Introduction to Social Work



Chapter 12. Critical Practice

Critical perspectives help social workers to avoid assuming that the way things are is the way they have to be. These perspectives offer critiques and alternatives to the present social order. With these perspectives, practitioners can analyze and deal with the social factors that underlie the present problems that they are grappling with or with social barriers to the positive aims they are trying to achieve.

Terminology

Praxis builds on people’s experience of oppression, injustice, and inequality. Praxis informs and ideological understanding of how society works and it also strengthens our capacity to pursue social transformation.

Dialogic practice that is, working with people in dialogues, involve equal relationships in which views of social situations are exchanged and discussed.

Conscientization is a term used by Freire is working to help people to understand and be able to criticize how social structures are implicated in their oppression. It also involves them in identifying and taking action over the practical consequences.

Key Ideas

Critical theory offers several streams of thought that provoke a great deal of debate.

Critical theory argues that in a practice activity like social work, critical thinking and analysis must lead to critical action if the analysis of in life focuses on weaknesses in the present order rather than on clients’ personal failing. These efforts include three main current streams of work on critical practice theory. One is eclectic and seeks to include a range of theoretical sources including Marxist, feminist, anti-oppressive, and empowerment ideas. Structural social work is a major statement of Marxist social work based on a Canadian theoretical tradition. The third influential group is the current iteration of ‘radical’ social work that is primarily concerned with the political position of social work rather than being a true practice model.

One of the most important uses of critical theory is as a broad framework.

One of the most important uses of critical theory is as a broad theoretical framework within which empowerment, feminist and anti-discriminatory theory can be positioned. Feminist and anti-discriminatory theory in particular rely on critical theory as a general beginning and use critical practice as a basis for their ideas.

Critical theory amounts a significant critique of ‘traditional’ social work.

Traditional social work is often seen as relying on psychological explanations of social problems and taking for granted the existing social order. This approaches results in a number of issues in comparison to critical theory. First, the explanations in traditional social work are seen to reduce complex social problems to individual psychological problems and potentially blaming the victim. Second, approaches used by traditional social work such as ecology theory encourage adaption to the present social order rather than questioning and fighting the undesired aspects of society. Third, traditional theory isolates people with social problems by seeing their problems as confidential and thus now allowing contact between the client and others. Finally, traditional theory strengthens and follows the oppressive social order of capitalist societies.

There are links between many critical theories and traditional social work.

There are at least four links between them beginning with the idea that society contributes to generating personal problems. For both, the relationship between people and society is transactional, reflexive, or interactive—so that individuals can affect their social circumstances as those circumstances affect the individual. Both approaches do seek autonomy for clients even those both approaches criticize the other for not giving appropriate priority to autonomy. Both value insight for the client although the purposes and means of action to attain insight are different.

Freire’s work offers an important example of critical practice.

His approach focuses on education with people whose communities are oppressed by poverty and powerlessness and thus there are many connections with social pedagogy. This is done by education through involvement in a critical dialogue in which pure activism (trying to act without reflection and analysis) and pure verbalism (constantly talking on without action) are merged together in praxis. This involves acting on the analysis of social situations and influencing the analysis by the experience and by the effects of the action.

Politically, critical social work is on the rise.

The growth of critical practice since the 1990s is indicative of the changes in the political-social-ideological arena about social work, the arena in which social and political debate forms the policy that in turn guides agencies and their purpose. The resurgence of critical practice also reflects the influence of feminism, and concerns about racism, and critical theory itself.

The central critical practice values debate is about social vs. individual change.

Critical practice in general terms sees social change as being more important than individual help and relief of individual distress; thus long-term objectives are more important than short-term help. Related values issues include blaming social factors for personal misbehavior. However critical practice as with many areas includes a variety of views and that many current critical practitioners argue that dealing with the personal and psychological consequences of oppression for clients is a crucial element of critical practice.

Critical practice has adopted many radical practice methods.

All aspects of critical practice are influenced by the idea of praxis—theories must be implemented in practice so that practice reflects on and alters the theory behind it. In doing so, radical practice argues that social work should be sensitive at all times to relevant social causes. Practice should be adjusted to fit oppressive social situations on an ongoing basis rather than applied on a formulaic basis. Practitioners should resist pressure to limit client activities, such as client empowerment, because those activities might make the job of running the agency more difficult. Practitioners should keep in mind that critical thinking should lead to action rather than just more thinking. Practitioners should always work to preserve narratives about real life that explain and point up injustices that will turn help them to stay sensitive to relevant social causes. Finally, practitioners should focus on things that are marginalized by conventional thinking.

Issues

A central debate about critical social work centers social problems and society.

Critical social work argues that many or most social problems come from the structure and organization of society rather than from individuals’ behavior. However, many agencies focus on services that do not fit with critical action. Agency mandate or law often limits social work roles. Opponents of critical theory claim that achieving change is difficult and thus the priority should be immediate social needs and use social analysis to understand the clients.

