Applied Social Studies - Doctoral Theses

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An exploration of foster carers' identity in the caregiving role: an interpretative phenomenological analysis
(University College Cork, 2023) Daniels, Maria; McCaughren, Simone; Bantry White, Eleanor
The purpose of this research was to explore the life experiences that influenced foster carers to take on the role of fostering. The aim was to develop a more in-depth understanding of how their experiences shaped their identity in the caregiving role and their developing relationships with the children in their care. A qualitative approach was adopted guided by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Seven foster families were recruited and data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and analysed using IPA. Four superordinate themes emerged from the interpretative analysis. The first theme Complex Family Dynamics identified foster carers’ reasons for taking on the role of fostering were deeply personal and related to their own subjective experiences. The second theme Conflicting Identities captured their feelings around the assessment process. The third theme Developing Identities related to their emerging identities as foster carers and developing relationships with the children in their care. The fourth theme Enactment of the Role outlined their approach to the task of fostering and relationships with professionals. Narrative identity was the lens used to analyse the new findings related to the interchange between what foster carers bring to the role and the requirements of the system. Their experiences in the role emerged as contextual and deeply personal. Their identity as foster carers was shaped by their subjective experiences and this identity was different to the one imposed on them as ‘ordinary’ families who enter a system and are simultaneously required to adhere to statutory requirements and professionals expectations. The analysis of this research focused on foster carers’ interpretation of their role and the implications for them, the children in their care and the system that recruits and supports them. The main conclusions are presented and lead to a number of recommendations for social work practice, support and training for foster carers, policy implications and future research. Underpinning these recommendations is an emphasis on the importance of considering foster carers’ experiences through their lenses. The findings suggest further exploration of how foster carers are assessed in Ireland is needed to create a more authentic space for reflection for both foster carers and social workers. An examination of what foster carers bring to the role from their unique perspectives would also give them a sense of self in the care they provide and build a foundation for future learning.
An exploration of the support and facilitation of young people’s religious preferences in children’s residential care services
(University College Cork, 2023) Anderson, Victoria J.; Horgan, Deirdre; McCaughren, Simone
Set within broader practice and theoretical contexts, the overall objective of this research was to explore the support and facilitation of religious diversity amongst young people living in residential children’s services in Ireland. Based on the recognition of the unique positioning of these services in the private domain of young people and their family’s lives, as well as the complex historic relationship between residential care and religion, the research examines how well-equipped services are to effectively respond to diverse religious preferences within an increasingly secular framework. Building on the epistemological foundations of interpretivism, a social constructivist approach was incorporated into a mixed-method research design to capture the views and opinions of some key social actors in the everyday meaning-making processes surrounding this issue. The primary exploration focuses on micro-level service delivery and everyday practice. Drawing loosely on Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (1979), broader consideration has been given to macro aspects of service delivery, including legislation, policy, and practice structures, as well as the meso-level impacts including relevant staff support, education, and training in order to contextualise the research. Data gathered indicates inconsistencies in practices, attitudes toward and framings of religion across different services, different service types and between different religions. The outcomes of the exploration highlight a need for increased religious consideration not only in frontline professional practice but also in the systems and structures surrounding everyday service delivery. The findings of the research suggest that more needs to be done to increase religious literacy amongst all involved in service delivery to ensure young people are receiving adequate support and facilitation of their religious preferences in acknowledgement of their rights to religion and the role that it may play in their lives and circumstances.
From a constitutional ban to reproductive justice? Trans/formations of past and present abortion governance in Ireland
(University College Cork, 2023) Waltz, Charlotte; Leane, Máire; O'Riordan, Jacqui; Irish Research Council; Cultuurfonds; VSBFonds; Hendrik Mullerfonds
Following the Repeal of the constitutional ban on abortion in May 2018, abortion care in Ireland was implemented on 1 January 2019. Under the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, abortion is now legally available during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, in later cases where the pregnant person’s life or health is at risk, and in cases of fatal foetal abnormality. Abortion provision remains criminalised for medical practitioners outside of those parameters. The legal, cultural, social, and political shift in governance after the repeal of the constitutional ban provides fertile ground to move away from moral understandings of abortion and to explore abortion care as policy, practice and lived experience for both service user and provider. This thesis examines the emergence of abortion care practices and norms under the transformed post-Repeal governance framework from 2019 to 2021, the period which is subject to the Government Review of the Health Act 2018. Drawing on existing publicly available information and ethnographic fiction, this thesis unpacks how abortion governance is put into practice and how this shapes service users' and providers’ engagement with abortion care in Ireland. It critically examines how governance under the new legal context in Ireland is translated into the provision of abortion care, which systemic inequities and contexts shape access and provision, and evaluates to what extent abortion governance has moved towards reproductive justice. The conceptual framework develops and employs the concepts of reproductive justice (Ross, 2017; Ross and Solinger, 2017), reproductive governance (Morgan and Roberts 2012), moral governance (Mishtal, 2015) and feminist understandings of biopower (De Zordo and Marchesi, 2015; Foucault, 1997a; 1997b; 1995; 1990). Together they combine to enable a situated reading of past and present abortion governance in Ireland and inform the entire research process. Abortion governance is historically contextualised through a reproductive justice frame and different ways of knowing and experiencing abortion care are foregrounded throughout the thesis. The methodological approach develops and deploys creative feminist and reproductive justice methods (Davis and Craven, 2016; Günel, Varma and Watanabe, 2020; Ross and Solinger, 2017). The methodology incorporates a reflexive and creative writing approach which seeks to capture embodied experiences with abortion care (Ingridsdotter and Kallenberg, 2018). Ethno-fictional vignettes provide the means to illustrate embodied experiences of service users and providers that can be difficult for more dominant academic approaches to capture, and to critically appraise the first three years of abortion care provision from a reproductive justice perspective. As such, this thesis presents a new way of analysing and understanding contemporary abortion care in Ireland. The research identifies four main post-Repeal governance mechanisms: the legal framework under the Health Act 2018, controlling of information and maintaining a culture of secrecy, framing of abortion as exceptional, and exclusionary and delaying processes of governance change. These mechanisms demonstrate central continuities between pre- and post-Repeal abortion governance, despite the transformative moment of the Repeal referendum in 2018. The legalisation of abortion does not guarantee an expansion of considerations of embodied experiences with care, nor does it significantly transform moral governance mechanisms of the past. The ethno-fictional vignettes give voice and visibility to often hidden experiences of abortion service provision and use. This unique approach to conducting research on abortion provision in Ireland reveals that abortion access and provision continue to be problematic and inequitable and highlights how lived engagements with care are intricately tied up with governance. This thesis thus shows that post-Repeal abortion governance in Ireland does not reflect reproductive justice and, moreover, impedes further transformations towards it.
