term for lack of different forms of recognition) in many different settings, however, especially in the home environment and in school. Their experiences with the social care system range from worsening and acceleration of this state to compensation and empowerment; in Julia’s case, the latter. Nevertheless, her life at Bovita unfolded as a struggle over recognition. These struggles took place in face-to-face interactions, framed, though not determined, by an ambiguous discursive field of social work with children. Thus, within this field children and adults negotiate meanings. The case analysis showed howcategorizations can even be turned upside-down, and that alliances between actors can change the power relations. Hicks et al. (2009) argue that management is significant to staff members’ way of meeting the children, both management of the concrete institution and through social policy. Regarding the latter, I argue, and thus agree with Smith (2001), that the technologies related to ‘the New Accountability approach’ (Banks, 2007, 2011) tend to construct children as objects rather than ‘moral sane citizens’.

In the workshops, the children narrated how being met in that way makes them resign and conform to the problematized image of them. This echoes Cojucaru’s findings that the appreciative approach promotes the desired changes, while a problematizing approach tends to preserve the problems (Cojucaru, 2010). However, the children’s narration of the opposite of being overlooked goes beyond an appreciative inquiry. It is also about being allowed to, and valued for, caring for others, and be something special to them, be un-exchangeable; about being positioned as a moral sane person and about being appreciated – not only as long as you conform to demands and norms but also for your personal traits and peculiar contribution to the collective.

Honneth’s theory of recognition provides us with an analytical tool, which covers what the children narrate as being overlooked, and helps us understand and unfoldthe dynamics of this experience. First, with regard to an attention to the structural forces as well as face-to-face interactions that shaped and counteracted certain children’sexperience of being overlooked. Second, with regard to understanding children in care’s development of resignation (Cameron and Maginn, 2008) in a way that goes beyond individualized explanation towards power relations, professional practices and governmental strategies. Thus, it provides a theoretical framework for critical analyses of social care practices and policies – a framework that voices what children experience as essential for their well-being.

Applied to a detailed case, which does not only report a single episode but several over a period of time, this theoretical framework makes it possible to show the complexity of the dynamics that shape lack of recognition as well as the opposite. Thus, the case analysis demonstrates that the deprivation of recognition neither originates from a single source nor belongs to a single life arena but rather to almost all of Julia’s life arenas and from intersecting structural logics, but also that a space for action and negotiation exists. Thus, the case analysis demonstrated how (the content and practice of) central values in child welfare work are shaped by discourses. For instance, loving relations and emotions are values created by these discourses to belong in the private sphere/biological family, and further romanticized and mystified. Another example is the (traditional developmental psychological informed) problematizing and individualizing view on children in care, which is further promoted by technologies of the new accountability approach in public management. In the case presented, it was primarily the social case worker and thechild, who challenged and negotiated the logics of constructing the child as problematic and an object. However, in other cases, a foster parent, a primary social worker, a teacher or a friend of the family took such steps. The case analysis demonstrated that suchactions make a difference for the child, however, most likely only a compensating and moderating difference as only being exceptions to the rule due to the actual shape of the discursive landscape.

Footnotes

Funding

This research was funded by the Danish Research Council grant number 09-065794.

Notes

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