Marxist and neo-Marxist theory identifies ideological and political objectives.

Marxist and neo-Marxist theory approaches argue that all social work includes ideological and political objectives. Marxist theory proclaims that elite groups or social classes maintain dominance over other social groups by controlling the economic system. They argue that if a practitioner rejects this Marxist theory then the practitioners has not understood the full picture of how present social arrangements disadvantage and oppress people.

Others argue that dominant groups in society maintain control through ideas.

Some writers such as Habermas claim that dominant groups in society maintain their control through gaining social acceptance for cultural and social ideas. The way in which these ideas are communicated in society such as by the popular media maintains the control of these dominant groups. Some critical social work theory also incorporates postmodern social theory and hermeneutics. This approach suggests that how groups speak and interpret the speech of others is central to understanding society. Postmodernism argues that that people interpret reality in the context of their cultural and social history. When cultural and historical change takes place, people respond by adjusting their interpretations of reality.

Critical theory argues that social work is a significant form of social control.

Critical theory is significantly different from psychotherapeutic, problem solving, and empowerment views of social work because of its position that social work has, as part of its everyday practice, a social control function to promote conformity. Critical theory argues that it is to everyone’s benefit that children are socialized a particular way, for example. Thus social work potentially contributes a positive and helping element of social control. However, critical social workers argue that the control of social works should be challenged, particularly when they are employed by the state, when their power is exerted on behalf of the dominant interests of capitalist society. A central disagreement centers on priorities—is personal help more important or less important than changing the world? In any event, even if social work does contain significant elements of social control, the actual control is fairly benign compared with the sorts of control that human rights activists are concerned with such as torture and positive help balances the control provided by social work.

Critical theory offers little opportunity for empirical testing.

The ideological and political focus of critical theory offers little opportunity for empirical testing as its prescriptions derive from beliefs and perspectives. However, critical theory does offer useful ways of understanding social factors that are only weakly represented in more psychological theories. Marxists argue that investigation by historical analysis and debate is a more legitimate form of study than empirical approaches. More generally, critical theory writers argue that positivist science maintains the ruling hegemony and therefore accepts and promotes the social order using biased methods of investigation in dealing with critical ideas. In the critical theory view, all theory represents ideological positions often in support of an oppressive ruling class.

Another area of dispute bias in critical theory toward collective action.

Critical theory leans toward collective action and this tends to neglect clients’ immediate personal needs while social work roles in general involving providing help for individuals and families with clear social needs. Thus there is a tension between helping and respecting people as individuals with personal and family needs while also seeking collective social justice. Another way of seeing this situation is to see critical theory prescriptions coming by deduction from theory from than an inductive response to the many problems faced by clients.

Critical theory provides little in the way of emotional and psychological issues.

Critical theory is weak in providing explanations of emotional and other psychological issues as a result. Critical theory often does use techniques from social construction to allow clients’ voices, especially marginalized and excluded voice, to be heard and responded to. And, critical theory’s coherent and engaging view of the world is useful in itself even if it does not provide detailed help for practice. Finally, the incorporation of feminism into critical theory has led to important practice ideas of dialogue and consciousness-raising gaining more influence.

Critical theory argues an advantage can be found in using conscientization.

Critical theory writers sometimes argue that improved self-awareness in psychodynamic and humanistic theories only aims to make people feel better and not to achieve the social change the critical theory seeks. On the other hand, critical theory claims that using conscientization avoids the problems of psychological insight theories because the aim is not just understanding, but an interaction and understanding through praxis.

Critical theory may seem negative and demotivating.

Critical theory may seem negative and demotivating as practitioners see downsides of every innovation. As critical theory finds so many things in the organization of society to be wrong, this negativity can influence relations with colleagues and with the people who practitioners seek to influence. Critical theory also can seem to be similar to conspiracy theory—treating every proposal for help with suspicion.

The conflicts among social groups may result in difficulties in organizing alliances.

Some critical theories focus on oppressive environments as a better basis than individual psychological for explaining client problems. This can lead to an accusation that social workers’ support of one client group as being in opposition to the needs and interests of another group in the same environment as the needs and wishes of one cannot always be aligned with all other oppressed groups.

Final thoughts…

Practitioners use critical social work for practice benefits. Critical practice assists the profession with not becoming locked into the status quo. Critical practice remains positive about the possibility for change in spite of barriers and resistance. Overall, critical social work’s framework of practice enables practitioners to practice in ways that emphasize social change; become aware of and avoid oppressive systems in society; provide a theoretical framework emphasizing social justice and equality; not to take for granted the current social order particularly when the order is oppressive to their clients and the communities; have a critique of individualistic, psychological practice techniques; and provide a broad framework in which they can incorporate the ideas of feminism and discriminatory practice.

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