Abstract
How do welfare-reliant mothers enact their agency in relationships with social workers and social services? The present article addresses this question by investigating how twenty Israeli welfare-reliant mothers expressed different modes of human agency in in-depth interviews. Results show how research participants enact agency through (i) expressing anger, (ii) seeking help, (iii) resisting and (iv) engaging in non-action. By highlighting the multidimensional and situational nature of agency, this article offers a new relational lens for conceptualising and empirically studying human agency in social work.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 536-553 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | British Journal of Social Work |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Jan 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Helping relationship
- Relational agency
- Social services
- Social work
- Welfare-reliant mothers
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Health(social science)
- Social Sciences (miscellaneous)