The nature of debates about managerialism and social justice tend to be adversarial. The purpose of this study is to explore the nature of the relationship between managerialism and social justice. The thesis examines the nature of this relationship in the development of a community-networking project, a pilot website for young people in a high need community. The community-networking project was established through a novel contractual arrangement between government and a local community organisation. In this study social values comprise the analytical lens used to map out this relationship. Kekes??? (1993) approach to ethical pluralism is used to explore the nature of relations between ideas about managerialism and social justice in the process of implementing policy. The study is contextualised in a minor policy proposal of the former federal Liberal Coalition government and associated with a 1998-99 Budget proposal concerned with improving access to and the coordination of family-related information and services including information relating to mental health, child care, youth and aged care (see Black et al. 2002: 10). The policy initiative was established to test a range of assumptions about strong communities. There are two facets to the field study. The first facet explores the process of the implementation of the policy initiative through the different perspectives of three key informants, and the second facet explores the views of end-users of the service to determine whether or not young people were empowered, in the sense of being able to access knowledge about their own lives in terms that have meaning for them. The tone of the study is influenced by my own direct involvement as ???an insider???. Despite the explicit intentions that were supported by research and policy, pragmatic constraints limited the extent to which community organisations were empowered to act outside the demands of government organisations and in this instance, managerialism did act against social justice. However, this did not appear to prevent the end-users of the service that was established from achieving a sense of empowerment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/272550 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Bartos, Loreto Renata, Social Sciences & International Studies, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. Social Sciences & International Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Bartos Loreto Renata., http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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