Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Chapter 5 is the first chapter of Part II, which examines the flexible mediator type through a dual-methods empirical study. It identifies four mediator functions: helpers, referrers, assessors and intervenors. After summarizing the methods of the two-stage study, each section of this chapter considers a different mediator function. Altogether, this new theoretical framework demonstrates the breadth of work conducted by flexible mediators. Furthermore, it shows how this archetype is tacitly accepted by both family mediators and their regulatory bodies. The final section of this chapter considers the value of the four mediator functions in the post-Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 landscape. It concludes that it is the lack of transparency surrounding contemporary mediator practice, not the flexible mediator archetype itself, that is problematic. The need for further recognition and regulation of the flexible mediator archetype is reinstated as a result.
This introductory chapter sets out the objectives of Rethinking Family Mediation: to uncover the development of family mediation in England and Wales and explore the value of contemporary mediator practice in supporting a contemporary vision of family justice. The first section summarizes the monograph’s core argument: that there has been a transition from a limited mediator archetype to a flexible mediator archetype, and that this development has implications for the meaning of family justice. The second section provides a definition of (family) justice, and considers how the concept has developed over time. The chapter argues that family mediation may have developed to become an apparatus of family justice, justifying the remainder of the monograph. Section 3 then outlines the methods behind the two-stage study, considered in Part II. Finally, the Introduction provides summaries of each chapter.
Chapter 3 considers the original conceptualization of family mediation through the limited mediator archetype. It begins by examining the key theory on family mediation, namely the concept of mediator neutrality and the continuum of facilitative to evaluative mediator practice. While the combination of these two theories is supposed to provide mediators with a broad skillset, it is argued that family mediation’s traditional conceptualization confines mediators. It is this restriction that gives rise to the limited mediator archetype: a strictly neutral professional bound to a facilitative framework. The second section of this chapter explores the limited mediator archetype through late 20th-century empirical research, revealing that there was little to no appraisal of the profession during this period. This discussion also considers how the limited mediator was a logical, and perhaps even welcome, archetype during this period. However, the final section critiques the traditional understanding of the family mediation process, arguing that the limited mediator archetype is unable to respond to the various neutrality dilemmas that arise in the mediation setting.
Over several decades, policies have made mediation a key part of the English and Welsh family justice system. As the process faces increasing demand from a diverse and complex client base, some argue for a return to a fully funded court system. However, this dominant view overlooks the longstanding problems with the court process, as well as the potential value of mediation.
This book, based on original research, highlights the evolving role of mediators who assist families without legal support. By doing so, it reveals a contemporary vision of family justice that addresses some of the challenges in today’s landscape.
This contextual chapter tracks the development of family mediation in English and Welsh policy from the late 20th century. It begins by considering the main concerns in family law policy from the 1970s to 1990s, including cost of the legal aid scheme. The chapter reveals that family mediation was regarded by successive governments as the perfect solution to these concerns. The discussion considers how family mediation was slowly seen as a replacement for, rather than an alternative to, court and adversarialism. Attention then shifts to the promotion of family mediation through the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO). The final section reflects on the common criticism of mediation as a neoliberal tool, though argues that it is the state’s misappropriation of mediation, not the process itself, that is neoliberal. Chapter 2 concludes by reiterating the need for a full investigation into the value of family mediation in supporting justice after LASPO.
Chapter 7 takes the book in a different direction by identifying some of the extrinsic obstacles to family mediation reform. It recognizes that even if the flexible mediator archetype is recognized, reform must be introduced to improve the operational aspects of family mediation services. The first section justifies this investigation by revealing a concerning level of pessimism regarding mediation’s future within the family mediator sample. The remainder of the chapter reflects on two problems triggered by family mediation’s position within the post-Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) family justice system. Section 2 looks at LASPO’s impact on the family mediation market, providing a fresh insight into the shape of the family law landscape since 2013. Section 3 then explores how family mediation could be effectively regulated in the contemporary era. It outlines some recent changes implemented by the Family Mediation Council, though ultimately recognizes that further regulation is required. After drawing on recent proposals on how to regulate the growing number of unregulated legal services, it is concluded that the legal services market is also, unsurprisingly, in a period of change.
This chapter summarises the contributions made by this book, with particular attention to the roles and limits of parents’ [often ephemeral] agency in relation to algorithms. The chapter outlines a set of recommendations for sectors interfacing with parents, including state sectors, educational and childcare settings, local government, technology companies and the media. The chapter draws out the importance of adopting a relational, and life-course perspective to making sense of families’ experiences of datafication and emerging technologies.
This chapter considers how parents experience algorithmic curation, in its diverse forms, across social media platforms, and how the world of parenthood is filtered for parents in ways which are inherently recursive. While architectures and logics of personalisation diverge across platforms, and amidst broader conversations on sharenting, the chapter notes how parents in this work often presented a deeply individualised understanding of algorithmic environments, where they imagined themselves almost as sole players in the system, not often recognising the aggregate environment of curation. Examples in the chapter demonstrate that parents’ agentic feedback into social media platforms is not free of context such as gendered care roles, and algorithmic filtering itself produces and maintains invitations to care, and parent, along socially structured routes already set in motion. The chapter draws attention to the notion of presences and absences of parenting content and the clustering of certain parenting content on some timelines and news feeds and what that might reveal. The chapter also discusses practices of care that some parents speak of, in managing their own feedback into algorithmic environment, in ways that care for other parents.
This introductory chapter considers the relationships of mutuality between parents and algorithms in in digital societies. It draws attention both to the inequalities of power between parents and platforms, as well as parents’ agency in navigating everyday life and parenting, as mediated increasingly by algorithms. The chapter draws upon recent advances within user-centric algorithm studies as part of broader conversations with communications, sociology, critical data studies, and related fields. It introduces the methodological framework of the project as well as the 30 parents who took part in it. The introduction provides an overview of all chapters in the book, encompassing parents’ negotiations of search algorithms, their understandings of algorithms in their children’s lives, algorithms involved in sharing and sharenting, news recommendation algorithms, parents’ algorithm literacies, and parents’ hopes and fears about their children’s algorithmic futures.
