Introduction to Social Work



Chapter 1. The Social Construction of Social Work Theory

A first step in understanding theory and practice is to understand how social work theory in general, and practice theory in particular, are socially constructed in interactions between clients and practitioners in their agencies and in wider political, social, and cultural arenas. By doing so, we see clearly how both practice and theory are built from experiences in the real world and do not come from some mysterious scientific or other type of revelation. Social construction ideas also help us understand that practice and theories are not separate, settled bodies of knowledge but constantly evolve and influence each other. Change in social work, and in the lives of practitioners and clients, is possible through engagement in this process of evolution.

Terminology

Induction refers to generalizing from particular examples, as in informal theories of how to do social work such as unwritten practice theories constructed by a practitioner from experience.

Deduction refers to arriving at conclusions about a particular instance based on your knowledge of general theory, as in formal theories of practice that are applied deductively by family therapy practitioners.

Alliance as a shared values principle of social work theory reflects the idea of equality between client and practitioner.

Aims as a shared values principle of social work theory focuses on clear specification of outcomes that helps with gaining commitment from both practitioner and client.

Action sequences as a shared values of principle of social work theory suggests the need for more clarity in describing the intended activities for practitioners and clients to work on.

Critical practice as a shared values principle of social work theory suggests that practitioners question the social structures that contribute to clients’ problems.

Rights as a shared values principle of social work theory suggests that all theories of practice are increasingly concerned with integrating equality, respect for cultural diversity, social justice and human rights into their activities.

Key Ideas

Theories are generalized sets of ideas.

While theory is different than knowledge or practice, theory is also connected to both. For the public, theories are abstract thoughts or speculations and generally disconnected from reality. But for social work, theory is a generalized set of ideas that describes and explains our knowledge of the world around us in an organized way. Accordingly, a social work theory is one that helps us to do or to understand social work; as a result, theory is both scientific and practical.

All practice is influenced by formal and informal theories of social work.

Formal theory is written, read, analyzed, and debated in both the social work profession and in the academic world. Formal theory helps with both understanding the world around us as well as expanding that understanding by serving as an immensely powerful set of tools to explore and explain. Informal theory includes wider ideas that exist in society or are derived by practitioners from their experiences rather than from research.

One way to begin to understand theory is to break it down into three parts.

The first part is theories that address the question—what is social work? These theories are part of a discourse, or simply put an ongoing argument, about the meaning of social work. Note that this discourse may be spoken formally, as in a conference presentation about practice findings, or informally, as in as in staff meeting discussion, or even in our persistence in doing something one way when others do it another. The second part is theories of how to do social work, or ‘practice theories’ that are the focus of this book. These theories build upon the previous theories that attempt to explain the nature of social work. Finally, there are ‘theories of the client world’ that describe the social realities faced by social workers in practice. Some of these theories come from other fields; in bringing them into social work, we must consider the disputes involving those theories in their home field as well as how they can be adapted to social work.

The four types of practice theory are perspectives, frameworks, models, and explanatory theories.

Theories of how to do social work, ‘practice theory’, can be broken down into four parts. These four types of practice theory form a highly useful typology, or classification scheme, which allows us to sort through theories or pieces of theory that we run across in our daily lives. ‘Perspectives’ are general guiding principles that allow you to orient yourself and make decisions about particular situation based on your general perspective on those types of situations. Perspectives have the advantage of integrity—your perspective and thus your actions fit your personal value systems. ‘Frameworks’ are more concrete and less value-based. They help by setting out ranges of situations and associated methods and usually guidance about selection among them. ‘Models’ are frameworks that set out a clear sequence of actions for a particular situation. ‘Explanatory theories’ are models based on a great deal of research.

Choosing among perspectives, frameworks, models, and explanatory theory is part of social work practice.

Some practitioners rely more on perspectives, as they believe social work is a human, interpersonal process using a coherent set of ideas. Others rely more on frameworks or models or explanatory theory because of a concern with avoiding application of their own personal values and preferences and instead concentrate on a more technical approach. And, quite often, different types of theory are used together as a practitioner might use a framework to select explanatory theories. As you can see right at this point, practice theory does not offer simple answers but instead provides complex tools.

Theory rests on knowledge, and knowledge is also a complex subject.

