Smith, M;
Cameron, C;
Reimer, D;
(2017)
From Attachment to Recognition for Children in Care.
The British Journal of Social Work
, 47
(6)
pp. 1606-1623.
10.1093/bjsw/bcx096.
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Abstract
Attachment theory has, over the last half-century, offered important insights into the nature of early experience and into human relationships more generally. These lessons have been influential in improving child-care attitudes and provision. While acknowledging such advances, our argument in this article is that the dominance accorded attachment theory in policy and professional discourse has reached a point where understandings of human relationships have become totalised within an attachment paradigm; it has become the ‘master theory’ to which other ways of conceiving of childcare and of relationships more generally become subordinated. Yet, many of the assumptions underlying attachment theory, and the claims made for it, are contestable. We trace the growing prominence of attachment theory in childcare, proceeding to critique the provenance of many claims made for it and the implications of these for practice. At the heart of the critique is a concern that an overreliance on attachment contributes to the biologisation of how we bring up children to the detriment of socio-cultural perspectives. We go on to offer one suggestive alternative way through which we might conceive of child-care relationships, drawing on Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | From Attachment to Recognition for Children in Care |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/bjsw/bcx096 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcx096 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Attachment, Bowlby, children in care, Honneth, recognition, relationships |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10039749 |
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