Responding to Black African immigrant parents of children with disabilities in Irish Early Intervention Services: parental experiences and professional perspectives in the search for culturally competent practice
(University College Cork, 2023) Jingwa, Ndemazia Asonglefack; Bantry White, Eleanor; Edwards, Claire
There has been growing concern in recent years about how health and social care services in Ireland can respond appropriately to the needs of an increasingly diverse population. Internationally, literature demonstrates that immigrant families experience significant discrimination and racism in many areas of their life, including access to services, but we know less about these experiences in the Irish context. This research explores how black African immigrant parents of children with disabilities (from Nigeria, Cameroon and South Africa) in Ireland understand and experience accessing and engaging with Early Intervention Services; and how health and social care professionals respond to and engage with these families. It also explores the barriers and challenges experienced by families and indeed professionals, and specifically interrogates the concept of cultural competence in terms of its potential to offer a route to culturally responsive professional practice. The research took a qualitative approach based on constructionism. It used semi-structured audio-taped interviews to explore the experiences of ten parents and ten professionals. Purposive sampling was utilised. Interviews were transcribed, anonymised, coded and analysed through an inductive thematic analytic approach. Research findings indicate that parental service experiences are influenced by their cultural perceptions of disability and expectations for their child with a disability. While findings reveal parent appreciation for services being provided for their child, they also reveal tension and ambivalence in parent-professional relationships. The complexities of intersecting identities, compounded by unfamiliarity with the health care system, and other structural challenges are seen as influencing parental interaction with services. In conclusion, the research suggests that the concept of cultural competence in its current form is inadequate to respond effectively to the needs of African immigrant families, and that professionals do not feel adequately equipped and supported to engage in culturally competent practice. Drawing on insights from intersectionality theory, the research proposes a synergistic relationship between cultural competence and intersectionality to create the process of intersectional cultural competence.
Vulnerabilities of trafficked rural Chinese girls in the UK asylum system: a thematic analysis
(University College Cork, 2022-10-06) Murphy, Helen Louise; O'Riordan, Jacqui; Martin, Shirley
This thesis presents the cases of ten rural Chinese girls who were transnationally trafficked and claimed asylum in the UK after presenting to the UK authorities as unaccompanied minors. The ten case-studies are drawn from a point-in-time historical sample of asylum case files which were created between the years 2007 and 2012. The thesis draws upon an ecological systems theoretical framework to analyse the girls’ lives and experiences as they were conveyed by the girls themselves to British immigration officials in a series of interviews and statements given over the course of the asylum process. It is underpinned by Pearce et. al’s conceptual framework of human trafficking as a social process and not a one-off event. The aim of the thesis is to identify forces at play both in China and the UK which may contribute to victims’ vulnerability to a recurring cycle of trafficking and re-trafficking. All ten girls were refused leave to remain by the Home Office and all ten refusal decisions were appealed against in Asylum and Immigration Tribunals. The available documents were accumulated by Professor Jackie Sheehan in her capacity as China Country Expert Witness in the girls’ appeals. As well as asylum interviews, witness statements and Home Office refusal letters, the asylum case files included practitioners’ reports, including those from support and advocacy groups and social workers and medical reports. All documents were systematically analysed and coded using thematic analysis. The data reveals much about official responses to child trafficking and provides an opportunity to track the asylum process and identify shortcomings which put child trafficking victims at risk of continued trafficking even whilst under the auspices of the UK authorities. It is argued that the prioritization of immigration status over safeguarding and a culture of hostility, disbelief, and feigned ignorance among Home Office civil servants and practitioners responsible for the welfare of the children can be viewed as secondary victimization which causes further harm to traumatised girls in relation to their safety, their physical and psychological wellbeing, and in relation to the outcome of their cases.

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