Rethinking social work ethics: what is the real question? Responding to Stephen Webb's ‘Against difference and diversity in social work’

Jose J. Rethinking social work ethics: what is the real question? Responding to Stephen Webb's ‘Against difference and diversity in social work’ Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 246–252 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. In his recent article, Stephen Webb argued that the real question for social work ethics concerns ‘recognising the Same and of restoring the principles of equality and social justice’. This argument also included raising questions about what should be considered an appropriate philosophical basis for progressive social work ethics. In his view, social work's emancipatory potential has been blunted by overstated and philosophically ill‐informed human rights claims about difference and diversity. He suggested that French philosopher Alain Badiou offers social workers a ‘set of conceptual devices for rethinking social work ethics’. I argue that pressing his points into Badiou's philosophical mould is unlikely to lead to a progressive social work practice, let alone solve the issues identified by Webb. Badiou's philosophical pronouncements about ethics are of questionable value and offer little or no assistance to social workers seeking to establish an ethical grounding for their professional practice.     

Is there nothing beyond postmodernism and ‘the theoretical Other’? The need for balancing universalism and diversity in social work

In his article, 'Against difference and diversity in social work: the case of human rights', Stephen Webb captures several important problems concerning the application of a postmodern human rights perspective in social work. Although accepting Webb's diagnosis, for example that the postmodern discourse neglects basic structural conditions essential for understanding social problems and thus leads to a policy of symbols and rhetoric, this article argues that Webb reifies the perspectives of diversity and universalism and misses the need for balancing these aspects in the practice of social work. Some general argumentative techniques in the postmodern discourse are identified, and it is argued that several of Webb's conclusions are reached via those argumentative techniques, particularly when it comes to his claim that the philosopher Alain Badiou could play a central role for social work. The possibility of implementing in social work general philosophical programmes such as Alain Badiou's is questioned.     

Against difference and diversity in social work: the case of human rights

This article argues that the politics of the 'right to difference' and celebration of diversity in social work is a malign tendency that is symptomatic of the malaise of postmodernism and other fashionable trends in human rights discourse. It is suggested that a normative concept of human rights as worked through postmodern preoccupations with difference and diversity is a morally bankrupt perspective. The fixation of the 'right to difference' in social work runs parallel with neoliberalism with its celebration of diversity. The article offers a set of conceptual devices for rethinking social work ethics through the writings of Alain Badiou. His subtractive ontology of truth is presented as an essentialist alternative to the relativist discourses of difference. If social work is to recover a progressive stance, we must reinstall the concepts of sameness and equality. Therefore, social work should be 'indifferent to differences' by transcending the politics of difference.     

Children's services in the iron cage of performance management: street‐level bureaucracy and the spectre of Švejkism

Wastell D, White S, Broadhurst K, Peckover S, Pithouse A. Children's services in the iron cage of performance management: street‐level bureaucracy and the spectre of ?vejkism Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 310–320 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. Recent UK government reforms have introduced a range of measures to regulate practice in child welfare, with professional work increasingly structured into formal processes embedded in information technology. This prompts obvious anxieties about the erosion of professional discretion. Using Lipsky's concept of the street‐level bureaucrat, we report on an ethnographical study examining how social workers organise their practice in an atmosphere of performance management. Clear indications of attenuated discretion are revealed, reflecting the shift to a managerial model of control. Of concern is the emergence of a pattern of formally conformant behaviour in which the letter of the organisational law is obeyed but without genuine commitment. Drawing on the anti‐hero of Ha?ek's celebrated satire, we denote this form of passive resistance ‘?vejkism’. While showing up the absurdities of excessive managerial power, such behaviours are ultimately dysfunctional for the organisation; an alternative governance paradigm, based on professional values, is briefly outlined.     

Care management in practice: on the use of talk and text in gerontological social work

Cedersund E, Olaison A. Care management in practice: on the use of talk and text in gerontological social work Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 339–347 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. This is a study of encounters between social workers and citizens in one type of welfare organisation, the municipal elder care system. The article sheds light on how older people's claims are dealt with in the processing of home care applications. Twenty encounters between social workers and older people were studied using discourse analysis. The findings reveal that discursive practices are part of the routine when the applications are processed. The application handling follows an agenda‐bound pattern that is visible in the encounters. In these standardised procedures, oral discourse is embedded in routines that also include the use of texts. However, within this institutional order, there is also an important element of negotiation between the parties. It is therefore claimed that the encounters include a negotiated order that does not exist on its own, but is achieved in the ongoing interaction.     

