Shame Dynamics As Challenges For Social Work Services

I present first results of my ethnographic study "Shame dynamics in interactions between youth and pedagogical professionals in residential care in Austria". Using a Grounded Theory approach, I ask about the occasions, the modes of expression and the handling of shame in the context of aggression in interactions. Thomas Scheff (2014) states that shame has basic social-regulatory functions in Western societies but is concealed because these societies tend to devalue shame as weakness. Sighard Neckel, referring to Scheff, elaborates that shame and shaming also serve to negotiate social status ascriptions, for example, through group-based devaluations and social exclusions (cf. Neckel/Pritz 2019). A main finding of my study is that two male caregivers in two facilities express an emotional burden related to youth´s aggression. The caregivers' negative generalizations were accompanied by limited pedagogical work in the two facilities, potentially generating shame among the addressees of this social service. Given this empirical result, I draw on Goffman's stigma theory and point out challenges for residential care facilities as well as Social Work in general.