The Subtlety of the Street
The Subtlety of the Street examines the effects of small, seemingly mundane words that occur in conversations between street-level workers and those they serve. Combining discourse analysis, public policy studies, and higher education and social work research, M Peregrine Balmat examines data from t...
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| বিন্যাস: | Online |
| ভাষা: | ইংরেজি |
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Michigan State University Press
2026
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| বিষয়গুলি: | |
| অনলাইন ব্যবহার করুন: | https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/110789 |
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| _version_ | 1869519999257804800 |
|---|---|
| author | Balmat, M Peregrine |
| author_browse | Balmat, M Peregrine |
| author_facet | Balmat, M Peregrine |
| author_sort | Balmat, M Peregrine |
| collection | Directory of Open Access Books |
| description | The Subtlety of the Street examines the effects of small, seemingly mundane words that occur in conversations between street-level workers and those they serve. Combining discourse analysis, public policy studies, and higher education and social work research, M Peregrine Balmat examines data from two distinct ethnographies that comprise over 1100 pages of transcribed social interaction and 24 months of participant observation fieldwork. Balmat uses Interactional Linguistics to examine how responsibility is constructed over time in social work (homeless shelter) and higher education (community college) contexts, bringing to light systemic issues that face street-level disciplines. Analyzing constellations of words—personal pronouns, terms referring to performance benchmarks and assessments, and cultural mythologies—the author shows that clusters of seemingly generic phrases street-level workers use to communicate responsibility can function, in concert, as racialized microaggressions —termed the Gestalt of Responsibility. These problematic linguistic choices can accumulate over a student’s time in the classroom or over a person’s time in shelter. They shift in response to performance assessments and measurements, increasing in unfriendly, morally-loaded constructions of responsibility as testing days and shelter restrictions approach. While street-level research suggests that strategies like these are utilized because workers believe those discourse practices work, the phrases reflect historical English Poor Laws and racialized ideologies leveled against enslaved Black people as well as more modern neoliberal welfare state and education politics where such ideologies persist. The Subtlety of the Street offers recommendations for street-level workers’ collaborative professional development and implications for street-level approaches to pedagogy and practice. |
| format | Online |
| id | doab-20.500.12854ir-174062 |
| institution | Directory of Open Access Books |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateRange | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| publisher | Michigan State University Press |
| publisherStr | Michigan State University Press |
| record_format | ojs |
| spelling | doab-20.500.12854ir-1740622026-03-19T14:43:31Z The Subtlety of the Street Balmat, M Peregrine Street-level Street-level bureaucracy Applied linguistics Discourse analysis Higher education Community college education Social work Social welfare Institutional interaction Responsibilisation Responsibilization Institutional discourse Organizational communication Public administration Racialization Microaggressions Linguistic microaggressions Autoethnography Vulnerable observer Street-level pedagogy Street-level worker Discretion Discretionary language Discretionary discourse Discourse ideology Language ideology Language ideologies Discourse Interactional linguistics Neoliberalism Neoliberal language Neoliberal discourses Deontic responsibility terminology thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPQ Central / national / federal government::JPQB Central / national / federal government policies thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology The Subtlety of the Street examines the effects of small, seemingly mundane words that occur in conversations between street-level workers and those they serve. Combining discourse analysis, public policy studies, and higher education and social work research, M Peregrine Balmat examines data from two distinct ethnographies that comprise over 1100 pages of transcribed social interaction and 24 months of participant observation fieldwork. Balmat uses Interactional Linguistics to examine how responsibility is constructed over time in social work (homeless shelter) and higher education (community college) contexts, bringing to light systemic issues that face street-level disciplines. Analyzing constellations of words—personal pronouns, terms referring to performance benchmarks and assessments, and cultural mythologies—the author shows that clusters of seemingly generic phrases street-level workers use to communicate responsibility can function, in concert, as racialized microaggressions —termed the Gestalt of Responsibility. These problematic linguistic choices can accumulate over a student’s time in the classroom or over a person’s time in shelter. They shift in response to performance assessments and measurements, increasing in unfriendly, morally-loaded constructions of responsibility as testing days and shelter restrictions approach. While street-level research suggests that strategies like these are utilized because workers believe those discourse practices work, the phrases reflect historical English Poor Laws and racialized ideologies leveled against enslaved Black people as well as more modern neoliberal welfare state and education politics where such ideologies persist. The Subtlety of the Street offers recommendations for street-level workers’ collaborative professional development and implications for street-level approaches to pedagogy and practice. 2026-03-19T14:43:30Z 2026-03-19T14:43:30Z 2026-03-02T17:49:22Z 2026 book https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/110789 9780472905645 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/174062 eng open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/110789/1/9780472905645.pdf Michigan State University Press University of Michigan Press 10.3998/mpub.12350324 10.3998/mpub.12350324 aa7f6664-5117-41d8-90f8-c3af56526b92 9780472905645 University of Michigan Press 266 open access |
| spellingShingle | Street-level Street-level bureaucracy Applied linguistics Discourse analysis Higher education Community college education Social work Social welfare Institutional interaction Responsibilisation Responsibilization Institutional discourse Organizational communication Public administration Racialization Microaggressions Linguistic microaggressions Autoethnography Vulnerable observer Street-level pedagogy Street-level worker Discretion Discretionary language Discretionary discourse Discourse ideology Language ideology Language ideologies Discourse Interactional linguistics Neoliberalism Neoliberal language Neoliberal discourses Deontic responsibility terminology thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPQ Central / national / federal government::JPQB Central / national / federal government policies thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology Balmat, M Peregrine The Subtlety of the Street |
| title | The Subtlety of the Street |
| title_full | The Subtlety of the Street |
| title_fullStr | The Subtlety of the Street |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Subtlety of the Street |
| title_short | The Subtlety of the Street |
| title_sort | subtlety of the street |
| topic | Street-level Street-level bureaucracy Applied linguistics Discourse analysis Higher education Community college education Social work Social welfare Institutional interaction Responsibilisation Responsibilization Institutional discourse Organizational communication Public administration Racialization Microaggressions Linguistic microaggressions Autoethnography Vulnerable observer Street-level pedagogy Street-level worker Discretion Discretionary language Discretionary discourse Discourse ideology Language ideology Language ideologies Discourse Interactional linguistics Neoliberalism Neoliberal language Neoliberal discourses Deontic responsibility terminology thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPQ Central / national / federal government::JPQB Central / national / federal government policies thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology |
| topic_facet | Street-level Street-level bureaucracy Applied linguistics Discourse analysis Higher education Community college education Social work Social welfare Institutional interaction Responsibilisation Responsibilization Institutional discourse Organizational communication Public administration Racialization Microaggressions Linguistic microaggressions Autoethnography Vulnerable observer Street-level pedagogy Street-level worker Discretion Discretionary language Discretionary discourse Discourse ideology Language ideology Language ideologies Discourse Interactional linguistics Neoliberalism Neoliberal language Neoliberal discourses Deontic responsibility terminology thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JP Politics and government::JPQ Central / national / federal government::JPQB Central / national / federal government policies thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology |
| url | https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/110789 |
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