Through a representative survey of front-line professionals from three social programs in Chile (N = 1,694)—a country marker by the implementation neoliberal policies—we use latent class analysis (LCA) to build typologies of front-line professionals, according to the resistance actions that develop in their professional intervention practices. In this way, we explore the prevalence of each typology and the relationship between these typologies and sociodemographic and work characteristics.
Findings
The results show the existence of four typologies: (a) an adaptive focused professionals (38.3%), who mainly perform subtle and individual forms of resistance; (b) an organization focused professionals (21.6%) are professionals who frequently carried out resistance actions focused on the collective organization of demands; (c) multifocal resistant professionals (2.0%), who perform most of the resistance actions and; (d) complaint professionals (38.0%), who tend not to develop actions of professional resistance. Additionally, the analysis shows that the typologies vary according to gender, years of experience, place of work and the political institutional context of the intervention.
Applications
These results inform contemporary social work-practice in two ways. On the one hand, understanding the configurations, differences, and prevalences of professional resistance to front-line professionals (a very little explored field) and, on the other, helping to comprehend the relationship between professional resistance, sociodemographic characteristics, and working conditions. Both axes constitute central aspects of insight the implementation of social intervention, with important consequences for the development of contemporary social policies.
AdlerP.ForbesL.WillmottH. (2007). Critical management studies. Academy of Management Annals, 1(1), 119–179. https://doi.org/10.5465/078559808
2.
AeonB.LamertzK. (2021). Those who control the past control the future: The dark side of rhetorical history. Organization Studies, 42(4), 575–593. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840619844284
3.
AlcadipaniR.HassardJ.IslamG. (2018). “I shot the sheriff”: Irony, sarcasm and the changing nature of workplace resistance. Journal of Management Studies, 55(8), 1452–1487. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12356
4.
AldossariM.CalvardT. (2021). The politics and ethics of resistance, feminism and gender equality in Saudi Arabian organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 181(4), 873–890. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04949-3
5.
AlvessonM.SzkudlarekB. (2021). Honorable surrender: On the erosion of resistance in a university setting. Journal of Management Inquiry, 30(4), 407–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492620939189
6.
Arancibia-BustosÁ (2022). Control y resistencia en la organización del proceso de trabajo académico en Chile . Explotación con base en el prestigio. Cuhso (Temuco), 32(1), 335–358. https://doi.org/10.7770/cuhso-v32n1-art2205
7.
AraujoK. (2016). El miedo a los subordinados. LOM Ediciones.
8.
BallS.MaguireM.BraunA. (2012). How schools do policy: Policy enactments in secondary schools. Routledge.
9.
BarnesM.PriorD. (2009). Subversive citizens: Power, agency and resistance in public services. Cambridge University Press.
10.
BathiniD.KandathilG. (2020). Bother me only if the client complains: Control and resistance in home-based telework in India. Employee Relations, 42(1), 90–106. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-09-2018-0241
BourdieuP. (2006). Contrafuegos. Reflexiones para servir a la resistencia contra la invasión neoliberal. Anagrama.
14.
ButlerJ.GambettiZ.SabsaiL. (2016). Vulnerability in resistance. Duke University Press.
15.
CastelR. (1995). La metamorfosis de la cuestión social. Paidós.
16.
CollinsL.LanzaS. (2010). Latent class and latent transition analysis: With applications in the social, behavioral and health sciences. Wiley.
17.
CuevaD.HughesM. (2009). Trabajo tercerizado y resistencia(s). formas de lucha en el `centró productivo nacional: La protesta de los mineros del cobre en Chile. Conflicto Social, 2(2), 1–28.
18.
DelineM. (2019). Framing resistance: Identifying frames that guide resistance interpretations at work. Management Communication Quarterly, 33(1), 39–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318918793731
19.
DobsonR. (2017). Recollection-as-method in social welfare practice: Dirty work, shame and resistance. Qualitative Research Journal, 17(3), 164–176. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-10-2016-0064
20.
DuboisV. (2010). The bureaucrat and the poor: Encounters in French welfare offices. Ashgate.
