Rethinking homelessness: a scoping review of social constructions and meanings
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Debates on defining homelessness have persisted for decades, with the hope that refined definitions might better address this complex problem However, with homelessness rates continuing to rise, there is a need to reexamine how the term is understood since definitions shape societal perceptions and neglecting social and structural factors risks framing homelessness as an individual failing rather than a systemic issue. Grounded in social constructionist and symbolic interactionist perspectives, this scoping review analyzed literature from Australia, Canada, and the United States to address two main questions: (1) How do definitions of homelessness reflect systemic inequality? (2) How do these definitions shape the identities of those directly affected? Findings were synthesized narratively, with a thematic analysis identifying themes. 95 articles were included in the review. Four key themes were identified: the material dominance in defining home, identity assassination, self-determination as a policy metric, and navigating space for homelessness. These themes highlight how definitions of homelessness are not neutral but shaped by societal values and systemic biases, reinforcing inequality through imposed labels, stigma, and misrepresented identities. This review emphasizes the need to rethink homelessness discourse, adopting language that reflects diverse experiences while challenging systemic injustices embedded in its historical and structural contexts.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.015 | 0.044 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.019 | 0.021 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".