This is a self- study (S-STEP) into interrupting and re-constructing heteronormativity via an integration of queer and critical pedagogies on youth and community work courses. It was conducted over three years and involved interactions with three student cohorts (over 200 people) and reflective conversations with ten colleagues. It was situated within a critical realist paradigm, making specific use of Archer’s morphogenetic approach and her typology of reflexives as a heuristic tool. I make an ontological contribution to knowledge by illustrating how critical realism is a useful bridge between queer and critical pedagogy. It found that ‘coming out’ is a legitimate method of interrupting heteronormativity, but needs to be a pedagogical act carried out co-currently with interrupting other social constructions and binary oppositions. It suggests that interrupting heteronormativity is most effective within the context of a whole course and wider team approach. There is a legitimacy and necessity of developing transgressive sexualities, especially heterosexualities. I add to the literature by suggesting that interrupting and reconstructing heteronormativity also necessitates the development of pedagogical practitioners as dedicated meta-reflexives with intersubjective consciousness’s. This combines elements of Orne‘s and Black’s reconceptualisting of Du Bois’s original vision of double consciousness, as a negative de-centring concept, to being a useful, and necessary, device in an increasingly liquid modernity. I also expand Scrambler’s, and Archer’s different visions of a dedicated meta-reflectives. Intersubjective consciousness’s can, by implications, only be held collectively. The group co-holding each other to account for the balance between stigma resistance and challenge. Developing pedagogical practitioners necessitates co-created and co-held metareflexive liminal spaces that emphasise inter-subjectivity, encounter and working in the moment. These spaces need to be founded on principles of the need to de-construct and reconstruct pedagogical power and knowledge, and understandings of the public and private in pedagogical space.

This thesis explores the experiences of a group of social work students undertaking assessed academic writing as part of their professional training through distance learning in the UK in 2001. Drawing upon the concept of 'academic literacies' and informed by a psychosocial approach, this thesis explores the nature of students' writing within the context of the experiences of students and tutors. Writing in social work requires students to include reflections on personal experience and values. Due to this personal aspect of writing in social work, I have taken a particular interest in the relationship between identity and writing. In doing so I draw upon current research based upon sociological perspectives on writer identity but also critically examine the potential contribution of concepts from what I will generally be referring to as a 'psychosocial' approach, which incorporates elements of psychology and psychoanalysis alongside a sociological world view. In particular I explore the ways in which a psychosocial approach to writer identity can inform our understanding of writing practices surrounding the creation of student texts in higher education. My central argument is that academic writing in social work poses a particular challenge to student writers and their tutors due to its lack of transparency and the degree of self-disclosure required of authors. This thesis shows that, in common with higher education more generally writing conventions in social work are frequently implicit and contradictory. Additionally, the integration of personal experiences and values with theoretical discussion poses significant difficulties for students and tutors. Such 'self-disclosure' has implications which become evident when applying a psychosocial perspective to writer identity. I draw together these implications in relation to three features of writing practices, namely emotion, circularity, and human interaction. Emotion in this context refers to the emotion both experienced by students whilst writing texts and responding to feedback on them. This involves a circular process based upon not only the students� actions but also their interaction with others, primarily the tutor. I conclude by offering some pedagogical implications and suggesting some future research arising from this thesis.

In June 2002 the Department of Health upgraded social work training in England, resulting in the Diploma in Social Work being replaced by a new undergraduate and masters’ level qualification. The requirements outlined for the new degree in social work included the provision that programmes approved to provide the new training had to involve representatives of stakeholders, particularly service users and carers, in the selection of new students (DoH 2002). This thesis investigates the tensions implicit in this policy from the perspective of service users and carers involved in recruitment to one university between 2002 and 2005. To this end, a critical theoretical framework was employed, which recognised the importance of power relationships within the field of study. This framework draws on the work of Bourdieu, Abbott and Foucault, and incorporates feminist and critical theory, in order to conceptualise the issues raised by the study. The intended outcomes of involvement in recruitment were unclear, in contrast to the case of involvement in social work education and practice. However, the policy of involvement in recruitment exemplified various tensions in service user and carer involvement in general, which the study sought to clarify. Service users were required to operate within a cultural context that they had little part in shaping, and this tended to reinforce the asymmetrical distribution of power which is seen as characterising relationships between professionals and those who use their services. Nonetheless, there were no disagreements reported between service users, carers, agency representatives and academic staff regarding the suitability, or otherwise, of individual candidates. Service users and carers looked for candidates who were trustworthy, anti-discriminatory and could relate to service users and carers – attributes which academic staff also valued. Despite appearing beneficial to service users and carers and therefore, by default, social work within this University, the policy of involving service users and carers in admissions was not as beneficial as it appeared. It could disadvantage some service users and carers financially. The policy does not specify what service users and carers can contribute to the admissions process, and the policy can be conceptualised as one that assumes social work educators are inept at choosing social work trainees, despite the lack of evidence that this is the case. This can, in turn, be seen as both contributing to a negative discourse regarding social work, and as a means by which a more regulatory role by the State can be justified. This more duty-based role for social work, I have argued, can be at the expense of a more altruistic approach to assisting vulnerable people, which was so valued by participants.