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Problem-solving for problem-solving: data analytics to identify families for service intervention

Problem-solving for problem-solving: data analytics to identify families for service intervention
Problem-solving for problem-solving: data analytics to identify families for service intervention

The article draws on Bacchi’s ideas about problematisation (2020) and links to technological solutionism as governing logics of our age, to explore the double-faceted problem-solving logic operating in the UK family policy and early intervention field. Families with certain characteristics are identified as problematic, and local authorities are tasked with intervening to fix that social problem. Local authorities thus need to identify these families for problem-solving intervention, and data analytics companies will solve that problem for them. In the article, we identify discourses of transmitted deprivation and anti-social behaviour in families and the accompanying costly public sector burden as characteristics that produce families as social problems, and discursive themes around delivering powerful knowledge, timeliness and economic efficiently in data analytic companies’ problem solving claims for their data linkage and predictive analytics systems. These discursive rationales undergird the double-faceted problem-solving for problem-solving logic that directs attention away from complex structural causes.

Families and early intervention, Predictive analytics, Problem-solving, Social problems, Technological solutionism
0261-0183
Edwards, Rosalind
e43912c0-f149-4457-81a9-9c4e00a4bb42
Gillies, Val
4780404b-0097-464b-abbe-1e703d26fba4
Gorin, Sarah
b44e0dc5-62ed-4c5e-ac90-4b2e0b056610
Edwards, Rosalind
e43912c0-f149-4457-81a9-9c4e00a4bb42
Gillies, Val
4780404b-0097-464b-abbe-1e703d26fba4
Gorin, Sarah
b44e0dc5-62ed-4c5e-ac90-4b2e0b056610

Edwards, Rosalind, Gillies, Val and Gorin, Sarah (2021) Problem-solving for problem-solving: data analytics to identify families for service intervention. Critical Social Policy. (doi:10.1177/02610183211020294).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The article draws on Bacchi’s ideas about problematisation (2020) and links to technological solutionism as governing logics of our age, to explore the double-faceted problem-solving logic operating in the UK family policy and early intervention field. Families with certain characteristics are identified as problematic, and local authorities are tasked with intervening to fix that social problem. Local authorities thus need to identify these families for problem-solving intervention, and data analytics companies will solve that problem for them. In the article, we identify discourses of transmitted deprivation and anti-social behaviour in families and the accompanying costly public sector burden as characteristics that produce families as social problems, and discursive themes around delivering powerful knowledge, timeliness and economic efficiently in data analytic companies’ problem solving claims for their data linkage and predictive analytics systems. These discursive rationales undergird the double-faceted problem-solving for problem-solving logic that directs attention away from complex structural causes.

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Accepted/In Press date: 29 April 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 2 June 2021
Published date: 2 June 2021
Additional Information: Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research on which this article is based was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under grant number ES/T001623/1. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2021.
Keywords: Families and early intervention, Predictive analytics, Problem-solving, Social problems, Technological solutionism

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 448857
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/448857
ISSN: 0261-0183
PURE UUID: b7cde5db-a6c6-49e9-a5d8-18d0f48bf01b
ORCID for Rosalind Edwards: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3512-9029
ORCID for Sarah Gorin: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-0721-3880

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 07 May 2021 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:22

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Contributors

Author: Val Gillies
Author: Sarah Gorin ORCID iD

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