Client contribution in negotiations on employability – categories revised?

Eskelinen L, Olesen SP, Caswell D. Client contribution in negotiations on employability – categories revised? Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 330–338 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. In this article, we explore how the institutional category ‘unemployed’ is specified in everyday practice when implementing an active employment policy. We illustrate the process of categorisation as an aspect of the in situ positioning and self‐representation of the client by examining one social worker–client talk: how the category unemployed is shaped and ‘translated’ when the client negotiates her situation with the social worker. Two types of category revisions are identified. First, the employability of the client, rather than her unemployment situation, is the issue under negotiation. Second, the client introduces new categories that are compatible with the demands of the employment system. She contributes by drawing on discursive resources related to the category of ‘active job seeker’ but does this with an own agenda of looking for a suitable job. The analysis elucidates the client's contribution to institutional practice and discusses constitutive and constituted elements of categorisation.     

A Political Critique of Kantian Ethics in Social Work

Correspondence to Stephen A. Webb, Department of Social Work, University of Dundee, DD1 4HN. Summary This paper addresses the Kantian theory of the subject whichis found in contemporary social work discourse on ethics andvalues. It is argued here that the Kantian idea of persons as(i) rational, (ii) autonomous, and (iii) ends-in-themselvesis wholly inadequate to the social work doctrine of ‘respectfor persons’. To show this, we counterpose a Foucauldianview of history, moral codes and theory of the person, and themeaning this can have in the social worker-client relation.This alternative reading claims that social work is essentiallya political practice which is constructed by various discursiveand institutional strategies of power. Therefore, it is suggestedthat social work needs a political reading of its own discourse.To this end we outline a Foucauldian micro-political analysisof the social work ‘subject’ or person as a pointwithin a field of discursive-knowledge based strategies.     

The management of professional roles during boundary work in child welfare

Hall C, Slembrouck S, Haigh E, Lee A. The management of professional roles during boundary work in child welfare Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 348–357 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. This article examines the ways in which child welfare professionals negotiate their roles and those of other professionals in home visits with clients, in this case the parents of young children. The concept of boundary work is developed within the context of the professional–client encounter. Drawing on Goffman's concept of ‘footing’, the analysis examines how professionals attend to ways of constructing family problems in terms of appropriate professional interventions – both from themselves and others. It is argued that the careful consideration of how problems merit interventions displays an adherence to the development of the supportive relations which move beyond strict professional remits. The article adds to the research evidence, which sees inter‐professional coordination as a complex matter, located in everyday practice rather than as advocating more tightly monitored procedure.     

Where's the beef? A response to Gray and Webb's ‘The return of the political in social work’

Gray and Webb's article 'The return of the political in social work' is a welcome contribution to current debates. In its critique of the dominance of calculative reason, its rejection of postmodernism and identity politics, and its insistence on the need for social work to openly address issues of power and conflict, it is a useful addition to the growing critical literature concerned with challenging dominant forms of practice. That usefulness is limited, however, first by an excessively opaque style and, second, by problems associated with the writers' argument and approach. These include: an over-reliance on Heidegger's ontology; an over-estimation of the potential of art to act as alternative paradigm; and a particularly content-less version of politics, derived from the work of Alain Badiou, which is likely to prove to be of limited value in the project of developing alternative forms of social work.     

Welfare program participation among rural‐to‐urban migrant workers in China

Xu Q, Guan X, Yao F. Welfare program participation among rural‐to‐urban migrant workers in China Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 10–21 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. An estimated 225 million Chinese people have migrated to cities from China's rural areas over the past two decades. These rural‐to‐urban migrant workers have greatly challenged China's welfare system. The pre‐reform welfare system was a duel scheme with an urban–rural distinction in which rural residents were not covered by state‐run welfare programs and had to rely on their families and rural collectives. The development of employment‐based social insurance programs in 1999 made social welfare programs available for rural‐to‐urban migrant workers. Using an anonymous survey conducted in seven cities across China in 2006, we found that social insurance program participation rates were low among rural‐to‐urban migrant workers. Individual factors, including lack of knowledge of welfare programs and of a willingness to participate, and macro‐level factors, including type of employer and industry, are critical in determining migrant workers' participation in welfare programs. Implications for policies and practice are discussed.     

