Nominated Practice-based Research Papers

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https://hdl.handle.net/10315/28563

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Open Access
The Deserving Poor: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Ontario Disability Support Program Application Process
(2014) Quintero, David; Good Gingrich, Luann
Three policy directives of the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) are examined using a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to help reveal how these directives act as a barrier to the disabled community in Ontario seeking access to social assistance benefits. Arguments are made suggesting that the policy directives help to sustain a system of inefficiency through its adherence to administrative and neoliberal economic discourses rather than one based on social justice. Connections between discourse and the applications process are made using an order of discourse methodology to make links between discourses found in the policy directives and the application process for ODSP. Findings suggest that the policy discourses both procedurally and substantively classify members of the disabled community into those who are deserving of social assistance and those who are not. This classification process has serious implications that relegate those considered undeserving to receive assistance from a much more problematic Ontario Works (OW) program. This paper provides background information on the relationship between OW and ODSP and the implications associated with their overlapping functions. A review of existing literature on the ODSP application process is included and reveals strong connections between the application process and the problems many applicants experience by going through the process ranging from stigmatizing social constructions to having to remain in a low socioeconomic status. Possible reforms are suggested based on reviews of the social welfare system conducted from several sources that advocate a more inclusive and social justice based social welfare program for Ontario. Discussion of how social workers play a role in possible reform efforts is also explored.
Open Access
Models of Psychosis and the Limitations of Psychiatric Knowledge
(2014) Ricker-Wilson, Maya; Rossiter, Amy
In this paper, the medical discourse on the constructs of “psychosis” and “schizophrenia” is challenged by a literature review of contradictory evidence, alternative theories, phenomenological explorations of psychosis, and perspectives of people who have experienced psychosis. One purpose is to expose the violence that occurs in constructing madness as an illness and “treating” it through pharmacology, while another is to deconstruct the binary of “sane” versus “insane” by examining the social and existential factors that may contribute to the development of psychosis. Implications for social work practice are discussed.
Open Access
What Do We Mean By Support? A Discourse Analytic Study of Practitioners’ Talk about Facilitating Support Groups for Eating and Body Image Issues
(2014) Ki, Patricia Hoi Ling; McGrath, Susan
The purpose of this research is concerned with the ways service providers define, construct, and understand their practices and approaches in facilitating support groups in community-based settings for adults living with eating and body image issues. It aims to identify the discourses and power relations that both give shape to and are continually shaped by facilitators’ understanding and practices. Critical feminist analyses have found that psychomedical treatment models for ‘eating disorders’ often paradoxically reinforce the gendered discourses and discursive practices that constitute eating and body image issues in the first place. Examining the ways that group facilitators understand and define their practices through a critical feminist perspective and discourse analytic framework opens up new possibilities in practices of support to disrupt the discourses and power relations that contribute to eating and body image problems. The findings of this study suggest that psycho-medical, humanist, and gender discourses are dominant in participants’ constructions of their practices of support. Particularly, individualized understandings about eating and body image issues are reproduced. At the same time, individualizing and psychologising ideas are also challenged and resisted, especially in the ways participants question social and cultural norms and contemporary treatment methods when describing their understandings of support. The participants’ practice contexts outside of medical institutions may position them as having less expertise in relations to those afforded higher statuses within discourses of medicine and psychiatry, yet their discursive positions also seem to allow space for alternative ways of working.
Open Access
The Experiences of Low Income Single Mother:The Impact of the CAS ‘Duty to report’ when using and accessing External Support Services
(2014) Dunne, Lori; Heron, Barbara
The primary goal of this research project was to explore how the CAS ‘duty to report’ regulation impacts the decision of low income single mothers without prior CAS involvement to access and use support services external to CAS. Feminism was employed as the major theoretic principal and was used to gain an understanding of how such regulations can govern specific behaviours when single mothers access or use support services external to CAS. The need for this study derives from a lack of qualitative research that directly explores this phenomenon. Six individual, qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted for the purposes of this research project. The results emphasized the participants’ experiences and the findings spoke to the challenges of single motherhood in relationship to ‘duty to report’ and the perception of those who have an obligation to report.
