Empowered or Tokenized?: The Experiences of Aboriginal Human Service Workers and Organizational Responses in a Historically Oppressive Child Welfare System

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dc.contributor.authorRousseau, Jane
dc.contributor.supervisorLindquist, Evert A.
dc.date.accessioned2014-04-23T20:52:47Z
dc.date.available2014-04-23T20:52:47Z
dc.date.copyright2014en_US
dc.date.issued2014-04-23
dc.degree.departmentSchool of Public Administration
dc.degree.levelDoctor of Philosophy Ph.D.en_US
dc.description.abstractGovernment human service organizations regularly attempt to recruit ethnically and culturally diverse professionals to improve services to diverse communities. The assumption here is that organizational culture and structure support this organizational practice. This study considers the unique challenge for Aboriginal professionals who work in a government child welfare system responsible for the oppression of Aboriginal children, families, and communities. As a non-Aboriginal organizational insider and researcher, I use a combined Indigenous/ethnographic approach to explore these issues with Aboriginal professionals within the British Columbia Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD). This study involves a dual focus that examines the history, identity, values, motivations, and practice approaches of Aboriginal professionals as well as how organizational structural and environment variables support or impede their representation of community needs and interests. Analysis of these two areas results in significant findings for the organization, the social work profession, and various practice and organizational diversity literatures. Aboriginal participant descriptions of values, beliefs, and practices contribute to literature exploring contemporary Indigenous practice approaches that integrate traditional knowledge with professional practice. Consistent with some representative bureaucracy studies, participant descriptions of personal history, experience, practice, and motivation to work in MCFD indicate values, beliefs, and motivations strongly shared with their representative group: to reduce the number of Aboriginal children in government care and reconnect them to community. Aboriginal participant role tensions and dual accountabilities, resulting from their unique community/Ministry insider/outsider position, provide context to studies that explore tensions and contradictions that exist for diverse professionals working in their communities through mainstream organizations. Findings also contribute to studies in representative bureaucracy and other organizational diversity approaches concerned with the ability of diverse professionals to actively represent community interests. Organizational variables, such as low Aboriginal practice support, racism, cultural incompetence, hierarchical structure and decision making, risk-averse practice norms, poorly implemented rhetorical change initiatives, and institutional physical environments, among others, impede the ability of Aboriginal participants to actively represent community interests. Mitigating factors were found where some Aboriginal participants describe significant organizational support at the worksite level through dedicated culturally competent Aboriginal management and practice teams.en_US
dc.description.proquestcode0452en_US
dc.description.proquestcode0617en_US
dc.description.proquestcode0631en_US
dc.description.proquestemailjanerousseau@shaw.caen_US
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/5273
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rights.tempAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/*
dc.subjectAboriginal practiceen_US
dc.subjectActive representationen_US
dc.subjectChild welfareen_US
dc.subjectDiversityen_US
dc.subjectDual accountabilityen_US
dc.subjectEmployment Equityen_US
dc.subjectFirst Nationsen_US
dc.subjectGovernment human service organizationsen_US
dc.subjectHuman service professionalsen_US
dc.subjectIndigenizationen_US
dc.subjectInsider/Outsideren_US
dc.subjectMotivationen_US
dc.subjectMulticultural organizational development MCODen_US
dc.subjectOrganizational approachen_US
dc.subjectRepresentative bureaucracyen_US
dc.subjectRole tensionen_US
dc.subjectSocial Equityen_US
dc.subjectSpecializationen_US
dc.subjectValues and beliefsen_US
dc.subjectPassive representationen_US
dc.titleEmpowered or Tokenized?: The Experiences of Aboriginal Human Service Workers and Organizational Responses in a Historically Oppressive Child Welfare Systemen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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