Pub Date : 2024-01-08DOI: 10.1332/20498608y2023d000000013
Tove Samzelius, R. Ulmestig
Inter-agency collaboration plays a central role in contemporary Swedish welfare provision and access to social security for citizens that are long-term unemployed and suffer from ill health. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s theorisation on the ‘politics of needs interpretation’, this article examines how needs and rights are interpreted and contested in inter-agency meetings involving local representatives from national, regional and municipal Swedish welfare agencies. Contextualised against social security reforms that put emphasis on the limitation of access and a ‘work-first’ approach, the article suggests that localised inter-agency meetings of this nature are arenas where perceived injustices are symbolically elaborated and challenged ‘from within’ welfare organisations. Although discourses emphasising self-sufficiency and the importance of work tend to act as depoliticising and normalising, the way they are implemented in practice is not passively accepted by front-line professionals, who question interpretive justifications, as well as harmful consequences for individuals.
{"title":"Talking about needs and rights in inter-agency meetings: interpretive contests in Swedish welfare provision","authors":"Tove Samzelius, R. Ulmestig","doi":"10.1332/20498608y2023d000000013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000013","url":null,"abstract":"Inter-agency collaboration plays a central role in contemporary Swedish welfare provision and access to social security for citizens that are long-term unemployed and suffer from ill health. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s theorisation on the ‘politics of needs interpretation’, this article examines how needs and rights are interpreted and contested in inter-agency meetings involving local representatives from national, regional and municipal Swedish welfare agencies. Contextualised against social security reforms that put emphasis on the limitation of access and a ‘work-first’ approach, the article suggests that localised inter-agency meetings of this nature are arenas where perceived injustices are symbolically elaborated and challenged ‘from within’ welfare organisations. Although discourses emphasising self-sufficiency and the importance of work tend to act as depoliticising and normalising, the way they are implemented in practice is not passively accepted by front-line professionals, who question interpretive justifications, as well as harmful consequences for individuals.","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"19 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139446690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-11DOI: 10.1332/20498608y2023d000000007
Tom Considine
Resilience has attracted immense interest for researchers and practitioners. Arguably, resilience is a laudable quality, and post-COVID-19, the need for resilience is greater. Most studies examining resilience are socially blind and place emphasis on individual responsibility. Developing this critique further, this is the first study that draws significantly on the ideas of Charles Wright Mills and his defining principles to relate the ‘private’ concerns of being resilient to the ‘public’ context that creates this experience. This article presents a qualitative study that investigated how student social workers perceived resilience in their practice. A total of 16 social work students were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The aim of the article is to analyse the capacity for resilience to be deployed as a means of exercising domination over social work students in order to exploit and control them. An alternative conception of resilience is promoted that advocates a collective response to the challenges facing social workers.
{"title":"Maybe you can be too resilient: a sociological investigation into how student social workers perceive resilience in their practice","authors":"Tom Considine","doi":"10.1332/20498608y2023d000000007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000007","url":null,"abstract":"Resilience has attracted immense interest for researchers and practitioners. Arguably, resilience is a laudable quality, and post-COVID-19, the need for resilience is greater. Most studies examining resilience are socially blind and place emphasis on individual responsibility. Developing this critique further, this is the first study that draws significantly on the ideas of Charles Wright Mills and his defining principles to relate the ‘private’ concerns of being resilient to the ‘public’ context that creates this experience. This article presents a qualitative study that investigated how student social workers perceived resilience in their practice. A total of 16 social work students were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The aim of the article is to analyse the capacity for resilience to be deployed as a means of exercising domination over social work students in order to exploit and control them. An alternative conception of resilience is promoted that advocates a collective response to the challenges facing social workers.","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138981832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-07DOI: 10.1332/20498608y2023d000000008
Stan Houston
It is self-evident that critique lies at the heart of Critical Social Work. Even so, more attention should be given to clarifying the meaning of this form of evaluation, particularly when it is applied in the social sciences and social professions. More precisely, it is necessary to explain the meta-theoretical conceptualisation of critique and, crucially, note its different expressions. Through gaining such clarity, the contention is that Critical Social Work sharpens its appreciation of social injustice and how to tackle it. This article describes and augments one meta-theoretical conception of critique involving a typology delineating interconnected forms of evaluation. The indelible bond between this paradigmatic outline of critique, critical theory and Critical Social Work is subsequently considered, highlighting some possibilities for social transformation. Adopting these precepts, by way of conclusion, leads to a critical cosmopolitan orientation within Critical Social Work, making it relevant to the pressing challenges of today’s world.