Open Access
The birth of a well-adjusted individual in neoliberal times: Self-esteem discourse and its implications on bodies of color
(2016) Zhang, Heidi; McGrath, Susan
The concept of “self-esteem”, identified within sociology and psychology fields as self-concept, reflects a person’s overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth. Ever since its inception into academic literature in 1890 by the American psychologist William James, it has experience and continues to experience an important scientific status in finding out more about the human mind, human emotions and human behaviour. Self-esteem literature and research has also worked its way into social work research and practical applications especially when working with marginalized clients whom social workers wish to integrate smoothly into society either through mood regulations, behaviour interventions or other strategies such as family settlement and employment. From a post-structural and explicitly Foucauldian framework that also analyzes from post-colonial and critical race theories, I argue there is little literature within contemporary social work that looks at the problematic ways self-esteem as a dominant discourse organizes and privileges certain beliefs about the body as normal and healthy while negatively viewing others as harmful to selfhood and to the greater society. This research attempts to examine the ways self-esteem as a dominant discourse facilitates a reproduction of an Eurocentric and colonialist knowledge base that can have both discursive and material consequences for racialized clients participating in psycho-social educational programs within mental health agencies as a part of the current recovery model.
Open Access
"""This Indian dance is so cool"": Identifying and analyzing racialized discourses in music videos"
(2016) Akhtar, Minahil; Macias, Teresa
This research paper identifies and analyzes discursive productions and promotions of Others in and through twenty-first century music videos. Discourses of white and non-white subjectivities are examined. In-depth synthesizes of the data and discussions reveal that discourses surrounding white subjects laud this positioning whereas discourses related to non-white subjects are degrading. This paper unveils and critiques the existential dependence of dominant regimes on subjugated storylines.
Open Access
“We just know who we are”: lesbian refugees in the Canadian immigration system
(2017) Dearham, Kaitlin (Kat)
This paper explores the experiences of lesbian refugee claimants in the Canadian immigration system. Lesbian women attempting to escape violence and persecution face specific challenges in the asylum seeking process, from navigating the patchwork settlement sector to being asked to demonstrate their sexual orientation to a representative of the Canadian state. Through the use of in-depth interview with lesbian refugees, this paper documents lesbians’ experiences with the refugee claim process from landing to post-hearing. In it, the author argues that while lesbian refugee claimants experience marginalization based on the intersection of several marginalized identities, they assert self-determination and resistance throughout the process. Claimants must interact with discourses of homonationalism, homonormativity, and authenticity, which serve as gatekeeping mechanisms for the settler state.
Open Access
Horticulture as Therapy in Toronto: Unearthing Healing and Wellness in a Post-Industrial Setting
(2017) Fontaine, James
This paper explores how community service providers in Toronto use Horticultural therapy to engage with local ecological landscape in supporting client rehabilitation and wellness. A qualitative Deep Ecology theoretical framework through an inductive, revised, grounded theory research methodology was used. This research hopes to further the understanding of how community program service providers could facilitate therapeutic processes through engaging with ecology in Toronto's urban landscape. This study strived to deepen understanding of benefits in the use of land and environment for community and therapeutic programming in an urban setting. Data was collected through semi-structured, interviews with six service providers who are facilitators or developers of wellness programs which offer forms of horticulture for therapeutic benefits. Subsequent questions inquired how service providers see urban issues as intersecting into their work in the metropolitan context of Toronto. Providers expressed how their work in urban environments enables, in their words, the creation of natural oases. Adaptability is a strong theme evident in the year-round horticultural programming available in Toronto’s temperate climate. A significant age range (0-95) and diversity of populations was found to access needs-specific horticultural programs in institutional and community settings. Connectedness appeared as a strong guiding principle in local horticulture therapy programming. Varied critical perspectives were offered by the professionals on the distancing or entrenchment into the naming of their programs as a ‘therapy’. Food production in horticulture and its power of bringing people and cultures together in Toronto’s metropolitan environment emerged as a theme. Horticultural wellness programs access local natural resources, topography and waterways to broaden the practice of counselling for trauma, grief, death, addiction and life-changing experiences. Implications for broader acknowledgement of environment and occupied landscapes in Canadian social work practice, theory, and research are discussed
Open Access
Money, Drugs, and Voluntary Trusteeship; Applying Harm Reduction to Money Management Programs for People Who Use Substances
(2017) Dixon, Michelle
The objective of this research is to explore whether the Harm Reduction Trustee Case Management program at St. Stephen's Community House is reaching its objectives by improving overall quality of life for clients who are actively using substances and have a history of homelessness. Methods: A qualitative, non-experimental approach was used. Eighteen (18) retrospective pre-test-post-test questionnaires were completed. Questionnaires sought information pertaining to whether improvements in stability in terms of housing, financial, substance use, and overall quality of life were identified by clients. Results: All program outcomes measured, indicated improvements based on client responses. Post- test results indicated that 100% of clients are housed and maintaining their housing. One hundred percent (100%) of responses indicate that clients are practicing safe using strategies in terms of using substances since joining the program; and 78% of responses indicate improvements in terms of budgeting skills. Conclusion: The program evaluation has demonstrated that the Harm Reduction Trustee Case Management program it meeting its objectives and offering support that improves housing retention/stability as well as improving overall quality of life for clients enrolled in the program.
