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Social work Concepts: Critical social work

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 Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. History
  3. Focus
  4. Sub-theories
  5. Structural and Dialectic critiques of human agency 
  6. Critical Practice models
  7. References 

Introduction

Critical social work is the application of a critical theory perspective to social work. Rather than focusing on individual issues, critical social work seeks to address social injustices. Critical theories of social problems explain them as the result of various forms of oppression and injustice in globalised capitalist societies and neoliberal governance. This approach to social work theory is comprised of a polyglot of theories drawn from the humanities and social sciences, including Marxism, feminism, anti-racism, social democracy, and anarchism.

Social workers have an ethical obligation to work to eliminate inequality and oppression. For radical social workers, this entails working to transform capitalist society in order to create social arrangements that are more compatible with these commitments. Mullaly and Keating (1991) propose three schools of radical thought, each of which corresponds to a different version of socialist analysis: social democracy, eurocommunism, and revolutionary Marxism. They do, however, work in institutional contexts that, paradoxically, involve them in maintaining capitalist functions. According to Rojek et al., there are three possible strategies for analysing social work theories (1986). They are as follows:
  • The progressive position. Social work is viewed as a driver of social change. Because social workers work with the oppressed and marginalised, they are well placed to harness class resistance to capitalism and transform society into a more social democracy or socialist state. Bailey and Brake (1975), [2] Galper (1975), Simpkin (1979), and Ginsberg (1979)
  • The reproductive position. Social work is regarded as a necessary tool of the capitalist social order. Its function is to create and sustain the capitalist state machine, as well as to ensure working-class subordination. Social workers are the capitalist state machine's "soft cops." (Althusser, 1971; Poulantzas, 1975; Donzelot, 1976; Muller and Neuss, 1978; Webb, 2016)
  • The contradictory position. Social work has the potential to undermine capitalism and class society. While acting as a tool of class control, it can also create the conditions for the overthrow of capitalist social relations. Corrigan and Leonard (1979), Phillipson (1979), and Bolger (1981)

History

Marxism, the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, and the earlier approach of Radical social work, which focused on class oppression, have all had a strong influence on critical social work. From this, critical social work evolved to oppose all forms of oppression. Several writers, including Jeffry Galper (1975), Mike Brake (1975), and Harold Throssell (1975), contributed to the codification of radical social work (1975). They were expanding on the ideas of earlier social workers such as Octavia Hill, Jane Addams, and Bertha Reynolds, who had attempted to focus social work and charity on structural forces at various points over the previous 200 years. Recently, writers such as Stephen A. Webb, Iain Ferguson, Susan White, Lena Dominelli, Paul Michael-Garrett, and Stan Houston have expanded on the paradigm by incorporating ideas from contemporary political philosophy, anthropology, and social theory. These include Michel Foucault's, Jacques Donzelot's, Gilles Deleuze's, Judith Butler's, Pierre Bourdieu's, and Jürgen Habermas' ideas. The writings of Italian political philosophers such as Giorgio Agamben and Roberto Esposito, particularly their theories about community and governance, have recently come to the fore in critical social work.

Critical and Radical Social Work: An International Journal, a new journal published by Policy Press, promotes debate and scholarship on a variety of engaged social work themes and issues. The journal publishes papers that seek to analyse and respond to issues such as global neoliberalism's impact on social welfare; austerity and social work; social work and social movements; and social work, inequality, and oppression. Routledge commissioned Stephen A. Webb to edit a major international reference work titled 'A Handbook of Critical Social Work' (due for publication 2018). In 2013, Webb published 'The New Politics of Social Work,' a book written in the tradition of critical social work.

Focus

The following are the major themes that critical social work seeks to address:
  2. Poverty, unemployment and social exclusion
  3. Racism and other forms of discrimination relating to disability, age and gender.
  4. Inadequacies in housing, health care and education and workplace opportunities
  5. Crime and social unrest (although the critical approach would be more focused on the
  6. structural causes than the behaviour itself)
  7. Abuse and exploitation
  8. The inhumane impacts of neoliberalism and austerity capitalism  such as the introduction
  9. of food banks and precarious zero hours work.

Structural and Dialectic critiques of human agency

While critical social work is deeply committed to structural change, it does not dismiss the role of agency, albeit in a limited sense. In social work, critical analysis looks at competing forces such as the capitalist economic system and the welfare state as all influencing individual choices. As a result, according to critical theory, the goal of social work is to liberate people from oppression and allow for a critique of "operativity" ideology, State law, and governance. Critical social work opposes common assumptions about the necessity of work, capitalist labour, and managerial control systems.
"A dialectical approach to social work avoids the simplistic linear cause-effect notion of historical materialism and the naïve romanticism associated with the notion of totally free human will." (Mullaly and Keating, 1991). "Dialectical analysis helps to illuminate the complex interplay between people and the world around them and to indicate the role of social work within society" (Mullaly, 2007:241)

Critical Practice models 

Several practise theories have an impact on critical social work, including:
  • Working collaboratively and acknowledging that "community" emerges temporarily around issues and concerns.
  • Social work based on relationships (Sue White and Brigid Featherstone)
  • Finding ways to empower disadvantaged people through community, cooperation, and consciousness
  • Educating people on the social consequences of the market system, neoliberalism, and life economisation Rather than individualising social issues, assist people in dealing with them collectively.
  • forming alliances with working-class organisations and recognising social workers as 'workers' in their own right
  • Civil disobedience, such as the deliberate and covert violation of agency policies that perpetuate capitalist oppression.

References 

  • Original material adapted from presentation by M. Hanlon, School of Social Work, ACU 
  • Bailey, Roy; Mike Brake (1975). Radical Social Work (https://archive.org/details/radicalsoci alwor00bail). Pantheon Books.

















































































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