Social Work Teachers and Social Work Practice

Summary A survey was undertaken to discover the extent to which thosesocial work teachers who teach social work methods, continueto practise after they become educators. The results suggestthat not more than 25% do so, and many of these on only a tokenbasis. Most respondents however regarded such practice as animportant aide to the teaching of social work methods, althoughsome consider consultancy roles to be equally relevant. In nocases was such practice linked with research, and only exceptionallydid employers allow time explicitly for it. We outline fourdifferent bases on which teachers might practise, all of whichwere suggested by respondents, many of whom added personal notesto the questionnaire, indicating the extent to which this subjectis a matter of wide interest and concern     

Contracts in Social Work Practice

Summary This article explores the paradigm of Contract Law to identifyproblems and advantages of introducing a contractual model intosocial work practice. Recent social work literature on the useof contracts is reviewed and a social worker's record of howa contract was negotiated is analysed. The author argues thatthe value-base of a contract model must be founded on reciprocity.     

The Professional Standing of Work with Elderly Persons among Social Work Trainees

Correspondence to Dr Howard Litwin, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, The Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, 91905, Jerusalem, Israel. Summary A random sample of 93 students of social work in Israel werequeried regarding their perception of the professional standingof work with older people. The general ranking given by traineesto this field of practice was moderate to low. Relatively positiveevaluation of the status of gerontological practice, however,was found to be explained by: (1) a traditional view of therole of the elder in society; (2) the perception that peersattribute prestige to such work; and (3) having had a fieldpracticum in the area of ageing; and was inversely related tounderstanding of work with elderly persons as mainly indirectintervention. The implications of these findings for the promotionof social work practice with elderly people in an ageing societyare discussed.     

The Place of Knowledge in Social Work Activity

Summary This study considers whether a small sample of social workerswas using theoretical knowledge as a basis for activities inpractice. The findings indicate that the use of this type ofknowledge was minimal. They also bring to light a number ofquestions related to the development of knowledge for use insocial work practice.     

Adult Learning: Implications for Teaching in Social Work Education

Summary The new Diploma in Social Work (DipSW) requires practice teachersand academic tutors to foster student empowerment while at thesame time ensuring practice competence. A model for achievingthese aims is that of adult learning. This paper traces thedevelopment of adult learning research and offers suggestionsfor effective teaching methods. It argues that the principlesof adult learning could provide a unified framework for professionaltraining and that, moreover, this educational approach couldbe used to benefit social work practice itself.     

The Changing Nature and Context of Social Work Research

Summary Social work research is constantly diversifying and expandingand this article explores its changing nature; including changesto epistemology and practice; and the critical influence ofthe wider economic, political, theoretical and practice changesoccurring to social work itself. The author discusses a numberof issues facing social work research: the enduring conflictsof ways of knowing, doing and valuing social work research;the role of practitioners as researchers; and the challengeto empower service users as self-determining researchers.     

The 'Subject' in Social Work

Summary Theories of social work are usually defined by reference totheir oppositions regarding the subject in social work and theaims of practice. This position connects up with a dominantview of theories of social work which regards them as opponentsengaged in a struggle to dominate the field. This paper characterizesthis view as a ‘gladiatorial paradigm’ It assaysthe vaidity of this paradigm. lists the main defects, and setsout the case for a structuralist approach to social work.     

Strange Meeting: Marxism, Psychoanalysis and Social Work

Summary It is suggested that the polarity between Marxism and psychoanalysisis one factor hindering the development of social work's professionalidentity. The first section of the article suggests ways inwhich a dialogue between the two perspectives might be established.In the second section such a dialogue is applied to a numberof central concepts in social work theory and practice.     

The Limits of Competence in Social Work: The Assessment of Marginal Students in Social Work Education

Summary Out of a population of 208 final year social work students,a sample is gathered of those whose fieldwork gave rise to commentby tutors. A further sample of 35 deemed to be ‘at risk’is identified, and the process by which all but four obtainedtheir Certificate of Qualification in Social Work is carefullymonitored. Among topics discussed are the need to define theprocess of assessment more clearly, the weakness of so-calledtheoretical foundations in social work practice, the risk ofmisunderstanding between fieldwork teachers (supervisors) andcourse tutors regarding their respective responsibility forjudging competence in practice, and the desirability of requiringstudents to demonstrate competence rather than expecting coursesto prove incompetence.     

Social Work Effectiveness Experiments: Review and Implications

Summary This paper takes the view that the findings and methodologiesof experiments seeking to test the effectiveness of social workare too little known and understood. Now is a particularly goodtime to attempt to remedy this since a new generation of studiesis available showing results which, in contrast to those earliertimes, are largely positive. A comparison between these firstand second wave studies is revealing and raises many implicationsfor future research and practice.     

Value Bases in Social Work Education

Correspondence to Elisabeth Lynn, Lecturer in Social Work, Centre for Applied Social Studies, 9th Floor, Chemistry Tower, University of Wales Bangor, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK. Summary In this paper the two values of social justice and personalcaring are identified as key ideologies within social work education.Their presence is traced within a historical ebb and flow oftheory and practice and it is argued that this dialectic isembedded in social and individual systems. Based on fieldworkresearch with social work lecturers and practice teachers, itis argued that anti-oppressive social work needs a reflexivetheory/practice model to provide an understanding of how structuralpower affects all aspects of an individual. This demands a workingsynthesis of the two values of Personal Canng and Social Justicewithin an understanding of a multiple approach.     

