International social work and forced migration: developments in African, Arab and European countries

Abstract

messages more acceptable. Chapter 5 provides a brief overview of the previous contents and presents themmore concisely in an integrated framework. The content of this chapter is a distilled essence for policymakers and social workers trying to find a scientific basis for their decisions and responses. Part II uses specific cases to illustrate that culture, politics, religion, and different national contexts can profoundly impact people’s behaviour in a crisis besides individual, group, and social factors. These cases can help confine the aspects social work can act. The case in Chapter 6 is from Poland. Although it is not a successful example, combined with the analysis in Part I, we can visualise some characteristic reasons for the failure of Poland in COVID-19 prevention and control. Chapter 7 shows the top-down impact of culture and religion on pandemic control by examining examples from Islam and Hinduism, respectively. The final chapter compares and analyses the interventions and effectiveness of pandemic prevention in 29 representative OECD countries, demonstrating the potential role of systematic data sets on interventions to support the development of public policy responses to the crisis. In a nutshell, this book will not only provide insights for researchers in psychology, behavioural sciences, and social workers but also supply a more objective and realistic picture for the general readers interested in human behaviours during a pandemic and thus protect them from pseudoscience. More importantly, it can inspire potential short-term and long-term solutions for policymakers and social work practitioners.