Open Access
The Gays Aren’t All White, The Desis Aren’t All Straight: Exploring Queer Subjectivity in the Toronto South Asian Diaspora
(2017) Kanji, Khadijah
The purpose of this research project is to approach a better understanding of queer South Asian diasporic identity and experience as it exists in Toronto, Canada. It attempts do so through the narratives of five individuals who self-identify with this subjectivity . A review of literature found that our current sexual subjectivities have emerged in co-production with our racial ones – demonstrating both the social contingencies of ‘sexuality’ as we understand it today, and the current utility of sexuality discourse towards racializing ends. This review also found that South Asian queer diasporic individuals – in the negotiation of their multiple Otherizations – have the potential to be both complicit in, and resistant to, the overlapping structures of race and sexuality through which human difference is organized and hierarchized. Given this theoretical context as a foundation, this project found that queer South Asian diasporic individuals encounter both racism and homophobia/transphobia, and yet lack the availability of community spaces in which to process and heal from such incidents – and as such, experience feelings of loneliness, displacement, and invisibility. Further, many subscribe to a belief in a conflict between their racial and sexual identities – a conflict that has inspired different and opposing strategies for reconciliation. All participants found both value and limitations in the frameworks and languages available for organizing their subjectivity – including in the concept of ‘queer’ that is increasingly adopted as a catch-all for non-normative sexualities worldwide - but differed in their conceptualization of the self as ‘essential’ versus context-dependent. An unanticipated finding was a common distancing from the institutionalized religions they had been socialized into. These findings elicited further analysis on the complicity of queer South Asian diasporic individuals in processes of racialization, the limitations of Western queer ‘Pride’ movements, and both the elusiveness and hope of a ‘home’ for those Otherized on multiple grounds. Finally, and importantly, this project found that the stories of queer South Asians living in Toronto are ones of savvy, resilience, creativity, resistance – and indeed, of joy.
Open Access
Exposing and Closing the Knowledge Gap in Canada for Indigenous People: What is working to support Indigenous students in schools today from an Indigenous perspective
(2017) McKay, Tsitra
The major focus of this project explores what factors enable Indigenous people to continue in education despite all the barriers they face. Furthermore the research looks at how the education system can continue to improve to support Indigenous people through post-secondary. Moreover, the research looks at what the implications to government and educators are now that the TRC (2015) recommendations have been released and how they are being implemented. Most importantly my research was done in collaboration with Indigenous peoples through a sharing circle and interviews using Indigenous research methodology which is holistic, sacred and honors Indigenous knowledge.
Open Access
Putting a Bow on Death and Dying Health Care Professionals’ Experiences with Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis with Agambian Insights
(2018) Townsley, Alison
This paper employs a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis perspective to enrich the understanding of the experiences that health care professionals in Ontario, Canada have with medical assistance in dying. Interview data is analyzed by situating the health care professional as an effect, as a producer, and as a challenger of power-knowledge systems. Philosophical theories of Giorgio Agamben are applied to the data to challenge Foucauldian principles, and to bolster the discussion of defining of the body that deserves to live, and the body that deserves to die. Major findings that emerged include the dominant discourse of aligning right and good within confines of the law, and the absolution of quantification and generalizability in relation to definitions surrounding dying. In terms of next steps for social work practice, this paper concludes by asking social workers to interrogate why we feel the need to ‘put a bow on death and dying’, so that we may engage in critical conversations with our colleagues.
Open Access
An Examination of How Dominant Notions of Normalcy Inform the Experiences of Non- White Subjects Living with Chronic Illness
(2018) Iyer, Minakshi
The subject of normalcy within critical disability studies explores the dichotomy of normal and abnormal and how this informs the way disability is discussed within society. Using a post-structural and critical approach, this research has examined the intersections between race and disability within the narratives of non-white subjects living with chronic illness. What this research reflects is a global conversation regarding the ways in which capitalism, whiteness and ability impart limitations upon participants in this study, and how community activism and friendship serve as a form of empowerment and solace while navigating these structures of dominance.