{"title":"Critique and Critical Social Work: a meta-theoretical perspective","authors":"Stan Houston","doi":"10.1332/20498608y2023d000000008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000008","url":null,"abstract":"It is self-evident that critique lies at the heart of Critical Social Work. Even so, more attention should be given to clarifying the meaning of this form of evaluation, particularly when it is applied in the social sciences and social professions. More precisely, it is necessary to explain the meta-theoretical conceptualisation of critique and, crucially, note its different expressions. Through gaining such clarity, the contention is that Critical Social Work sharpens its appreciation of social injustice and how to tackle it. This article describes and augments one meta-theoretical conception of critique involving a typology delineating interconnected forms of evaluation. The indelible bond between this paradigmatic outline of critique, critical theory and Critical Social Work is subsequently considered, highlighting some possibilities for social transformation. Adopting these precepts, by way of conclusion, leads to a critical cosmopolitan orientation within Critical Social Work, making it relevant to the pressing challenges of today’s world.","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"57 34","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138592979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-20DOI: 10.1332/20498608y2023d000000009
Joe Whelan, Susan Flynn
CORU are tasked with regulating social work in Ireland. This commentary responds to a debate that is currently unfolding in Irish social work circles concerning an absence of the term ‘human rights’ from the CORU Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics, something that has prompted much criticism. It is argued here that much of this response has been ‘knee-jerk’ and that the debate must be nuanced through the consideration of radical alternatives to ‘human rights’.
{"title":"Who’s right? What rights? How? Rights debates in Irish social work: a call for nuance","authors":"Joe Whelan, Susan Flynn","doi":"10.1332/20498608y2023d000000009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000009","url":null,"abstract":"CORU are tasked with regulating social work in Ireland. This commentary responds to a debate that is currently unfolding in Irish social work circles concerning an absence of the term ‘human rights’ from the CORU Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics, something that has prompted much criticism. It is argued here that much of this response has been ‘knee-jerk’ and that the debate must be nuanced through the consideration of radical alternatives to ‘human rights’.","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"25 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139256744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-06DOI: 10.1332/20498608y2023d000000006
Murray K. Simpson, Mark Smith, Maura Daly
This article provides an innovative reading of the relationship between social work and the regulatory bodies mandated to register and regulate it, which has hitherto remained largely untheorised. It achieves this by utilising Hegel’s illustrative tale of ‘lord and bondsman’. This narrative outlines the development of consciousness through dialectical struggle. We argue that the relationship of domination and servitude that has developed between the profession and the regulators is incapable of delivering a satisfactory self-consciousness for either. For the social work profession, consciousness is limited to an enforced ‘being-for’ the regulatory bodies, which appropriate the ends of practice through the labour of the profession. For both to achieve full self-consciousness, each must transcend itself and the other through a dialectical movement in which each is simultaneously ‘negated’ and ‘preserved’. The article highlights ways in which social work can more courageously address its own historical development within such a struggle.
