This article discusses a brief history of ‘modern’ social work in India before 1936. I present how abstract conceptions of scientifically informed and organized social work practice were brewing in ...colonial India, along with attempts to assemble or organize it. I use these accounts to further present certain nuances on the modalities of imported social work knowledge that dominated social work education in India after 1936.
This article is a critical autoethnographic investigation in which I explore development and social work vis-à-vis my own life episodes. I examine various tensions, for example, (1) becoming and ...being a colonial development subject; (2) encountering social work and compliance to it; (3) a U-turn, in disagreement with social work; and (4) a doctoral journey, reinvigorating my ‘social worker self’ through conceptualisation of a model of ‘decolonised, developmental social work’. This autoethnography leads me to critical discourses not only to question development and social work but also to uncover the ‘sense of (my) becoming and being’ regarding those two.
As climate disasters increase, social workers will increasingly be called upon to help communities with the related dislocations, eco-anxieties, and social transformations. This article explores the ...extent to which Canadian social work schools are preparing social workers to advance socio-ecological justice. It examines the coursework in these programmes as new standards come into effect in 2023. We consider radical, eco-social, feminist and Indigenous pedagogies, and focus on how experiential learning and transformative hope can address the manifold systemic challenges we now face. Rather than bolting eco-education onto existing programming, radical perspectives and transformative praxis must be embedded into social work.
Despite increasing acknowledgment that the social work profession must address environmental concerns, relatively little is known about the state of scholarship on environmental social work. This ...study provides a scientometric summary of peer-reviewed articles (N = 497) pertaining to environmental topics in social work journals between 1991 and 2015. We find that theoretical and empirical scholarship on environmental social work is growing, though this growth remains limited to specific geographical regions and topics. We note the need to clarify the relationship between environmental social work as a theoretical paradigm and as a research topic.
Abstract
This article explores the possibility of strengthening social welfare administration practice in social work training and education to respond to complex and varied issues located within ...Indian social reality keeping in view the people in concrete situations of vulnerabilities. Based on the case analysis approach, it situates the history of social work education and practice closely linked to the social welfare administration practice in Mumbai School of Social Work. The experience in this school reaffirms the contribution of social work administration practice towards welfare and development of people, and suggests the need for strengthening the practice suited to the changing needs of the time. Learning from this experience, this article argues for a positive recognition of context centric approach in social work practice.
To make social work education relevant, educators, students, and practitioners must assess the extent to which taught concepts, theories and techniques are relevant for practice within the local ...context. Currently, there is little empirical research in Ghana that reviews the social work curriculum in relation to practice. This paper relies on data collected from BA Social Work graduates working with various social service agencies in Ghana. These graduates earned their undergraduate degrees from one of Ghana's top public universities, offering social work education. Respondents were asked to reflect on their education and their work contexts and to comment on the extent to which they find taught concepts relevant and practical for their work. While we do not draw broad conclusions from our study, we believe that our methodological approach can help other Ghanaian educators evaluate and enhance social work education for effective practice.
Abstract
This study explores the transnational history of social work and, as a case study, examines the movement of social work research between Germany and Mandatory Palestine in the 1930s and ...1940s. This transnational circulation of knowledge and ideas was driven by a group of German-Jewish social workers who migrated to Palestine and helped establish the profession in the new country. Particular attention is paid to early professional schools of social work, which served as hubs for knowledge circulation and laid the academic foundations of social work long before the discipline found its final form. To study this translation process, this article analyses research activities at Alice Salomon’s Academy for Social and Educational Women's Work in Berlin and Siddy Wronsky’s School of Social Services in Jerusalem. Both institutes were influential in establishing the profession in their countries and closely linked the emerging social work training and research. As a transnational research team, we approached and analysed these activities through archival files and documents in Israel and Germany. This analysis is framed by assumptions about the transnational translation of knowledge and, to add context, presents findings on the origins of social work in both countries and its societal embeddedness.
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