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.     

Work Satisfaction in Probation and Social Work

Correspondence to Professor Martin Davies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ. Summary The design and preliminary development of a research instrumentintended to provide comparable measures of work satisfactionwithin different social work settings is described. The resultsof administering it to two separate samples of social workersand probation officers are presented. It appears that probation officers feel themselves more highlyregarded by members of the general public and are less likelyto say they are badly paid; they enjoy more job autonomy; rathermore social workers tend to feel alienated at work, but mostbelieve that they have better chances of career advancementthan is the case in the probation service. There are broad similarities between the two work settings sofar as work with clients and attitudes towards colleagues areconcerned; it is argued that the emergence of these similaritiesis methodologically reassuring because it suggests the stabilityof the data overall, and therefore increases the likelihoodthat the findings regarding agency differences are a valid reflectionof social reality in each setting.     

Defining Community Care: realities and myths

This article looks critically at the concept of community care and argues that it is unhelpful and redundant. It makes three main points: first, that many care settings have elements of institutional and so-called community care and that there is no clear dichotomy between the two. Second, it is argued that the real distinction is not between the institution and the community but is between the institution and home. Community care is not provided by anonymous, altruistic others but comes from specific individuals (usually women) in domiciliary settings. The concept and definition of “home” are briefly discussed and it is suggested that most care is delivered either in a home , from home or at home. The third argument is that careful individual assessment is required to ensure that dependent people are not offered housing or residential solutions when what they need (and want) is care and services.     

Personhood and Accounting for Racism in Conversation

Racism is traditionally studied from an individualistic perspective emphasising personality characteristics, motivations and basic cognitive processes. Some researchers have shifted their attention to the study of racist discourse. The present study tries to extend this work on discourse in two ways. First, by focusing on the everyday meaning of racism itself, rather than by defining racism and using this definition as the central analytical category. It is investigated how ethnic Dutch speakers when they talk and argue among themselves, reconcile racist talk with their identity as a reasonable and moral person. Second, conversational interactions were studied in order to examine the effectiveness of constructions. Few studies investigate the question of consequences of varying constructions. It is argued that in order to show that constructions play an important role in shaping subjects' understandings and actions it is necessary to go beyond textual deconstructions and to investigate conversations.     

An ecological approach to social work with children and families

This paper examines research into the social ecology of parents and children, with particular reference to the effects of social support on family functioning and outcomes for children. The historical failure of social work in the UK to successfully apply the findings from this area of research to mainstream work with children and families is considered in the light of the prevailing child protection discourse. Challenges to this discourse are now beginning to emerge from developments in both research and practice. The implications of these developments for the construction of a new discourse, which recognizes the wider social and political factors that shape the family environment, are discussed. It is argued that there is sufficient research evidence available to demonstrate the potential of community social work strategies, which enhance the social support networks of families, to significantly reduce the incidence of child abuse. A number of successful action-research projects of this nature are considered.     

The Cost of Selling Public Rental Housing: Victoria and South Australia Compared

A comparison of the cost of selling public rental housing is made between two state housing authorities which have similar sized rental stocks but which have sold different percentages of total constructions. Using data from annual reports, it is found that Victoria's policy of selling to sitting tenants has resulted in higher per unit costs on the unsold rental stock than in South Australia where very few houses have been sold to sitting tenants. It is argued that tenants who do not buy necessarily subsidize those who do buy, and that if governments wish to encourage sales then they, and not the bulk of public tenants, should pay for the cost of sales.     

Trickle-down or Rising Tide? Lessons on Mainstreaming Gender Policy from Colombia and South Africa

As a result of the United Nations Decade for Women (1976–1985) many member states of the United Nations in the South put in place some form of national machinery for the advancement of women. This paper considers that process, identifying three main phases. The first was heavily overlaid by the agendas of international development agencies and coincided with efforts to advance a "women in development" or WID agenda within international development cooperation. The second, explored here in relation to Colombia, saw a shift towards attempts to institutionalize gender awareness in development policy, the so-called "gender and development" or GAD approach. Against this background, the later South African experience is evaluated. It is argued that this potentially represents a third and distinguishable phase in the establishment of national machineries. Here structures were set up in the context of less aid dependence than many other countries and as a result of a process that was largely internally driven. Nevertheless, South Africa enjoyed tremendous support from international women's networks and lessons were learnt from past experience elsewhere, both positive and negative. The South African approach to advancing gender equality is arguably the most progressive to be found anywhere. What remains to be seen is whether it will be possible to implement, given the persistence of poverty and inequality nationally and South Africa's increasing identification with international neo-liberal agendas.     