{"title":"Lordship and bondage in the dialectics of social work: regulation and professional autonomy","authors":"Murray K. Simpson, Mark Smith, Maura Daly","doi":"10.1332/20498608y2023d000000006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000006","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides an innovative reading of the relationship between social work and the regulatory bodies mandated to register and regulate it, which has hitherto remained largely untheorised. It achieves this by utilising Hegel’s illustrative tale of ‘lord and bondsman’. This narrative outlines the development of consciousness through dialectical struggle. We argue that the relationship of domination and servitude that has developed between the profession and the regulators is incapable of delivering a satisfactory self-consciousness for either. For the social work profession, consciousness is limited to an enforced ‘being-for’ the regulatory bodies, which appropriate the ends of practice through the labour of the profession. For both to achieve full self-consciousness, each must transcend itself and the other through a dialectical movement in which each is simultaneously ‘negated’ and ‘preserved’. The article highlights ways in which social work can more courageously address its own historical development within such a struggle.","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"4 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135589989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01Epub Date: 2023-01-06DOI: 10.1332/204986022X16703011487757
Stephanie Davies
This article makes the submission that social work is stuck and needs now to find ways to endure its commitments to caring from inside the suspended time that is so characteristic of late capitalism and not from some imaginary place outside of it. When telling this time in the form of history, there is a tendency to want to pass over what is most difficult about it - the inescapable fact of having to live through it - just at the moment when this is the reality most in need of being carefully thought about. Remembering that in talking about social work, we are talking about a labour of care defined, in part, by a sensitive, practical engagement with time that is difficult to live, I look to recent feminist theoretical work on care that can help us to think about how we might handle being stuck in painful time.
{"title":"Lost futures, doomed timelines and unwanted inheritances: how we are handling painful time in social work.","authors":"Stephanie Davies","doi":"10.1332/204986022X16703011487757","DOIUrl":"10.1332/204986022X16703011487757","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article makes the submission that social work is stuck and needs now to find ways to endure its commitments to caring from inside the suspended time that is so characteristic of late capitalism and not from some imaginary place outside of it. When telling this time in the form of history, there is a tendency to want to pass over what is most difficult about it - the inescapable fact of having to live through it - just at the moment when this is the reality most in need of being carefully thought about. Remembering that in talking about social work, we are talking about a labour of care defined, in part, by a sensitive, practical engagement with time that is difficult to live, I look to recent feminist theoretical work on care that can help us to think about how we might handle being stuck in painful time.</p>","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"11 3","pages":"360-373"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7615215/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41239676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1332/20498608y2023d000000005
Tina E. Wilson, Ameil J. Joseph
{"title":"Special issue editorial: critical temporalities in social work after ‘the end of history’","authors":"Tina E. Wilson, Ameil J. Joseph","doi":"10.1332/20498608y2023d000000005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"93 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-29DOI: 10.1332/20498608y2023d000000001
Tatenda Manomano
In South Africa, the right to education is guaranteed by Section 29 of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. The government is therefore obliged to develop policies, pass laws and establish programmes that promote and fulfil the right to education. Contrary to this, it has been argued that children with disabilities benefit less from the human right to education, as reflected by the number of children with disabilities currently attending school. This article aims to examine the gap between the promises made on the advancement of the human right to education of children with disabilities and the pitfalls experienced in fulfilling those promises. A literature review method was used to assess the access to education, and findings identify that inequalities in opportunities continue to occur not only because the government has not managed the key drivers of poverty but also due to a persistent lack of activism to address these issues.
