Ambiguous spaces for troubled youth: home, therapeutic institution or school?

Abstract

In Sweden and elsewhere, students permanently excluded from school are removed from their local environment, and sometimes their parental home, and moved to a rural residential care home. Thus 'home' and 'school' are clearly considered places where problems exist, but it is the young people themselves who are scrutinised and subjected to change. This study examined how the change of place and the performance of the alternative 'home' and alternative 'school' affected student adjustment. It also explored the significance of place in these measures and questioned how possibilities for agency and subjectivities are produced. The work comprised an ethnographic study of two residential care homes for troubled youth (aged 12-15). The results show how complex assemblages produce opportunities and limitations for care and education and how location and buildings partake in the constitution of possible subjectivities and agency. The analysis, inspired by actornetwork theory, captured mobility and flow, an important aspect when studying complexity. The analytical approach used enabled the complex arrangements for disadvantaged teenagers to be studied in terms of social interactions, but also of materiality.

Documentation for students in residential care: network of relations of human and non-human actants

“…These interventions are conducted within the framework of both educational and social services, and are thus situated in intersections between care, treatment and teaching. The interventions combine educational and therapeutic methods in a therapeutic milieu (Severinsson et al 2014;Willman 2007).…”

“…Berridge et al (2008) state that social workers' emphasis on social and emotional factors rather than on educational matters creates a problem; and that carers' responsibilities for educational matters have been unclear. Severinsson et al (2014) show that the dominant discourse in Swedish Homes for Care or Residency (HVBs 1 ) is that troubled youth must become more socially and emotionally stable before they can be properly educated. This 'discourse of care' legitimates the premise that students can wait until 'later' to go to school.…”

Emergent subjectivity in caring institutions for teenagers

“…When the complex care model of somewhat contradictory discursive interventions was enacted in these ambiguous spaces, environments of high complexity and ambiguity appeared (cf. Susanne Severinsson et al, 2014) in all three institutions. Although the three settings shared this underlying aim, the enrolment of material and architectural actors differed between them and, together with other actors, produced diverse subjectivities among both teenagers and staff.…”

“…Interventions in HVBs are situated in the intersection between social care, treatment, and teaching (S Severinsson, Nordh, & Reimers, 2014). This implies that HVBs simultaneously apply the contradictory discourses of punishment and social welfare, blurring blame and discipline with care and sympathy.…”

Architectural Space in Respite and Intermediate Care: An Actor-Network Theory Analysis

“…The point of departure was that 2 different forms of organizational models for shortterm care emerged as an effect of differences in architectural design and the consequent development of dissimilar social and care situations. Space can impact healthcare organization in a number of ways, contributing to organizational learning (Högström, 2012), the development of caring models (Nord, 2007), and the relationships between the carer and the cared for (Nord, 2011b;Severinsson, Nord, & Reimers, 2014). Space can nurture agency and strategic considerations (Severinsson et al, 2014), as well as discursive consolidations of organizations (Högström, 2012).…”