Ambiguous Agency as a Diagnostic of Power: Efforts of Child Welfare Providers to Promote Responsible Agency Among Youth Involved in Sex Trades

Johnson, Laura; Sapiro, Beth; Buttner, Catherine; Postmus, Judy L.

doi:10.1080/10926771.2018.1468375

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…It is allegiant if it aligns with accepted thoughts and behaviors to achieve a purpose. Oppositional agency differs from what Bordonaro and Payne (2012), Johnson et al (2018) have referred to as ambiguous agency. While oppositional agency relates to youth using their agency to challenge social norms, the term ambiguous agency is used to describe actions that counter narratives and assumptions about the nature of childhood and adolescence, or, in other words, when young people behave differently from what is expected from a person of their age.…”

Section: Youth Agency and Conflictmentioning

confidence: 80%

Youth agency in times of crisis: Exploring education and conflict in Mali through participatory visual approaches with youth

2022

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Education in Mali is constrained by a multi-dimensional crisis that restricts education and makes life difficult. Young people are particularly affected. In this article, we use the preliminary findings of the Participatory Research on Education and Agency in Mali (PREAM) project that was implemented in the conflict-affected regions of Mopti and Segou, to discuss youth agency in situations of crisis and how participatory visual methods can be used both as a way of ascertaining adolescents’ perception of their agency and also to contribute to the development of youth agency. More specifically, we use data from six workshops using participatory visual methods (PVMs) to illustrate that young people have something valuable to say about education, agency, and conflict and that PVMs can be an effective way of engaging adolescents in dealing with such topics. Preliminary findings from the research suggest that although participating young people are in an asymmetrical position in relation to power with the adults around them, they nonetheless have a good understanding of their situation and demonstrate agentic behavior that is both adaptative and projective. Girls illustrated how generational order from child to grandmother and gender social norms can constrain agency. At the same time, they used their agency to expose and contest, in the cellphilms they produced, the unfair division of labor in their society. During the workshops, young people were eager to share their stories and wanted their artwork to communicate their concerns to the adults around them. In this article, we argue that it is important for adolescents in Mali to have a voice on questions of education and agency and we discuss why education actors and policy makers should pay attention to the perspectives of young people even (and especially) in times of crisis.

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Section: Youth Agency and Conflictmentioning

confidence: 80%

Youth agency in times of crisis: Exploring education and conflict in Mali through participatory visual approaches with youth

2022

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“…The children involved all display a range of negative emotions, which include feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, or even suicidal thoughts. Furthermore, drug use provides an escape from reality and a solution enabling the children to remain in the streets “emotionally,” yet entails a whole range of additional health risks that may even threaten their very survival (e.g., unprotected sexual intercourse resulting in exposure to STDs, sexual harassment) (Chikoko et al, 2018, 2019; Gigengack, 2006; Johnson et al, 2018; Kombarakaran, 2004). For instance, in a study of street children in Mexico, Gigengack (2006) stresses how their daily survival strategies comprised in the acquisition and consumption of glues and solvents.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Notions such as dependence and victimhood risk narrowing agentic practices and survival strategies either to “maladaptive behaviors” or “absence of agency” (Johnson et al, 2018; Mahati, 2012; Veronese et al, 2019). Instead, we need to acknowledge children’s potential for action and self-definition even when they do not conform to normative conceptions about childhood (Johnson et al, 2018; Veronese et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Authors agreed on the need for research and clinical practices capable of drawing a more nuanced portrait of children living in adverse conditions. The mainstream Western perspective that relegates the healthy development of children into the protected environments of the domestic sphere ends up penalizing those children who cannot afford such scenarios and risks demonizing, and treating as pathological, all forms of behavior that do not conform to it (Johnson et al, 2018; Mahati, 2012). A clear case of such a prejudicial western perspective may be found in Mahati’s study (2012), which highlights the conditions of exclusion and marginalization amongst migrant children from Zimbabwe who moved to South Africa for employment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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When Agency Turns Into a Risk Factor: A Literature Review of the Negative Consequences of Children’s Agentic Behaviors on Their Physical and Psychological Well-Being

Cavazzoni

Fiorini

Veronese

2021

Trauma, Violence, & Abuse

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Background: Research has widely documented how, even in conditions of extreme poverty, deprivation, or oppression, children are competent and situated actors, capable of actively mobilizing internal, external, or social resources to protect themselves from their environments and safeguard their everyday lives. Yet, the ways in which their agency might support their well-being or instead increase their own vulnerability has remained underexplored. Aims: The present study aims to provide an assessment of all those contributions which, over the past 20 years, have focused on both the positive and negative consequences of children’s actionability, revealing children’s self-destructive acts alongside their self-empowering and protective ones. In the process, it highlights several major theoretical breakthroughs and findings in this area of research. Method: We provide an assessment of peer-reviewed studies that have focused on both positive and negative consequences of children’s actionability, through a qualitative narrative literature review. Results: Of the 168 studies identified from online searches of the literature and the three additional sources gathered through bibliography mining, 76 qualified for full review, with 12 studies included in the final synthesis. Overall, the literature explored the different conditions in which children’s agentic practices expose them to trauma symptoms and to dangerous or self-harmful situations, thereby failing to safeguard their health and overall well-being. Conclusion: The review highlights the need to focus on the dangerous effect of the agentic practices activated by children in terms of their physical and psychological health.

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“…Complex sociotechnical domains such as the child-welfare system consist of underlying power structures where some parties hold the majority of the power, exercise agency, and exert control over other parties. Power relationships with respect to CWS have been studied extensively in sociology literature [24,72,77,107,109], however, computational text analysis of caseworkers' narratives to uncover such underlying power structures is an understudied topic.…”

Section: Power Analysis Of Personasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking Invisible Work Practices, Constraints, and Latent Power Relationships in Child Welfare through Casenote Analysis

Saxena,

Moon,

Shehata

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Caseworkers are trained to write detailed narratives about families in Child-Welfare (CW) which informs collaborative high-stakes decision-making. Unlike other administrative data, these narratives offer a more credible source of information with respect to workers' interactions with families as well as underscore the role of systemic factors in decision-making. SIGCHI researchers have emphasized the need to understand human discretion at the street-level to be able to design human-centered algorithms for the public sector. In this study, we conducted computational text analysis of casenotes at a child-welfare agency in the midwestern United States and highlight patterns of invisible street-level discretionary work and latent power structures that have direct implications for algorithm design. Casenotes offer a unique lens for policymakers and CW leadership towards understanding the experiences of on-the-ground caseworkers. As a result of this study, we highlight how street-level discretionary work needs to be supported by sociotechnical systems developed through worker-centered design. This study offers the first computational inspection of casenotes and introduces them to the SIGCHI community as a critical data source for studying sociotechnical systems.CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Human-computer interaction (HCI); Empirical studies in HCI ; • Applied computing → Computing in government.

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Ambiguous Agency as a Diagnostic of Power: Efforts of Child Welfare Providers to Promote Responsible Agency Among Youth Involved in Sex Trades

Cited by 9 publications

References 29 publications

Youth agency in times of crisis: Exploring education and conflict in Mali through participatory visual approaches with youth

Youth agency in times of crisis: Exploring education and conflict in Mali through participatory visual approaches with youth

When Agency Turns Into a Risk Factor: A Literature Review of the Negative Consequences of Children’s Agentic Behaviors on Their Physical and Psychological Well-Being

Unpacking Invisible Work Practices, Constraints, and Latent Power Relationships in Child Welfare through Casenote Analysis

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