Antaki2007b

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Antaki2007b
BibType ARTICLE
Key Antaki2007b
Author(s) Charles Antaki, W. M. L. Finlay, Chris Walton
Title “The staff are your friends”: conflicts between institutional discourse and practice
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Institutional interaction
Publisher
Year 2007
Language
City
Month
Journal British Journal of Social Psychology
Volume 46
Number 1
Pages 1–18
URL Link
DOI 10.1348/014466606X94437
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Talk between care staff and people with learning disabilities may reveal a conflict between official policy and actual social practice. We explore a case in which care staff are in the process of soliciting residents' views on ‘relationships’. Ostensibly, this is an empowering part of a group meeting, meant to help the residents understand their relationships with the people around them, and to value those which are positive. However, the talk mutates from solicitation to instruction and, in doing so, provides a vivid case of people with learning disabilities being attributed social rights more limited than is consistent with institutional service policy. We unpack the play of category membership in this episode to illustrate how conflicting agendas can lead to the construction, even in ostensibly empowering encounters, of identities actively disavowed at the level of official discourse.

Notes