Cops, teachers, counselors : stories from the front lines of public service / Steven Maynard-Moody and Michael Musheno.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maynard-Moody, Steven, author.

Musheno, Michael C., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human services personnel--United States.

Human services personnel.

Social workers--United States.

Social workers.

Police--United States.

Police.

Teachers--United States.

Teachers.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (305 pages)

Edition:

New and Expanded Edition.

Second Edition.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2022.

Summary:

The new edition of Cops, Teachers, Counselors furthers the exploration of forces that shape the contours of frontline work. This line of inquiry is at the heart of street-level bureaucracy research, a field of study cutting across disciplines, including public administration, political science, social work, law and society, education, and criminal justice. The oft-cited 2003 edition pioneered a qualitative method of inquiry using workers' own voices and storytelling about fairness in the delivery of services. This NSF-supported field research reveals the ways workers engage in moral judgments, more than implementing laws and policies, to account for their decisions and actions. The new edition wraps an expanded framing around the original chapters, while maintaining a lively, approachable presentation style. It takes on a more enriched perspective of legality than the original, while retaining a focus on frontline work as a powerful source of cultural ordering. In addition to examining workers' stories of encounters, attention is given to the agency of the governed during interactional moments, the power dynamics in play during both interpersonal and group encounters, and patterns of practice that converge across distinctive service domains. The original edition describes two narratives that shape frontline workers' decisional judgments and the interplay between legality and morality: the state-agent and citizen-agent narratives. This edition adds the knowledge-agent narrative that stresses the importance of professional and field learning to decisional judgments. The book examines routine encounters of cops, teachers, and counselors with diverse publics when questions of justice and fairness are at play. This new edition speaks to contemporary issues at a time when frontline workers gained broad recognition for their heroic contributions to communities during the Covid 19 pandemic, as well as sustained condemnation for their embodiment of the brutal expression of racialized state power in police actions. The authors conclude with a focus on the significance of place and trust in building social inclusion on the frontlines of public service.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Stories

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part I. Two Narratives of Street-Level Work

1. Dealing with Faces

2. State Agents, Citizen Agents

3. Story Worlds, Narratives, and Research

4. Physical and Emotional Spaces

Part II. Enacting Identities in the Workplace and on the Streets

5. Workers Unite: Occupational Identities and Peer Relations

6. Organizational and Social Divisions among Street-Level Workers

7. Putting a Fix on People: Identity, Conduct, and Street-Level Work

Part III. Normative Decision Making: Moralities over Legalities

8. Who Are the Worthy?

9. Responding to the Worthy

10. Street-Level Worker Knows Best

11. Getting the Bad Guys

12. Streetwise Workers and the Power of Storytelling

Part IV. Reframing Frontline Inquiry

13. Encounters, Agency, Pragmatism

14. Three Narratives

Afterword

Appendix A. Methodology

Appendix B. Entry Interview

Appendix C. Questionnaire and Exit Interview

Appendix D. Story Cover Page

Appendix E. Story Codes

Notes

References

Index.

Notes:

Previous edition: 2003.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-268) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

Other Format:

Print version: Maynard-Moody, Steven Williams Cops, Teachers, Counselors

ISBN:

9780472129980

0472129988