Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T19:39:36.863Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Complex Needs and Wicked Problems: How Social Disadvantage Became Multiple

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2015

kylie valentine
kylie valentine*
Affiliation:
Social Policy Research Centre, UNSWAustralia (University of New South Wales) E-mail: k.valentine@unsw.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article traces changes in the descriptions of entrenched social disadvantage, and changes in the way that social description is conceptualised and measured. The article is also an analysis of the importance of categories and categorisation to social policy research; an importance which is recognised relatively rarely. Its focus is on the growing importance of multiplicity as a mode for measuring and conceptualising disadvantage. It argues that multiplicity has become important in social policy, and traces distinct trends in research and policy over the last half-century, and their convergence at particular moments. The rise of multiplicity as a trope for understanding social disadvantage has the effect of rendering social problems as more ‘wicked’ and intractable than they were previously understood to be. The strengths of this are in the sophistication of theoretical, multidisciplinary conceptualisations of disadvantage and the disadvantaged. There may be costs to this, however, in policy responses to addressing people's needs.

Keywords

Categorisationcomplex needswicked problemssocial policy theory
Type
Articles
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 237 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Al, C. M. W., Stams, G., Bek, M. S., Damen, E. M., Asscher, J. J. and van der Laan, P. (2012) ‘A meta-analysis of intensive family preservation programs: placement prevention and improvement of family functioning’, Children and Youth Services Review, 34, 8, 1472–9.Google Scholar
Armstrong, D. (2012) ‘Screening: mapping medicine's temporal spaces’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 34, 2, 177–93.Google Scholar
Australian Social Inclusion Board (2012) Social Inclusion in Australia: How Australia is Faring, 2nd edn, Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.Google Scholar
Bennett, L. R. and Westera, D. (1994) ‘The primacy of relationships for teens – issues and responses’, Family and Community Health, 17, 3, 60–9.Google Scholar
Best, J. (2013) ‘Redefining poverty as risk and vulnerability: shifting strategies of liberal economic governance’, Third World Quarterly, 34, 1, 109–29.Google Scholar
Bovaird, T. (2012) ‘Attributing outcomes to social policy interventions – “gold standard” or “fool's gold” in public policy and management?’, Social Policy and Administration, 48, 1, 1–23.Google Scholar
Buell, B. (1952) Community Planning for Human Services, New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bulmer, M. (1982) The Uses of Social Research: Social Investigation in Public Policy-Making, London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Cameron, D. (2011) ‘Troubled families’ [speech], 15 December, London: Cabinet Office, Prime Minister's Office.Google Scholar
Campbell, D. T. (1969) ‘Reforms as experiments’, American Psychologist, 24, 4, 409–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunningham Dax, E. and Hagger, R. (1977) ‘Multiproblem families and their psychiatric significance’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 11, 4, 227–32.Google Scholar
Curtis, J. L., Simon, M., Boykin, F. L. and Noe, E. R. (1963) ‘Observations on 29 multiproblem families’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 33, 2, 365–6.Google Scholar
Dakamulwanda, V., Thornburg, K. R., Filbert, L. and Klein, T. (1995) ‘Collaboration of services for children and families – a synthesis of recent research and recommendations’, Family Relations, 44, 2, 219–23.Google Scholar
Danese, A., Moffitt, T. E., Harrington, H., Milne, B. J., Polanczyk, G., Pariante, C. M., Poulton, R. and Caspi, A. (2009) ‘Adverse childhood experiences and adult risk factors for age-related disease: depression, inflammation, and clustering of metabolic risk markers’, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 163, 12, 1135–43.Google Scholar
Deacon, A. (2004) ‘Different interpretations of agency within welfare debates’, Social Policy and Society, 3, 4, 447–55.Google Scholar
Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) (2012) The Troubled Families Programme: Financial Framework for the Troubled Families Programme's Payment-by-Results Scheme for Local Authorities, London: DCLG.Google Scholar
Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) (2014) Troubled Families Programme: Progress Information and Families Turned Around, London: DCLG.Google Scholar