Open Access
Exploring the Impact of Client Suicide on Social Workers: A Phenomenological Study
(2018) Duffy, Amber
This research aims to further the understanding of how the phenomenon of client suicide is experienced. Using phenomenology, registered social workers were interviewed to garner an understanding of how client suicide is experienced within the social work perspective. Client suicide research has largely focused on the experience of other professions such as psychology and psychiatry, despite social workers often working with people who have suicidal ideation. Understanding how social workers make meaning of, and are possibly affected by their clients dying by suicide, is valuable in avoiding trauma, grief, and burn out. This research used a constructivist lens to interpret how various social workers experienced the same phenomenon differently, examining the question, “how do social workers describe their experience of client suicide and its impact on their personal and professional lives?”
Open Access
A Cookbook Approach to Building Community: Applying a Narrative Lens to Food Work
(2019-03) Guthrie, Jade
There has been a push from community food activists to create community food work practices which are more democratic, collective, and connected to social justice goals. As a response to these calls, this research project explore the research questions of “how can a collective narrative approach be applied to community food work programming in order to render this type of programming more inclusive and empowering for participants?” Using a narrative approach to probe this question, this community-based participatory project develops a “food narratives” framework to doing community food work. In-depth interviews, as well as a creative focus group session with community food practitioners served to gain insight into to the work being done on the ground. This research grounds this framework in theories of affect, intersectionality, and critical pedagogy, contending that “food narratives” can be mobilized within community food spaces as a means of exploring identity, creating community, and building resilience.
Open Access
Silence as Protection: Construction and Deconstruction of Violent Subjects in Media Portrayals of South-Asian and White Incidents of Domestic Violence
(2019-04) Sodia, Jasmine
This paper focuses on the ways the West silences South-Asian women experiencing domestic violence in the diaspora. My literature review illuminated a gap in the dominant literature where the phenomenon of silence is focused within the South-Asian community and rarely contextualized within the power system of racism in the West. Through a review of critical literature, it was clear that we must shift our gaze to how the West silences South-Asian women, due to the presence of the ‘White external gaze’ onto the community. This literature suggests that the members of the South-Asian community do not have control over how an issue within the community is taken up by the West to perpetuate racism once the issue is publicly talked about. This research paper includes an analysis of this ‘White external gaze’ in regards to how exactly it contributes to the silencing of South-Asian women. Western news media was selected as a form of the ‘White external gaze’ due to the influence its ‘talk’ has over the public and its context in the West, where White superiority exists. I conducted a comparative Foucauldian discourse analysis of news materials discussing three incidents of domestic violence involving South-Asian subjects and three involving White subjects. Each set included one incident from Canada, the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). Through my analysis, I found domestic violence being generalized within the South-Asian community and individualized within the White community as well as the subject production of the violent South-Asian man and the distancing of the White man from their perpetuated violence. This research paper has proved the racism that is perpetuated by the media, a form of the ‘White external gaze’, when speaking about incidents of violence within the South-Asian community. As a result, this project provides insight into how the silence of South-Asian women is a means to protect their community from the racism perpetuated by the ‘White external gaze’ within the West.
Open Access
Raising Children with a Developmental Disability: Ghanaian-Canadian Parents Shed Insight
(2019-04) Awuni, Linda
Using hermeneutical phenomenology, this study attempts to answer the question: How do Ghanaian-Canadian parents of children with developmental disabilities understand their child’s disabilities, and what experiences inform this? By interviewing six Ghanaian-Canadian parents of children with developmental disabilities through semi-structured interviews, it was determined that these parents understood disability broadly. Their understandings were influenced by childhood and post-migration experiences. These experiences were marked by stigma, stress, frustration and joy. Subsequently, the experience of having a child with a developmental disability inspired faith and allowed parents to see their own strengths and abilities in reconceptualizing disability. This research has pointed to broader systemic issues when children are transitioning out of the educational system and the lack of resources to support parents. In spite of strides being made to create awareness, attitudes towards persons with disabilities and their caregivers continues to be a concern for parents. Social workers and the research communities are encouraged to form alliances with minority groups to promote awareness and address barriers that continue to limit these parents and their children’s participation in Canadian society.
