This book, based on in-depth interviews of radical social workers, who at one time were associated with the Catalyst collective, explores through oral history the social psychological effects of upward mobility on political ideology. Historically large numbers of idealistic activists entered social work and other human services professions, but there have been few studies about the careers of such individuals and what has happened to radicals who pursue careers as community organizers, caseworkers or therapists, administrators or planners. Contents: A Radical Professionalism?; Radical Social Work; The Moral Careers of Radical Social Service Workers-Becoming Radical, Becoming Social Workers, Images of Success/Worlds of Pain, and Occupations and Ideology; Radicalism, Social Action, and Social Service Careers-The Decline of Oppositional Activism, Politics at the Retail Level: 'Radical Practice', The Absorption of Radicalism; and Bibliography.
The Routledge Handbook of International Critical Social Work is a companion volume to the Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work. It brings together world-leading scholars in the field to provide additional, in-depth and provocative consideration of alternative and progressive ways of thinking about social work. Critical social work is increasingly involved in a global conversation, and as a subfield of social work it is rapidly becoming an interdisciplinary field in its own right and promoting novel forms of political activism. The Handbook showcases the global influences and path-breaking ideas of critical social work and examines the different stances taken on important political and ethical issues. It provides the first complete survey of the vibrant field of critical social work in a rich international context. This definitive volume is one of the most comprehensive source books on crucial social work that is available on the international stage and an essential guide for anyone interested in the politics of social work. The Handbook is divided into sever sections • Thinking the Political • Politics and the Ruins of Neoliberalism • Negotiating the State: Resistance, Protest and Dissent • Race, Bordering Practices and Migrants • Post Colonialism, Subaltern and the Global South • Critical Feminism, Sexuality and Gender Politics • Posthumanism, Pandemics and Environment The Handbook is comprised of 46 newly written chapters (and one reprint) which concentrate on differences between European and American contributions in this field as well as explicitly identifying the significance of critical social work in the context of Latin America. It provides a further vital trajectory of intellectual practice theory via interdisciplinary discussion of areas such as biopolitics, critical race theory, boundaries of gender and sexuality, queer studies, new conceptions of community, issues of public engagement, racism and Roma people, ecological feminism, environmental humanities and critical animal studies. The Handbook is an innovative and authoritative guide to theory and method as they relate to policy issues and practice and focus on the primary debates of today in social work from a critical perspective, and will be required reading for all students, academics and practitioners of social work and related professions.
One Hundred Years of Social Work is the first comprehensive history of social work as a profession in English Canada. Organized chronologically, it provides a critical and compelling look at the internal struggles and debates in the social work profession over the course of a century and investigates the responses of social workers to several important events. A central theme in the book is the long-standing struggle of the professional association (the Canadian Association of Social Workers) and individual social workers to reconcile advancement of professional status with the promotion social action. The book chronicles the early history of the secularization and professionalization of social work and examines social workers roles during both world wars, the Depression, and in the era of postwar reconstruction. It includes sections on civil defence, the Cold War, unionization, social work education, regulation of the profession, and other key developments up to the end of the twentieth century. Drawing on extensive archival research as well as personal interviews and secondary literature, the authors provide strong academic evidence of a profession that has endured many important changes and continues to advocate for a just society and a responsive social welfare state. One Hundred Years of Social Work will be of interest to social workers, social work students and educators, social historians, professional associations and anyone interested in understanding the complex nature of people and institutions.
Exploring the effects of the past decade's neoliberalism and globalization on world-wide social work, this book also grapples with the implications for social work practice of the global social justice/anti-corporate and anti-capitalist movement.
The Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work brings together the world’s leading scholars in the field to provide a cutting-edge overview of classic and current research and future trends in the subject. Comprised of 48 chapters divided into six parts: Historical, social, and political influences Mapping the theoretical and conceptual terrain Methods of engagement and modes of analysis Critical contexts for practice and policy Professional education and socialisation Future challenges, directions, and transformations it provides an authoritative guide to theory and method, and the primary debates of today in social work from a critical perspective. This handbook is a major reference work and the first book to comprehensively map the wide-ranging territory of critical social work. It does so by addressing its conceptual developments, its methodological advances, its value-based front-line practice and as an influence on the policy field. By offering a definitive survey of current academic knowledge as it relates to professional practice, it provides the first comprehensive, up-to-date, definitive work of reference while at the same time identifying emerging, innovative and cutting-edge areas.
The Road Not Taken takes a new perspective on the course of social welfare policy in the twentieth century. This examination looks at the evolution of social work in the United States as a dynamic process not just driven by mainstream organizations and politics, but strongly influenced by the ideas and experiences of radical individuals and marginalized groups as well.
First published in 1994, this book was hailed as a cutting-edge, theory-driven report from the front-line trenches in the battle for social justice. Both clinical and community oriented and written from a global perspective, it presents clients speaking for themselves alongside reports of prominent social work educators. This new edition puts greater emphasis on "how-to" skills in working with people toward their own empowerment and stresses multiculturalism. A new chapter identifies worldwide issues of oppression such as abuse of women and children and neglect of the mentally ill.
The Politics of Social Work provides a major contribution to debates on the politics of social work, at the beginning of the 21st Century. It locates social work within wider political and theoretical debates and deals with important issues currently facing social workers and the organisations in which they work. By setting the current crisis of identity social workers are experiencing in international context, Fred Powell analyses the choices facing social work in postmodern society. Fred Powell explores in this text contemporary and historical paradigms of social work from its Victorian origins to the development of reformist practice in the welfare state to radical social work, responses to social exclusion, the rennaissance of civil society, multiculturalism, feminism and anti-oppressive practice. In conclusion the he examines the options facing social work in the 21st century and argues for a civic model of social work based on the pursuit of social justice in an inclusive society.
Covers all major topics relevant to clinical social work. Discusses social work practice, multicultural and diversity issues, and research, as well as assessment and measurement.