Negotiating dilemmas in the practices of street‐level welfare work

Hjörne E, Juhila K, van Nijnatten C. Negotiating dilemmas in the practices of street‐level welfare work Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 303–309 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. The theme of this mini‐symposium is based on the core ideas of two influential books published about 30 years ago, namely Michael Lipsky's Street‐Level Bureaucracy – Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services (1980) and Jeffrey Prottas's People‐Processing – The Street‐Level Bureaucrat in Public Service Bureaucracies (1979). In these books, three dilemmas were identified that have great importance for welfare workers' position as mediators between institutions and citizens: autonomy versus control, responsiveness versus standardisation, and demand versus supply. In this editorial, we discuss these dilemmas with regard to the present context of street‐level welfare work, which is strongly influenced by managerialist policies (also called new public management). It is emphasised that in the era of managerialism, the dilemmas should be approached as empirical matters: how they are present, talked into being and negotiated in naturally occurring practices of street‐level welfare work, and with what consequences.     

A comparison of social work education across South Africa and Japan in relation to the Global Standards for Social Work Education and Training

Sakaguchi H, Sewpaul V. A comparison of social work education across South Africa and Japan in relation to the Global Standards for Social Work Education and Training Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 192–202 © 2009 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article draws on a one‐year study visit to the University of KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa, interviews with field supervisors and students in Japan and reviews of the national frameworks of education in Japan and in South Africa. In doing so, the authors identify the similarities and differences in social work education across the two countries and they explore some of the historical and socio‐cultural factors that might account for the differences. There are some identifiable peculiarities in social work education in Japan, especially with the coalescing of care work and social work education. The lack of differentiation between care work and social work makes it difficult to narrow the scope of social work education and practice. National social work standards have been approved in South Africa and regulatory frameworks for social work education and practice have been long accepted, thus rendering ‘social work’ a protected title and a profession that is more entrenched compared with social work in Japan. The codes of ethics in Japan and South Africa are discussed with specific reference to their control functions in South Africa. The article concludes by discussing these comparisons in relation to the Global Standards for Social Work Education.     

Attitudes toward home‐based employment for mothers of young children: Australian evidence

Kelley CGE, Kelley SMC, Evans MDR, Kelley J. Attitudes toward home‐based employment for mothers of young children: Australian evidence
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 33–44 © 2008 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. People have mixed feelings about paid employment for mothers with young children. This might reflect opposition to women's work per se or, instead, fear that children are harmed by the mother's absence from the home. To find out, we developed new questions differentiating support for or opposition to mothers working for pay depending on whether the employment is home‐based or outside the home. Data from a large representative national sample of Australia (n= 1,324) show that public support for employment is about 30 percentage points greater if the mother works at home. Structural equation analyses show social differences in levels of support. Thus work at home provides a way of increasing labour force participation and earnings for mothers (with the welfare benefits that implies), which is congruent with public opinion.     

Putting the ‘public’ into public service delivery for social welfare in South Africa

Mubangizi BC, Gray M. Putting the ‘public’ into public service delivery for social welfare in South Africa Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 212–219 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of SocialWelfare. The privatisation of some essential services in South Africa has raised severe difficulties for those for whom the idea of fees for services is quite foreign and who, in any case, cannot afford to pay for services. The government has developed several initiatives to educate people about the need to pay for services provided by local government, the largest of which was the Masakhane fees‐for‐services campaign. This article describes two recent initiatives that seek to engage local citizen participation, namely, Integrated Development Plans and izimbizo (or traditional forums). These are examined along with the challenges faced by local government in promoting citizenship participation in service delivery within a decentralised system of governance. The article concludes with some recommendations on how citizen participation can be enhanced so as to make the ‘public’ visible in public service delivery and thus improve social welfare services.     

Girls with honour‐related problems in a comparative perspective

Schlytter A, Linell H. Girls with honour‐related problems in a comparative perspective
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 152–161 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. The aim of this study was to learn to perceive the indicators of honour‐related problems in a girl's everyday life. Our investigation included all girls aged 13–18 years who were about to be taken into care in 2006. The comparative analysis was based on 37 County Court cases in Stockholm County. The girls' exposure to harm in 13 of the 37 cases could be coupled to the demands and values of the honour culture. All the girls in the ‘honour’ group had been victims of mental abuse; they were more isolated than the girls in the ‘other reason’ group and none of the girls in the ‘honour’ group chose to meet their parents in court. We found that the honour culture life situation is new to the social services, which for these girls can mean that they do not have access to the same legal protection as other girls.     

