IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v11y2006i3p89-97.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Friendship or Facilitation: People with Learning Disabilities and Their Paid Carers

Author

Listed:
  • Rebecca Pockney

Abstract

This article compares the composition and characteristics of the social networks of 14 people with learning disabilities with those of 24 of their paid support staff. In doing so the article not only establishes the differences in the diversity, durability and density of each group's social set, but highlights the disparity in perspective that the service users and the support staff have about their shared relationships. This is followed by a sociological discussion of why those with learning disabilities perceive their support staff as friends, while the support staff seldom consider the service users in this way, preferring to view themselves as facilitators to these individuals’ friendships. The article concludes by discussing the consequences of the staff and service users’ differing perspectives about their relationships, in terms of the tensions it generates in staff about their caring role and the effect it may have upon those with learning disabilities’ broader social inclusion.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebecca Pockney, 2006. "Friendship or Facilitation: People with Learning Disabilities and Their Paid Carers," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 11(3), pages 89-97, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:11:y:2006:i:3:p:89-97
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.1382
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.1382
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5153/sro.1382?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paola Rebughini, 2011. "Friendship Dynamics between Emotions and Trials," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 16(1), pages 119-127, February.
    2. Power, Andrew & Bartlett, Ruth, 2019. "Ageing with a learning disability: Care and support in the context of austerity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 55-61.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:11:y:2006:i:3:p:89-97. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.