Allocating Blame in Social Work

Correspondence to Geraldine Macdonald, Applied Social Studies, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Egham Hill, Surrey TW20 OEX. Summary This article takes issue with those who assume that the responsibilityfor bad outcomes in social work, such as child deaths, is appropriatelylaid at the feet of individual workers. It examines the philosophicalorigins of such arguments, some recent applications within socialwork literature and their appropriateness to the realities ofsocial work practice. The author argues that a morality of socialwork must recognize the social and organizational context inwhich it occurs.     

The Promise and the Pitfalls of Learned Helplessness Theory for Social Work Practice

Summary Because it articulates a psychology of powerlessness and becauseit focuses on the interactions between the individual and thesocial environment, Learned Helplessness Theory deserves tobecome an important new practice theory within social work.However, the theory also suffers from certain unresolved problemswhich currently limit its usefulness. This paper reviews LearnedHelplessness Theory for social workers and directs the attentionof practitioners to some crucial theoretical issues to be bornein mind when applying the theory to practice.     

Social Work and Self-determination

Correspondence to Department of Political Science and Social Policy, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN. Summary Self-determination is a curious concept, related to, but notquite the same as, freedom and autonomy. As an ethical principle,the principle of self-determination bears little relationshipto the way social workers behave. It is used as if clients werebeing allowed a free, independent choice; but clients are subjectto pressure, and the social work relationship is often conceivedwithin a structure of authority. As a guide to practice, theconcept of self-determination ignores the cases where directionis legitimate or desirable. Self-determination can be seen as a professional ideology—aninter-related set of values and ideas. The concept is derivedfrom a number of ideas and values outside social work, but itappears to have little direct relevance to social work in practice.The paper suggests that the concept of freedom may be more usefuland less remote from the realities than ‘self-detemination’is.     

Beyond Social Constructionism: Critical Realism and Social Work

Summary Theories within the social and psychological sciences continueto shape social work practice. However, recent debates withinthese sciences on the shortcomings of ‘social constructionism’,and the attempt to overcome them through a critical realistposition, have so far failed to capture social work's attention.This paper provides a critical overview of these theoreticaldebates, highlighting the shortcomings of social constructionismfor social work. The critical realist challenge to social constructionism,as articulated by the British philosopher Roy Bhaskar, is consideredand its relevance to social work formulated in terms of a returnto ‘depth’ in practice.     

Social Work Education: Tackling The Theory--Practice Dilemma

Summary The integration of theory and practice has long been a topicfor debate and concern amongst social work educators. A longitudinalparticipant observation study of one cohort of social work studentsconfirmed that the ideal of theory—practice integrationwas also high on their own list of self-established priorities.Students' efforts towards attaining this goal were also hamperedby the perspectives which they themselves brought to bear ontheir training. Attempting to resolve the conflict between theirown perspectives and their perceived demands of professionaleducation students appealed to and reconstructed afresh variousmodels of theory application endorsed both by social work educatorsand practitioners. These models, however, are essentially contradictoryand pose serious problems for the development and maintenanceof social work standards.     

Social Work and the Medical Profession--Arguments Against Unconditional Collaboration

Summary The history and major texts of medical social work emphasizethe need for collaboration with the medical profession. Howeverthere is a less visible history of conflict between medicineand social work. It is proposed that a critique of medicine’scontribution to health provides the foundation for a statementof principles for a social model of health for social work practice.Collaboration with medicine should be negotiated on the basisof such principles, rather than unconditional.     

Community Work, Social Work: Green and Postmodern?

Correspondence to Mary Lane, Department of Social Work, Social Policy and Sociology, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Summary Opening with a story about community work, this paper exploresdevelopments and challenges in social and political theory andthe implications for social work, particularly for collectivepractices. Feminism, postmodernism and green political theoryare of particular interest. The paper argues for an interpretiveapproach to practice which emphasizes the local and specific,yet aspires to broader political action in the pursuit of socialand ecocentric justice. Feminism has much to contribute to thisexercise, challenging, as it does, a modern/postmodern divide.The emerging discourse of ecofeminism offers a synthesis ofsocial and ecocentric purposes and values as a basis for tacklinginequalities, whilst postmodern feminists enlighten our understandingof difference and encourage us to renounce certainty and lastproofs.     

Reflections on Gender, Knowledge and Values in Social Work

Summary This paper is a discussion of the application of social workknowledge and values in practice. It draws on ethnographic researchin a child-care team in the UK which set out to explore theconstruction of clients as gendered. It is argued that socialworkers' accounts of practice reveal tensions between an emphasison clients as individuals and an emphasis on social collectivity.These tensions could be seen as inherent in social work knowledgeand values. There are various implications of these tensionsbetween the individual and the social, but there is a particularfocus in the paper on the implications for questions of gender.It concludes with some ideas for a theory for practice thatwould better equip social workers for the complex task of negotiatingthe gender tensions raised in the paper.     

Constructivism in Social Work: Towards a Participative Practice Viability

Summary Social work has traditionally drawn upon an expansive rangeof social science research and theorizing as its claim upona ‘knowledge base’. Recent debates have exploredthe need for the profession to develop its own theory of socialwork knowledge arising from practice. This paper seeks to extendthe boundaries of these ideas through an operational and epistemologicalelaboration and critique of Sheppard's (1995a; 1998) notionof a practice paradigm. In an examination of the contributionof constructivism and the seminal work of George Kelly's (1955)Psychology of Personal Constructs, arguments are put forwardfor social work practice to focus upon the co-construction ofviable working relationships with service users as the basisfor an anti-oppressive and participative professionalism. Itargues that the sterile philosophical dichotomies between objectivism/realism-subjectivism/interpretivismand the equally unhelpful social work division between practice-theoryshould be integrated within a situated, participatory, constructivistapproach to knowledge creation in social work practice and continuingprofessional development.