Foresight (2007) Tackling Obesities: Future Choices, Project report, London, Government Office for Science.Google Scholar
Friedlander, M. L., Lambert, J. E. and de la Pena, C. M. (2008) ‘A step toward disentangling the alliance/improvement cycle in family therapy’, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55, 1, 118–24.Google Scholar
Gilbert, R., Fluke, J., O'Donnell, M., Gonzalez-Izquierdo, A., Brownell, M., Gulliver, P., Janson, S. and Sidebotham, P. (2012) ‘Child maltreatment: variation in trends and policies in six developed countries’, The Lancet, 379, 9817, 758–72.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (2002a) Historical Ontology, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, I. (2002b) ‘Inaugural lecture: Chair of Philosophy and History of Scientific Concepts at the Collège de France, 16 January 2001’, Economy and Society, 31, 1, 1–14.Google Scholar
Head, B. W. (2008) ‘Wicked problems in public policy’, Public Policy, 3, 2, 101–18.Google Scholar
Jacobs, K. and Manzi, T. (2013) ‘Modernisation, marketisation and housing reform: the use of evidence-based policy as a rationality discourse’, People, Place and Policy Online, 7, 7, 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitas, R. (2012) There May Be ‘Trouble’ Ahead: What We Know About Those 120,000 ‘Troubled’ Families, Policy Response Series No. 3, University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York, Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK.Google Scholar
MacKenzie, M. J., Kotch, J. B. and Lee, L.-C. (2011) ‘Toward a cumulative ecological risk model for the etiology of child maltreatment’, Children and Youth Services Review, 33, 9, 1638–47.Google Scholar
Marston, G. and Watts, R. (2003) ‘Tampering with the evidence: a critical appraisal of evidence-based policy-making’, The Drawing Board: An Australian Review of Public Affairs, 3, 3, 143–63.Google Scholar
Mendes, P. and Snow, P. (2014) ‘The needs and experiences of young people with a disability transitioning from out-of-home care: the views of practitioners in Victoria, Australia’, Children and Youth Services Review, 36, 115–23.Google Scholar
Nikulina, V., Widom, C. S. and Czaja, S. (2011) ‘The role of childhood neglect and childhood poverty in predicting mental health, academic achievement and crime in adulthood’, American Journal of Community Psychology, 48, 3–4, 309–21.Google Scholar
Patton, M. Q. (2010) Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use, New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Pawson, R. and Tilley, N. (1997) Realistic Evaluation, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Portes, J. (2012) ‘“Neighbours from hell”’: who is the Prime Minister talking about?’, National Institute of Social and Economic Research, 17 February, http://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/neighbours-hell-who-prime-minister-talking-about [accessed 20.05.2015].Google Scholar
Rankin, J. and Regan, S. (2004) Meeting Complex Needs: The Future of Social Care, London: Institute for Public Policy Research.Google Scholar
Rittel, H. W. J. and Webber, M. M. (1973) ‘Dilemmas in a general theory of planning’, Policy Sciences, 4, 2, 155–69.Google Scholar
Salter, M. and Breckenridge, J. (2014) ‘Women, trauma and substance abuse: understanding the experiences of female survivors of childhood abuse in alcohol and drug treatment’, International Journal of Social Welfare, 23, 2, 165–73.Google Scholar
Saunders, P. (2005) The Poverty Wars: Reconnecting Research with Reality, Sydney: UNSW Press.Google Scholar
Sousa, L., Ribeiro, C. and Rodrigues, S. (2007) ‘Are practitioners incorporating a strengths-focused approach when working with multi-problem poor families?’, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 17, 1, 53–66.Google Scholar
Stith, S. M., Liu, T., Davies, L. C., Boykin, E. L., Alder, M. C., Harris, J. M., Som, A., McPherson, M. and Dees, J. E. M. E. G. (2009) ‘Risk factors in child maltreatment: a meta-analytic review of the literature’, Aggression and Violent Behavior, 14, 1, 13–29.Google Scholar
Trevvett, N. B. (1967) ‘Treatment planning for multiproblem families’, Crime and Delinquency, 13, 2, 307–16.Google Scholar
Welshman, J. (2007) From Transmitted Deprivation to Social Exclusion: Policy, Poverty and Parenting, Bristol: The Policy Press.Google Scholar
Wertz, F. G., Charmaz, K., McMullen, L. M., Josselson, R., Anderson, R. and McSpadden, E. (2011) Five Ways of Doing Qualitative Analysis: Phenomenological Psychology, Grounded Theory, Discourse Analysis, Narrative Research, and Intuitive Inquiry, New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Winner, L. (1980) ‘Do artifacts have politics?’, Daedalus, 109, 1, 121–36.Google Scholar