Building on the successful 1st edition, this reader brings together some of the most significant ideas that have informed social work practice over the last fifty years. At the same time as presenting these foundational extracts, the book includes commentaries that allow the reader to understand the selected extracts on their own terms as well as to be aware of their relations to each other and to the wider social work context.
There is no settled view or easy consensus about what social work is and should be, and the ideas reflected in this volume are themselves diverse and complex. The world of social work has changed greatly over the last ten years, and this new edition reflects that change with new material on the decolonisation of social work knowledges, the greater emphasis on inter-disciplinarity and co-production and the new concern for identities.
With an accessible introduction to contextualise the selections, the book is divided into three main sections, each presenting key texts drawn from a wide range of perspectives: psychological, sociological, philosophical, educational and political, as well as perspectives that are grounded in the experiences of practitioners and those who use services, which have contributed to the development of:
- the profession of social work
- knowledge and values for social work and
- practice in social work.
By providing students and practitioners with an easy way into reading first-hand some of the most interesting, foundational texts of the subject, it will be required reading for all undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and professionals undertaking post-qualifying training.
Introduction - Reading social work
Trish McCulloch and Viviene E. Cree
Part One - The Profession of Social Work
Commentary One
Chapter One – Black History Month: a provocation and a timeline
Charlotte Williams and Claudia Bernard
Chapter Two – But is it social work?
Richard Hugman
Chapter Three – The politics of social work
Iain Ferguson
Chapter Four – Changes in the form of knowledge in social work: from the ‘social’ to the ‘informational’?
Nigel Parton
Chapter Five – The quest for a universal social work: some issues and implications
Mel Gray and Jan Fook
Chapter Six – The (r)evolution and decolonization of social work ethics: The Global Social Work Statement of Ethical Principles
Vishanthie Sewpaul and Mark Henrickson
Chapter Seven – Human rights practice: possibilities and pitfalls for developing emancipatory social work
Sarah Cemlyn
Chapter Eight – The impact of scandal and inquiries on social work and the personal social services
Ray Jones
Chapter Nine – Social work in a risk society
Stephen A. Webb
Chapter Ten – Am I my brother’s keeper?
Zygmunt Bauman
Chapter Eleven – Research from the Underside
Bob Holman
Chapter Twelve – What is Professional Social Work?
Malcolm Payne
Chapter Thirteen – The Client Speaks
Martin Davies
Chapter Fourteen – Service users and practitioners reunited: the key component for social work reform
Peter Beresford and Suzy Croft
Part Two – Knowledge and Values for Social Work
Commentary Two
Chapter Fifteen – The sociological imagination
C. Wright Mills
Chapter Sixteen – Reassessing attachment theory in child welfare
Sue White, Matthew Gibson, David Wastell and Patricia Walsh
Chapter Seventeen – A critique of the adverse childhood experiences framework in epidemiology and public health: Uses and misuses
Michelle Kelly-Irving and Cyrille Delpierre
Chapter Eighteen – Resilience: Some conceptual considerations
Michael Rutter
Chapter Nineteen – A Critical Understanding of Social Work by Paolo Freire (1919)
Marilynn Moch
Chapter Twenty – There is an alternative: homines curans and the limits of neoliberalism
Joan Tronto
Chapter Twenty-one – The social model of disability
Mike Oliver
Chapter Twenty-two – The relevance of Nancy Fraser for transformative social work education
Dorothee Hölscher, Vivienne Bozalek and Mel Gray
Chapter Twenty-three – Feminism for the 99%
Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya and Nancy Fraser
Chapter Twenty-four – Intersectionality’s definitional dilemmas
Patricia Hill Collins
Chapter Twenty-five – Learning to deliver LGBT+ aged care
Trish Hafford-Letchfield, Alfonso Pezzella, Sandra Connell, Mojca Urek, Anže Jurček, Agnes Higgins, Brian Keogh, Nina Van de Vaart, Irma Rabelink, George Robotham, Elisa Bus, Charlotte Buitenkamp and Sarah Lewis-Brooke
Chapter Twenty-six – Towards practicing social work law
Suzy Braye and Michael Preston-Shoot
Chapter Twenty-seven – What are values and ethics?
Chris Beckett, Andrew Maynard and Peter Jordan
Chapter Twenty-eight - Green social work in theory and practice: a new environmental paradigm for the profession
Lena Dominelli
Part Three – Practice in Social Work
Commentary Three
Chapter Twenty-nine – On the nature of practice
Michael Whan
Chapter Thirty – ‘Radical Social Work’ by Roy Bailey and Mike Brake: A Classic Text Revisited
Steve Rogowski
Chapter Thirty-one – The critical role of street level bureaucrats
Michael Lipsky
Chapter Thirty-two – Assessment in the twenty-first century
Judith Milner, Steve Myers and Patrick O’Byrne
Chapter Thirty-three – The significance of African-centered social work for social work practice
Tricia Bent-Goodley, Colita Nichols Fairfax and Iris Carlton-LaNey
Chapter Thirty-four – Bridging the Past and Present to the Future of Crisis Intervention and Crisis Management
Kenneth R. Yeager and Albert R. Roberts
Chapter Thirty-five – The contemporary context of relationship-based practice
Gillian Ruch
Chapter Thirty-six – The ecological systems metaphor in Australasia
Kieran O'Donoghue and Jane Maidment
Chapter Thirty-seven – The strengths perspective in social work practice: extensions and cautions
Dennis Saleebey
Chapter Thirty-eight – Personalisation through participation: A new script for public services
Charles Leadbeater
Chapter Thirty-nine – Collaboration and partnership in context
Colin Whittington
Chapter Forty – A review of Donald A. Schön’s, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action
Michael Emslie and Rob Watts
Chapter Forty-one – Making things new: Distant Voices and Unbound at Vox Liminis with Padraig O’Tuama
Padraig O’Tuama
Biography
Viviene E. Cree (PhD) is Professor Emerita of Social Work Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of Sociology for Social Workers and Probation Officers, editor of Becoming a Social Worker and co-author of Social Work: Voices from the Inside, all published by Routledge.
Trish McCulloch (PhD) is Professor of Social Work and Senior Associate Dean in the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law at the University of Dundee. She has published widely on justice, social work and, more recently, on social work education and professional learning.