21.
Duboy-LuengoM.Muñoz-ArceG. (2022). La sostenibilidad de la vida y la ética del cuidado: Análisis y propuestas para imaginar la intervención de los programas sociales en Chile. Asparkía. Investigació Feminista, (40), 151–168. https://doi.org/10.6035/asparkia.6164
22.
Duboy-LuengoM.Muñoz ArceG. (2020). Habitar el hospital en tiempos de pandemia. Rumbos TS. Un Espacio Crítico Para La Reflexión En Ciencias Sociales, (23), 41–61. https://doi.org/10.51188/rrts.num23.421
FardellaC.SistoV.JiménezF. (2015). Nosotros los académicos. Narrativas identitarias y autodefinición en la universidad actual. Universitas Psychologica, 14(5), 1625–1636. https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy14-5.nani
25.
FotakiM.DaskalakiM. (2021). Politicizing the body in the anti-mining protest in Greece. Organization Studies, 42(8), 1265–1290. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840619882955
26.
FreiR.MoyaC.CastilloA.GerberM.PugaI. (2022). ¿Qué hacer? Repertorios de acción frente a las injusticias percibidas en los lugares de trabajo en Santiago de Chile. Latin American Research Review, 57(4), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/lar.2022.51
27.
FuentesC.MartínezI. (2018). El impacto de la tercerización en las condiciones laborales: El caso de los trabajadores encargados de implementar las Políticas de infancia y juventud. Unpublished grade dissertation. Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano.
28.
GalazC.RubilarG. (2019). Experiencias profesionales en intervención psicosocial: El ejercicio narrativo como metodología de reflexividad y vigilancia epistemológica. Revista Latinoamericana de Metodología de las Ciencias Sociales, 9(1), Article e050. https://doi.org/10.24215/18537863e050
29.
García-LorenzoL.Sell-TrujilloL.DonnellyP. (2022). Responding to stigmatization: How to resist and overcome the stigma of unemployment. Organization Studies, 43(10), 1629–1650. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406211053217
30.
GhaffariM.JafariA.SandikciO. (2019). The role of mundane and subtle institutional work in market dynamics: A case of fashion clothing market. Journal of Business Research, 105(1), 434–442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.03.029
31.
GillM. (2018). The significance of suffering in organizations: Understanding variation in workers’ responses to multiple modes of control. Academy of Management Review, 44(2), 377–404. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2016.0378
32.
GouldN.BaldwinM. (2004). Social work, critical reflection and the learning organization. Routledge.
33.
GuglielmettiF.Schöngut-GrollmusN. (2019). “Hay que encontrarle la maña” gubernamentalidad, poder y resistencia en el servicio nacional de menores. Persona y Sociedad, 33(1), 63,88. https://doi.org/10.53689/pys.v33i1.255
34.
HallR. (2010). The feminisation of social services: Implications for Black male youth. Children and Youth Services Review, 32(1), 741–746. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2010.11.018
35.
InostrozaF. (2020). Resistencias cotidianas a las políticas de rendición de cuentas o accountability: Un estudio de casos de dos educadoras diferenciales en Chile. Revista Iberoamericana Para la Investigación y el Desarrollo Educativo, 10(20), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.23913/ride.v10i20.638
36.
IturrietaS. (2017). Entre burbujas, sensaciones y realidades de la profesión más masificada en Chile: El trabajo social. Revista Cuaderno de Trabajo Social, 9(1), 9–26.
37.
JonesD.VisserM.StokesP.ÖrtenbladA.DeemR.RodgersP.TarbaS. (2020). The performative university: ‘targets’, ‘terror’ and ‘taking back freedom’ in academia. Management Learning, 51(4), 363–377. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507620927554
38.
LipskyM. (1980). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public service. Russell Sage Foundation.
39.
MasynK. (2013). Latent class analysis and finite mixture modeling. In LittleT. D. (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of quantitative methods (pp. 551–611). Oxford University Press.
40.
Maynard-MoodyS.MushenoM. (2003). Cops, teachers, counselors: Stories from the front lines of public service. University of Michigan Press.