Open Access
Diverse Political Women in Canada and Online Attacks: Experiences, Perspectives, and Insights
(2019-06) Skogberg, Jenna
Multiple academic disciplines agree upon the importance of women having diverse representation in politics because their unique perspectives are strongly thought to have positive implications on policies that affect the health and well-being of all people (Clayton & Zetterberg, 2018). Yet, abuse or harassment levied at these women both online and offline likely diminishes their voices or desires to remain politically engaged. Using hermeneutic phenomenology and intersectional feminism, I explored the experiences of a diverse group of political women in Canada with online attacks to gain their insights on potential implications and strategies for change. The findings analyze the participants’ complex relationships with social media, the unique challenges of each platform, the interlock of online and offline harassment, the women’s resiliencies and strategies to cope with online attacks, and their ideas for potential resolutions. The implications for critical social work practice are identified as: insight on the continued need to challenge Eurocentric heteropatriarchal colonial institutions, online and offline; the importance for Canadian social workers to (re)imagine their roles in online spaces; and, the need to develop methods with interdisciplinary teams to combat ideological radicalization on online echo chambers. Regarding future research, there exists much potential. One focus I recommend is that an interdisciplinary team of people, representing various socio-political positionalities, study how to perform community building projects on online echo chambers.
Open Access
Exploring Polysexual Experiences within Mental Healthcare and the Negotiation of In/Visibility: A Qualitative Arts-Based Inquiry
(2020-04) DeAngelis, Alyssa
Contemporary research has found that polysexual people (who are sexually and/or romantically attracted to multiple genders) report poorer mental health when compared to monosexual people (Arnett, Frantell, Miles, & Fry, 2019; Bostwick, Boyd, Hughes, & McCabe, 2010; Brennan, Ross, Dobinson, Veldhuizen, & Steele, 2010; Flanders, Gos, Dobinson, & Logie, 2015; Steele, Ross, Dobinson, Veldhuizen, & Tinmouth, 2009). Furthermore, data from the 2003 and 2005 Canadian Community Health Surveys found that, “Bisexuals were more likely to report unmet [physical and mental] health care needs, compared with heterosexual Canadians” (Tjepkema, 2008, p. 62). Thus, this study explored the research question: “How do polysexual identified individuals wish to be seen, understood, and/or engaged within the specific context of mental healthcare?” The framework for this study was based on Daley’s (2013) theory of “negotiating in/visibility” in psychiatric service spaces. In the current study, six people participated in a semi-structured interview and four participants additionally completed a reflexive photography exercise (which included photographs and text). All mediums of data were brought together to discuss the following four themes: intersectionality; relevance; physical, online and community presence; and resistance. Findings revealed (respectively) that polysexual people wish to be seen as intersectional bodies, for their sexuality to be understood through their own perspectives as it relates (or not) to mental healthcare, to be engaged with through queer politics, and for therapeutic services to not be yet another space where they must resist oppression. While these results are not revolutionary by any means, they convey – often unmet – needs of polysexual people, from which service providers can reflect upon their own practice.
Open Access
The Advocate Self of(f) Beaten Paths: Travelling Colonial Roads in Neoliberal Times
(2020-04) Koziorz, Dorothy
Social work often conceptualizes advocacy as synonymous with social justice and critical praxis (Smith, 2011), which seemingly affirms the heart of the social work profession. Though many claim an advocacy role or agree that advocacy is essential to social works cause, little is known about how the advocate self is constructed, understood, and practiced. 6 self-defined, Ontario-based child and youth advocates were interviewed in this study to explore how they engage in their own self-making processes; specifically advocates for children and youth who are involved in the child welfare system. This research is informed by post-structural, anti-colonial, anti-racist, and other critical theories and worldviews. It deploys a narrative approach and an analytic framework of Foucauldian discourse analysis to explore how child and youth advocates are shaped by, and in turn, shape dominant relations of power that work against, or in solidarity with children and young people towards social justice. Findings reveal that the roads travelled by child and youth advocates in their self-making processes are complex and ever-changing. The narratives of child and youth advocates reveal that they are both co-producers and disrupters of dominant discourses and power-knowledge systems. Additionally, it is argued that the advocate self is not a bounded self, but that it is “discursively mediated and politically situated” (Macias, 2012 p. 10). Finally, the research concludes with an argument for the necessity to historicize social justice imperatives in order to gain insight to the current tensions experienced by social justice advocates and further, opportunities for resistance.