Knowing how or knowing that or knowing about are different forms of knowledge. Tacit knowledge is unformulated and differs from express knowledge that is formulated knowledge of facts, procedures, and values. Even technique is knowledge formulated in an organized way. The importance of these distinctions is that while these types of knowledge may tell us a lot, they may tell us very little about how to act. To turn those various types of knowledge into practice we need to understand the priorities of a given situation, personal knowledge (such as our own interpretation or intuition), impersonal knowledge (such as from reference sources), and clinical skills that are acquired by practice, and shared wisdom. Taken together, we develop practical theories about the world. One of the uses of theory is to rise above that mass of different types of knowledge and find patterns that are not obvious in the tangled skeins of everyday life—by providing us with organized descriptions of the world, practice theories offer ideas about where to look for patterns around us.

There are four underlying reasons for social workers to use theory.

In the day-to-day world, we find that the dozens of reasons social workers use theory fall into four groups. First, theory helps us understand and contest ideas because theory is able to reveal and make clear things that might not be obvious, such as unraveling the tangled skeins we find in daily life. Theory offers explanation and understanding because it puts order to the complexity of human behavior and social phenomena. Theory also offers practice frameworks that organize ideas and research to provide guidance regarding complicated situations. Finally, theory helps us be accountable and self-disciplined because we can justify what we do.

How can social work theory be used to create a framework for deciding on an intervention in an agency?

Practice theory means that practitioners do not need to rethink social work every time they see a client as a set of ideas about social work describes and explains in an organized way the events in the world around them and provides general guidance. Social work theory can be used to create a framework for practice theory. For example, practitioners gain information about clients and about their feelings and attitudes for such a framework. They also add information about the social situations that clients experience. Added to the framework are general and social work skills and general and social work knowledge. The social work theory framework then is used to develop the social work intervention.

Constructing a social work practice framework leads us to see how social work overall is constructed.

In a similar way to creating a framework for deciding on an intervention, we can see how social work overall is socially constructed by our practice, the people and organizations involved with us, and the theories that inform our practice. ‘Social construction’ is knowledge that has been agreed upon between people. As social activity based on that knowledge becomes habitual, our assumptions come to be accepted as true and so social conventions develop and become rules of behavior and legitimized.

Social construction ideas emphasize that change for social institutions and individuals are always possible.

A good reason for using social construction ideas in social work is the idea that social arrangements are not fixed and eternal. Social work changes according to how clients, practitioners, and society use it. Social construction tells us that clients can reconstruct their lives and behavior and in the same way social construction tells us that social work can reconstruct itself to better serve those clients.

One criticism of social construction is that of ‘relativism’ or that everything is in flux.

One criticism of social construction argues that if social realities are always changing, then there are no certainties and thus no security. However, the process of social construction is slow and sometimes extremely slow. Keeping up with the changes (and so being able to evaluate and react to them) is possible for the profession and even for busy practitioners through journals, conferences, societies, and personal observation. Second, many things do not change very much at all and so social experience reinforces current social construction.

The social construction of social work means that groups within the profession contend to gain power.

Social construction results in a ‘politics of theory’ in which political debate and conflicts create change within a profession about the theory that the profession uses. This is indeed political because groups dispute with each other to gain approval, win the vote if you will, of the profession as a whole. So, when you use a theory, remember that you are in fact contributing to the politics of that theory because what you do in social work is or becomes social work through social construction and the politics of theory.

One example of the politics of theory is the three-part definition of social work by the IFSW.

Each of the three objectives of the definition in the International Definition of Social Work by the International Federation of Social Workers connects with different political views about how welfare is to be provided, each connected with a political philosophy in society. ‘Empowerment views,’ or therapeutic helping approaches, come from a social democratic political philosophy, that is economic and social development should go hand in hand to achieve individual and social improvement. This view sees social work as seeking to help clients gain power over their own feelings and way of life and thus bringing about the best possible well being for individuals, groups, and communities by promoting and facilitating growth and self-fulfillment. ‘Social change views’ see social work as seeking cooperation and mutual support in society so that the most oppressed and disadvantaged people can gain power over their own lives. Social work facilities this by enabling people to take part in a process of learning and cooperation that creates institutions that everyone and own and participate in. ‘Problem-solving views’ see social work as an aspect of welfare services for individuals in societies that aim to meet their needs and improve services. Such views see social work as maintaining social order and the social fabric of society thus supporting people during difficult periods so that they can recover their stability.