{"title":"Promises and pitfalls for advancing the human right to education of children with disabilities in South Africa","authors":"Tatenda Manomano","doi":"10.1332/20498608y2023d000000001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000001","url":null,"abstract":"In South Africa, the right to education is guaranteed by Section 29 of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. The government is therefore obliged to develop policies, pass laws and establish programmes that promote and fulfil the right to education. Contrary to this, it has been argued that children with disabilities benefit less from the human right to education, as reflected by the number of children with disabilities currently attending school. This article aims to examine the gap between the promises made on the advancement of the human right to education of children with disabilities and the pitfalls experienced in fulfilling those promises. A literature review method was used to assess the access to education, and findings identify that inequalities in opportunities continue to occur not only because the government has not managed the key drivers of poverty but also due to a persistent lack of activism to address these issues.","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135193731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-28DOI: 10.1332/20498608y2023d000000002
Malcolm Carey
Care-experienced children and young people frequently face adverse ‘life chances’ when compared to their peers. Their life-course trajectories typically include numerous personal, structural and culturally determined challenges set from a young age. Social workers in the UK now play a minimal role in direct support for young people and are instead encouraged to focus on short-term priorities, safeguarding investigations and monitoring ‘risky’ working-class parents. This article considers some explanations and evidence offered for educational and other inequalities experienced by care-experienced children and young people, and highlights specific issues regarding ongoing neoliberal reforms of social care. Case examples relating to criminal justice, asylum-seeking children and sexuality are then briefly discussed. The conclusion draws from evidence to identify some recommendations that may help improve care-experienced children and young people’s full learning potential. This includes moving away from the current neoliberal-inspired short-term focus placed on managing risk and towards the provision of more contextual and meaningful support.
{"title":"Towards the privileging of care-experienced children and young people’s educational and other ‘life chances’ within social work practice and education","authors":"Malcolm Carey","doi":"10.1332/20498608y2023d000000002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000002","url":null,"abstract":"Care-experienced children and young people frequently face adverse ‘life chances’ when compared to their peers. Their life-course trajectories typically include numerous personal, structural and culturally determined challenges set from a young age. Social workers in the UK now play a minimal role in direct support for young people and are instead encouraged to focus on short-term priorities, safeguarding investigations and monitoring ‘risky’ working-class parents. This article considers some explanations and evidence offered for educational and other inequalities experienced by care-experienced children and young people, and highlights specific issues regarding ongoing neoliberal reforms of social care. Case examples relating to criminal justice, asylum-seeking children and sexuality are then briefly discussed. The conclusion draws from evidence to identify some recommendations that may help improve care-experienced children and young people’s full learning potential. This includes moving away from the current neoliberal-inspired short-term focus placed on managing risk and towards the provision of more contextual and meaningful support.","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135385697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-25DOI: 10.1332/20498608y2023d000000004
Karen D. Roscoe
This article explores the use of a pedagogic approach that utilises critical discourse theories to examine how people construct the social work identity while navigating the neoliberal landscape. The approach adopts an interventionist stance to engage individuals in a type of conversation that exposes dominant discourses within social work and what these represent, as well as their effects. It provides practitioners with ways in which to reconsider competing and contradictory aspects of the social work identity, and, more crucially, it facilitates a conversation where the more marginalised, competing and coexisting discourses can be interwoven alongside the contemporary challenges of practice. Based on reclaiming a professional identity as a way of resisting hegemonic discourses, this method aims to provide ways to recontextualise language practices surrounding social work’s occupational mission and identity. Here, it is assumed that professional identities are never complete but instead viewed as shifting, changing and contradictory.
{"title":"Critical discourse analysis: a dialectical approach to deconstructing professional identity in social work","authors":"Karen D. Roscoe","doi":"10.1332/20498608y2023d000000004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/20498608y2023d000000004","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the use of a pedagogic approach that utilises critical discourse theories to examine how people construct the social work identity while navigating the neoliberal landscape. The approach adopts an interventionist stance to engage individuals in a type of conversation that exposes dominant discourses within social work and what these represent, as well as their effects. It provides practitioners with ways in which to reconsider competing and contradictory aspects of the social work identity, and, more crucially, it facilitates a conversation where the more marginalised, competing and coexisting discourses can be interwoven alongside the contemporary challenges of practice. Based on reclaiming a professional identity as a way of resisting hegemonic discourses, this method aims to provide ways to recontextualise language practices surrounding social work’s occupational mission and identity. Here, it is assumed that professional identities are never complete but instead viewed as shifting, changing and contradictory.","PeriodicalId":44175,"journal":{"name":"Critical and Radical Social Work","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135770055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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