Abstract
Relations of dominance between fields are paramount to field analysis, yet such relations often elude objectification. This chapter explores such relations, by examining how the Danish field of welfare work adapts and responds to interventions originating in the political field, the bureaucratic field and the field of education. These structural responses are observed through series of geometric data analyses at between 1980 and 2013; exploring whether dominant bureaucratic and political interventions affect the capital structure of the field of welfare work.
The Danish welfare state maintains a set of welfare professions, each of which provides a specific subset of welfare benefits, or services. These professionals - agents of the Danish field of welfare work – make up the population of the analysis: teachers, social workers, occupational therapists, social educators, nurses, librarians, police officers and others (n=384.294, total of all analyses). 4 spaces of welfare worker capital structure are constructed from data on these individuals, encompassing own and inherited cultural and economic capital, employment, demography and social position.
The analysis addresses the following questions:
- What forms of capital and dominance structure the Danish field of welfare work?
- What changes has this structure undergone?
- How do these changes in capital structure relate to the political and bureaucratic fields?
Finally, the paper discusses possibilities and difficulties of Geometric Data Analysis when studying changing field structures and relations over time, examining the impact of operationalization and quantification and the scope for theoretical and methodological reflexivity in this kind of analysis.
Keywords: Field analysis, Welfare work, Geometric data analysis, Dominance relations between fields
The Danish welfare state maintains a set of welfare professions, each of which provides a specific subset of welfare benefits, or services. These professionals - agents of the Danish field of welfare work – make up the population of the analysis: teachers, social workers, occupational therapists, social educators, nurses, librarians, police officers and others (n=384.294, total of all analyses). 4 spaces of welfare worker capital structure are constructed from data on these individuals, encompassing own and inherited cultural and economic capital, employment, demography and social position.
The analysis addresses the following questions:
- What forms of capital and dominance structure the Danish field of welfare work?
- What changes has this structure undergone?
- How do these changes in capital structure relate to the political and bureaucratic fields?
Finally, the paper discusses possibilities and difficulties of Geometric Data Analysis when studying changing field structures and relations over time, examining the impact of operationalization and quantification and the scope for theoretical and methodological reflexivity in this kind of analysis.
Keywords: Field analysis, Welfare work, Geometric data analysis, Dominance relations between fields
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Bourdieu’s Field Theory and the Social Sciences |
| Editors | James Albright, Deborah Hartman, Jacqueline Widin |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
| Publication date | 2018 |
| Pages | 81-97 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9789811053849, 978-981-13-5383-3 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9789811053856 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |