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This article focuses on the analysis of 14 social work students' MA course assignments using Lucia Berlin's short story entitled 'Good and Bad'. Our focus is twofold: We ask 1) How do social work students describe their learning when analysing Berlin's short story; and 2) what kinds of skills do they identify as resulting from this learning? Our analysis indicates that social work students view the use of works of fiction in social work instruction as useful for their education in two key ways. First, in most cases, students found that analysing fiction enhanced their analytical strategies, such as advancing their ability to think critically and apply theoretical knowledge in practice. Second, students viewed the analysis of fiction as helpful in adopting skills relevant to social work practitioners, referring, for example, to emotional labour and to operating in situations that involve conflicting interpretations. We conclude that the use of fiction in social work education is beneficial when students are given explicit guidelines regarding how to place fiction into the context of academic theories, scientific knowledge and epistemological considerations. In addition, to enhance students' learning, encouraging students to self-reflect is vital to discussing their reflections and interpretations in face-to-face encounters.

This article develops sociological knowledge on daughterhood through an analysis of how separation shapes the emotional and moral dynamics of transnational daughterhood. Building on Finch, we look at daughtering as a set of concrete social practices that constitute kinship and carry the symbolic dimension of displaying the family-like character of relationships. Within this framework, we analyse how Latin American women living in Barcelona discuss their transnational family lives and filial responsibilities. We see family as finite, evolving in the past, present and future, and develop a threefold understanding of filial love as an institution imbued with formal expectations, a strong and complex emotion, and reciprocal embodied caring. We consider persisting physical separation in migration as a circumstance that demands not only practical solutions but also ongoing moral labour that sustains transnational bonds and notions of being a ‘good enough’ daughter.

In this article, we contribute to an emerging body of literature concerning the often-overlooked topics of access and consent in research. We posit our understanding of access and consent as continuous ethical reflection and negotiation, conceptualised here as ethical performance, which is particularly valuable in research in institutional contexts defined by numerous power asymmetries. We draw empirically from research on street-level institutional encounters between social work practitioners and migrant-background service users in the Helsinki capital region. Access in this research was a multi-stage process including various stage-related negotiations, and the previous stages always influenced the stages that followed. Nevertheless, access and consent were always erratic and subject to revision. We describe how the need for ethical reflexivity arises in various concrete, often unpredictable, situations, and argue for the importance of paying explicit analytical attention to negotiations regarding access and consent.