There are five ‘shared value principles’ that connect across all theories.

The social construction process balances the three views just above by interaction among them in the daily life of social work. In a similar manner, all social work practice theories are engaged in a social construction process of mutual interaction, discourse, and evolution. One of the results of this interaction is that over time there appear to be five ‘shared value principles’ among all areas of social work practice theory: alliance, aims, action consequences, critical practice, and rights. These shared values represent acceptance of ideas that inform the great diversity of social work practice. Understanding each of these five principles allows you to see some clearly shared theoretical value principles that inform all social work practice theories—an exceedingly useful ability for someone learning about social work theory.

The principle of alliance reflects the idea of equality between practitioner and client.

Most social work theories are moving toward equality between practitioner and client where the client gives informed consent, influences the setting of the intervention’s aims, and creates a dialogic relationship.

The principle of aims focuses on clearly specified outcomes.

Clear specification of outcomes helps with gaining commitment from both practitioner and client and that the agreement among the agency, practitioner, and client is more transparent as well as the goals being stated in positive terms as opposed to deficits in the client or problems to be solved. Social work is becoming more about positive outcomes. To go back to social constructionism for a moment, think about the strengthening of this principle across all types of social work and ‘problem-solving’ as one of the three objectives of social work in the international definition earlier. In addition, the principle of aims also challenges cognitive-behavioral and task-centered social work that emphasize a detailed specification of the problem.

The principle of action sequence suggests the need for more clarity in describing the intended activities.

Theories increasingly present clear sequences of action for practitioners and clients to work on. As a result, social work’s work is more openly shared with clients, families, and communities. This is a balancing factor that supports cognitive-behavioral and task-centered practice in spite of their problem-solving focus because these theories emphasize clear action sequences.

The principle of critical practice is shared among all theories.

All theories seek in some way to disrupt people’s assumptions or expectations about behavior. Critical practice also requires practitioners to question the social structures that contribute to clients’ problems. This is common throughout social work either in a formal manner or an informal manner.

The principle of explicit concern for rights is increasingly integral to all theories of social work practice.

All theories of practice are increasingly concerned with and integrating equality, respect for cultural diversity, social justice and human rights into their activities.

The politics of social work theory takes place across society and not just within the profession.

Three areas of social construction in society are important for social work: political-social-ideological arena, agency-professional arena, and the client-worker-agency arena. The final one, the client-worker-agency arena, is the most import for this book as clients can have a great influence on the worker and the agency. In the political-social-ideological arena, clients also can have an influence by voting, rioting, or other social actions. They also can affect the agency-professional arena by their reaction—negative or positive—to social work practice as influenced by the community and other agencies. For example they can change policy and practice by arriving in large numbers at an agency with urgent requests for service. Changes due to the politics of social work theory in society are negotiated in many different places and these three arenas are simply the most well known for social workers.

Final thoughts…

Social construction ideas show how theory is created in a variety of social arenas and how clients’ interactions with practitioners in their agencies form an important arena in the construction. Social construction ideas help us understand how the debate about using theory is part of the political process by which people with commitments to different views of social work gain influence and seek to change social work in their preferred direction. As well as social work activity driving theory, theory itself provides a framework for action. In fact, all actions are based on theory whether writ large in academic volumes or quite informal and unformulated. Using theory in practice by a practitioner therefore relies on understanding different types of theory and how they connect.

This interaction between theory and practice suggests that theory is constructed by the same social forces that construct the profession and its agencies. As a result, theory for practice is shaped by current interests and concerns as well as the histories of theoretical, occupational, and service context. As a result, social work theory is a representation of more or less agreed upon understandings about social work within various social groupings. As a result, we are able to adapt and develop it as we practice, just as we can help clients to develop and adapt by our practice.

To do so, we need to have ideas from which to direct, manage, and inform what we do. These ideas are the social work practice theories reviewed in this book. However, to use them, practitioners must be able to make decisions, about which theories to use, evaluate which will be the most useful for different purposes, and integrate our practice with those ideas. [pic]

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