Do public pensions matter for health and wellbeing among retired persons? Basic and income security pensions across 13 Western European countries

Esser I, Palme J. Do public pensions matter for health and wellbeing among retired persons? Basic and income security pensions across 13 Western European countries Int J Soc Welfare 2010: ??: ??–??© 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. Mortality rates suggest that elderly people in the advanced welfare democracies have experienced dramatically improved health over the past decades. This study examined the importance of public pensions for self‐reported health and wellbeing among retired persons in 13 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries in 2002–2005. New public pension data make it possible to distinguish between two qualities of pension systems: ‘basic security’ for those who have no or a short work history, and ‘income security’ for those with a more extensive contribution record. For enhanced cross‐national comparison, relative measures of ill‐health and wellbeing were constructed to account for cultural bias in responses to survey questions and heterogeneity among countries in the general level of population health. Overall, better health is found in countries with more generous pensions, although the results are gendered; for women's health, high basic security of the pension system appears to be particularly important. Women's wellbeing also tends to be more dependent on the quality of basic security.     

The Causal Power of Discourse

This paper outlines a realist approach to the social ontology of discourse. It seeks to synthesise some elements of the approach to discourse found in the early work of Michel Foucault with a critical realist understanding of the causal power of social structures. It will argue that discursive structures can be causally significant when they are normatively endorsed and enforced by specific groups of people; that it is not discourse as such but these groups—discursive circles—that are causally effective; and that such an account allows us to reconcile the role of discourse with that of the subject.     

The interaction effects of scheduling control and work–life balance programs on job satisfaction and mental health

Jang SJ, Park R, Zippay A. The interaction effects of scheduling control and work–life balance programs on job satisfaction and mental health Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 135–143 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. The demands of balancing employment and family responsibilities strain the health and welfare of many employees worldwide, and social welfare policy analysts are increasingly attending to the factors that can alleviate such stress. The present study examined associations between the availability of work–life balance programs, employees' authority to arrange their own work hours, job satisfaction, and mental health among 1,293 employees in 50 companies in South Korea. The study is unique in its use of multilevel analysis in examining individual‐ and company‐level variables. The results add to the evidence regarding the positive relationship between the availability of scheduling control and work–life balance policies on the one hand, and job satisfaction and mental wellbeing, on the other.     

Welfare residualism: a comparative study of the Basic Livelihood Security systems in China and South Korea

Gao Q, Yoo J, Yang S‐M, Zhai F. Welfare residualism: a comparative study of the Basic Livelihood Security systems in China and South Korea Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 113–124 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. In this article, the Basic Livelihood Security (BLS) systems of China and South Korea are compared. The purpose of BLS is to provide a safety net for poor families, particularly the unemployed and the retired who were hard‐hit by recent economic reforms and crises. A common characteristic of the two systems is residual welfare marked by strict eligibility rules and limited coverage. Both systems are subordinate to the primary goal of economic growth and therefore only compensate for the very disadvantaged left behind by market competition. Neither system is particularly effective in achieving its original antipoverty goals. However, South Korea's provision of self‐support programs to supplement cash transfers has helped individuals to move from welfare to work, and thus has implications for China's BLS system. Both countries need to put more emphasis on equity and social justice in their ongoing reforms and expansions of BLS.     

Low income and ‘poverty lines’ in Norway: a comparison of three concepts

Borgeraas E, Dahl E. Low income and ‘poverty lines’ in Norway: a comparison of three concepts
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 73–83 © 2008 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. In this article we address the question of how well three concepts of ‘poverty’ correspond with each other. We have compared three different measures of ‘poverty’ in Norway: income poverty and two measures of a minimum budget standard, one scientifically and one politically defined. The three measures rest on different underlying concepts, serve different purposes and yield significantly different poverty lines. If followed by the municipal social services, the governmental norms for social benefits will, paradoxically, leave the beneficiaries in income poverty as defined by that same government. The most generous poverty line of all three measures is provided by the minimum budget standard developed by the National Institute for Consumer Research in Norway, which rests on the assumption that a household's income has to give a sustainable financial situation in the longer run. Neither of the two other poverty measures have this property. All numbers pertain to the year 2005. Some political and practical implications of the findings are discussed.