Frontline workers adopt rigid client-blaming views to resolve work contradictions

Evidence

These views of social responsibility do not originate with street-level bureaucrats, of course. But they are adopted and rigidly held by workers faced with the contradiction that they ought to be able to make a difference in clients’ lives, but commonly cannot. These views explain failure away, and permit workers to develop more comfortable relations with the contradictions in their work. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1136

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the learned pattern of stereotype rationalizing existing power relationships, and to blame-attribution literature on street-level discretion. — connects to: Unsolvable client problems force street-level workers to develop coping mechanisms and alienation — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 586; Practitioners systematically blame clients to protect themselves from institutional failure. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1127