THE IMAGINED COMMUNITY OF ACCESS AND EQUITY

Access and Equity programs are framed within the discourse of citizenship and organised around the notion of individual rights. This marks a shift in orientation away from the individual liberation strategies of the 1960s and 1970s, which utilised the notion of ‘community’ as the major site of struggle. Nevertheless, Access and Equity programs must engage with the multiple and contradictory meanings that were infused into the notion of community during these earlier struggles. They must also engage with the ‘communities’ that were politically constituted during this era and utilise the community-based services that are now a fundamental part of the welfare system. It is argued that governments are able to utilise this legacy to resolve the contradictions inherent in Access and Equity programs, in particular the tension between ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’, universal citizenship and substantive equality. As this tension become more acute with government stringency measures, the limitations of reform strategies based on the notion of citizenship become more apparent.     

Carer Break or Carer‐blind? Policies for Informal Carers in the UK

This article examines three policy statements on informal carers published in the UK in 1999—the National Strategy for Carers, the report of the Royal Commission on Long Term Care and the note of dissent by two members of the Royal Commission. These three documents contain two rather different approaches to policy for carers. On the one hand, the National Strategy and note of dissent emphasize respite care or short-term breaks for carers, and are concerned with sustaining the well-being of carers as well as ensuring the continuation of caring itself. The Royal Commission, on the other hand, emphasizes support for the older or disabled person who is being cared for, as a means of supporting the carer, and advocates "carer-blind" services. It is argued that this policy contains within it the potential to substitute for or replace the carer and that this represents a radical new departure for social policy for carers in the UK. The advantages and disadvantages of the two policy approaches are explored. It is argued that policies for carers should include both services specifically for carers, like breaks from caring, and services provided for the cared-for person, like domestic and personal care services. Wider issues about the proper boundary between family and state care are explored.     

THE ELDERLY BLIND IN NURSING HOMES

This article addresses a number of issues surrounding the problem of delivering services to elderly blind residents in nursing homes. It is pointed out that general public misunderstanding, blind service agencies' lack of resources and general nuising home problems like high staff turnover rates make it difficult to establish ongoing effective training programs. It is argued that rigorously evaluated trainings could solve some of the problems involved in coordinating the blind service system and nursing home network to establish a national in-service training policy on blindness for staff who work with elderly blind in nursing homes.     

Meaningful Voices: How Psychologists, Speaking as Psychologists, Can Inform Social Policy

Kitzinger and Wilkinson (2004) posit that social advocacy can be argued for within both a discourse of equal rights and a discourse of mental health. They suggest that psychological evidence, because it is bound to a discourse of mental health, is currently not useful in advancing the campaigns for equal marriage rights. In our response to their argument, we (1) agree that the currently available psychological evidence is limited; (2) make the case that it is still important for psychologists to produce evidence that speaks to this debate; and (3) suggest how psychologists, still speaking as psychologists, can produce evidence that speaks to this debate through underutilized theoretical and methodological approaches to relevant issues. The authors analyze a key statement by United States President George W. Bush on the meaning of marriage and the available psychological literature on same-sex relationships to support their position.     

Nurses' and Social Workers' Perceptions of Elderly Nursing Home Residents' Well-Being

The purpose of the present study was to determine the relationship between nurses' and social worker'perceptions of the well-being of elderly nursing home residents. Four-hundred and eight residents were rated by both nurses and social workers in three areas: cognitive functioning, depression and the social network. Results showed that there was a strong relationship between the nurses' and social workers' ratings on all measures in the three domains of functioning. However, differences between nurses' and social workers' ratings were found on several measures. Nurses consistently rated the residents as more impaired than social workers on all measures of cognitive functioning. Nurses also rated the residents as being less depressed, having a lower activity level and having less frequent social interactions than did social workers. In the area of the social network, social workers thought residents had more frequent contacts with staff. However, nurses rated the residents as being more intimate with staff and visitors. The practical implications of the results are discussed.     