41.
McCabeD.CiukS.GilbertM. (2020). ‘There is a crack in everything’: An ethnographic study of pragmatic resistance in a manufacturing organization. Human Relations, 73(7), 953–980. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726719847268
42.
Moreno-MuletC. (2018). Coraje moral y (micro)-resistencia, «nuevas» competencias de los profesionales de salud para la lucha contra la desigualdad. Dilemata, 26, 143–155.
MuñozG. (2020). Intervención social en la encrucijada neoliberal: Transformación social en clave de resistencia. In Castro-SerranoB.CeaN.Arellano-Escudero yA. (eds), Materiales (De)Construcción. Crítica, neoliberalismo e intervención social (pp. 31–59). Nadar Ediciones.
46.
Munoz ArceG.Duboy LuengoM.Villalobos DintransC.ReiningerT. (2022). ‘Oponerse sin perder el puesto’: Tensiones y resistencias profesionales en la implementación de programas sociales en Chile. Rumbos TS. Un Espacio Crítico Para La Reflexión En Ciencias Sociales, 17(28), 89–108. https://doi.org/10.51188/rrts.num28.668
47.
Muñoz ArceG.ReiningerT.Villalobos DintransC.Morales TorresC. (2021). Análisis de las condiciones laborales de trabajadoras/es sociales que implementan programas en Chile en tiempos de COVID-19. In LoyolaM.Iturrieta OlivaresS. (éds), Vivir en tiempos convulsionados. Reflexiones sociocríticas para propuestas de intervención social (1-) (pp. 101–122). Ariadna Ediciones. https://books.openedition.org/ariadnaediciones/11122
48.
Ortega-SenetM.GómezV.TierneyE. (2020). Critical knots, tensions, and daily resistances in the work against commercial sexual exploitation of children: A reflection from Chilean practitioners. International Social Work, 65(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872819899434
49.
OrtliebR.SiebenB. (2019). Balls, barbecues and boxing: Contesting gender regimes at organizational social events. Organization Studies,40(1), 115–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840617736941
Ramírez-Casas del ValleL.BaleriolaE.SistoV. (2022). Experiencias y resistencias de los y las profesoras sobre el sistema de evaluación docente. Revista Izquierdas, 51, 1–16.
52.
ReiningerT.ArceG. M.DintransC. V.WymanI. (2022). Front-line social workers’ practices under the political and sanitary crisis in Chile. In GonçalvesM. d. C. d. S.GutwaldR.KleiblT.LutzR.NoyooN.TwikirizeJ. (Eds.), The coronavirus crisis and challenges to social development (pp. 335–344). Springer.
53.
ReiningerT.Muñoz-ArceG.VillalobosC.TorresC. M.CampilloC. (2022). Pandemic and social work in Chile: Precarity, precariousness and the quest for resistance in an uncertain world. The British Journal Of Social Work, 52(8), 5105–5123. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcac109
StrierR.BershtlingO. (2016). Professional resistance in social work: Counterpractice assemblages. Social Work, 61(2), 111–118. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/sww010
56.
ThomasW.HujalaA.LaulainenS.McMurrayR. (2018). The management of wicked problems in health and social care. Routledge.
57.
Timor-ShlevinS. (2021). The controlled arena of contested practices: Critical practice in Israel’s state social services. The British Journal of Social Work, 51(1), 279–296. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaa059
58.
VillalobosC.WymanI.Muñoz ArceG.ReiningerT. (2020). Trabajadores y trabajadoras sociales de primera línea frente al COVID-19. Continuidades y transformaciones en Chile. Intervención, 10(2), 4–29. https://doi.org/10.53689/int.v10i2.97
59.
VillavicencioR. (2019). Globalización y precarización laboral en Chile: Una mirada desde el conflicto. Revista de Derecho (Valdivia), 32(2), 143–164. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-09502019000200143
60.
WeinbergM.BanksS. (2019). Practising ethically in unethical times: Everyday resistance in social work. Ethics and Social Welfare, 13(4), 361–376. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2019.1597141
