Shifting Subordination : Co-located interprofessional collaboration betweenteachers and social workers
Year: 2011
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse the practice processes involved in co-located interprofessional collaboration. The study took place in a resource school where social workers and teachers collaborate on an everyday basis around children who are both in receipt of special educational support and\ninterventions from social services. The research question centres on the division of labour and the explicit notions and implicit assumptions that underpin it. Further, the organisational conditions that influence the\ndivision of labour, the process involved in the selection of pupils, and the processes of maintenance and development of professional identities in a close collaborative context are all examined. The study is a qualitative case study of interprofessional collaboration. Through interviews with the teachers\nand social workers, and via participatory observation of their professional practice, empirical data has been generated. This has been used to examine processes of collaborative collaboration in accordance with a thematic analytical scheme. A theoretical framework based on theories of the sociology of professions (Abbot, 1988; Evetts, 2006b) and drawing also on the work of Hasenfeld (2010a) on human service organisations and Lipsky (1980) on street level bureaucrats, in conjunction with Strauss’ (1978) theory of negotiations, has been used in analysing the\nempirical data.\nThe results indicate that the intake process functions primarily to legitimise collaboration from an organisational and professional perspective. Further, the teachers and social workers create what are termed common and separate grounds for practice. The concept of common grounds describes the processes in which common collaborative relationships are created, such as, for example, the construction of interchangeability\nand a common practice ideology. Separate grounds, on the other hand, involves situations in which social workers and teachers are engaged in defining and specifying their profession-specific roles in the context of their everyday work. Another means of maintaining and reinforcing a profession-specific professional identity\nin co-located collaborative contexts is the use of the spatial design.\nThe results also point to three particular characteristics in the construction of co-located interprofessional collaboration. First, professionals are engaged in what can be termed a form of shifting subordination as a\nmeans of both legitimising and developing their professional identities. Shifting subordination is a strategy used to reduce and avoid professional conflict around roles and working tasks. Secondly, they are engaged in\nconstructing a shared professional identity as a means to meet the organization’s imperative of ‘getting the job done’. Thirdly, there is the characteristic of interdependence which shapes the negotiation processes involved\nin the division of labour.
Author: Anette Bolin
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1712659549