The influence of ‘topic and resource’ on some aspects of social theorising

Developments in sociological theory since the 1960s have been responses to disciplinary problems rather than changes in fashion. The problem of topic and resource—where sociology has to use everyday understandings and practices as study resources even though they are legitimate topics of enquiry—has been an important and sometimes neglected spur to many of these developments. The turn to discourse, conversation analysis and the rise of Bourdieu's reflexivity are all attempts to address the problem, but each is shown to be unsatisfactory in different ways. In summary, they seek to address the issue as requiring either a principled methodological or a principled theoretical solution, and neither approach is capable of comprehensively addressing the matter. It is argued that these ‘solutions’ depend, in turn, on one of two particular construals of what the ‘problem’ consists in, neither of which is necessary or coherent. Each, it is argued, depends on a philosophical trick: making language out to need formal improvement (the Bertrand Russell trick) or introducing inappropriate scepticism to everyday life (the René Descartes trick). It is suggested that treating topic and resource not as a problem but as something which opens up new areas of investigation successfully deflates the issue and avoids unnecessary theoretical and methodological contortions.     

Reading Social Work Competing Discourses in the Rules and Requirements for the Diploma in Social Work

Correspondence to Dr Beth Humphnes, Department of Applied Community Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, 799 Wilmslow Road, Manchester M20 2RR Summary The changes which have taken place across all of social workeducation and practice in Britain introduce a new phase forthe profession in line with wider political and economic changesin the UK. The Rules and Requirements for the Diploma in SocialWork exemplify these changes, and the document containing themis a useful focus for an analysis of what is at stake. Thisarticle employs discourse analysis to examine the ideologicalfunctions of the Dip.S.W. regulations and their relationshipto wider social discourses, having in mind both the discipliningrole of discourse and its possibilities for transformation.It identifies a dominant regulatory discourse, and an oppositionalliberatory discourse which are in dialogue with each other andwith related discourses. The article considers the constructionof social work in the document in its surveillance, managerialist,competence-based functions. The analysis also looks for contradictoryvoices in these discourses and in CCETSW'. Welsh Language Policyand Equal Opportunities Statement, which might offer sites ofresistance and refusal. It is argued that the shape of the stagesocial work has entered into is not inevitable, and the destabilizingpotential of such an analysis creates a space for the imaginationof alternatives.     

Tort claims for road accident compensation and social security in South Africa

The statutory scheme of road accident compensation in South Africa encapsulates both the common law of tort or delict and the residue of liability insurance principles. The absence of meaningful interaction between the road accident compensation scheme and the broader social security system raises significant challenges. There are dissonant responses to the targeted misfortune, provision of benefits, financing, choice of remedies and socioeconomic-political priorities selected by the South African government. It is argued that the current scheme should be identified as falling squarely within a state-funded and regulated scheme of comprehensive social protection.     

Social Security in South Korea and Singapore: Explaining the Differences

The paper sets out statutory social security arrangements in Korea and Singapore and then explains the differences between them. It finds that while Korea has a relatively advanced social security system based primarily on social insurance, Singapore has a patchwork of programmes based on forced saving, tax allowance, public assistance, and public insurance schemes run along commercial lines. Moreover, the increasing share of government expenditure devoted to social security in Korea stands in sharp contrast to the declining share in Singapore. The paper accounts for the variations in terms of the different economic objectives of the two states and the different international and societal constraints they face. In contrast to South Korea * * Republic of Korea. Hereafter referred to as Korea.
which has rapidly established an elaborate set of income maintenance and health care programmes, Singapore continues to resist expansion of such programmes. The objective of this paper is to describe the social security programmes in the two countries and then explain why the supposedly similar political economies have pursued entirely different social security strategies. The paper will argue that to understand the variations, we need to examine the varying economic objectives of the two states and the different international and societal constraints they face.