Critical social work

Critical social work is the application of social work from a critical theory perspective. Critical social work seeks to address social injustices, as opposed to focusing on individual people's problems. Critical theories explain social problems as arising from various forms of oppression and injustice in globalised capitalist societies. This theory is like all social work theories, in that it is made up of a polyglot of theories from across the humanities and sciences, borrowing from many different schools of thought, including marxism, social democracy and anarchism.^[1]

Introduction

Social workers have an ethical commitment to working to overcome inequality and oppression. For radical social workers this implies working towards the transformation of capitalist society towards building social arrangements which are more compatible with these commitments. Mullaly & Keating (1991) suggest three schools of radical thought corresponding to three versions of socialist analysis; social democracy, revolutionary Marxism and evolutionary Marxism. However they work in institutional contexts which paradoxically implicates them in maintaining capitalist functions.^[1] Social work theories have three possible aims, as identified by Rojek et al. (1986). These are:

• The progressive position. Social work is seen as a catalyst for social change. Social workers work with the oppressed and marginalised and so are in a good position to harness class resistance to capitalism and transform society into a more social democracy or socialist state. ( Bailey & Brake, 1975,^[2] Galper, 1975, Simpkin, 1979, Ginsberg, 1979)
• The reproductive position. Social work seen as an indispensable tool of the capitalist social order. Its function is to produce and maintain the capitalist state machine and to ensure working class subordination. Social workers are the ‘soft cops’ of the capitalist state machine. (Althusser, 1971, Poulantzas, 1975, Muller & Neususs, 1978)
• The contradictory position. Social work can undermine capitalism and class society. While it acts as an instrument of class control it can simultaneously create the conditions for the overthrow of capitalist social relations. (Corrigan & Leonard, Phillipson, 1979, Bolger, 1981)

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History

Critical social work is heavily influenced by Marxism, the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and by the earlier approach of Radical social work, which was focused on class oppression. Critical social work evolved from this to oppose all forms of oppression. Several writers helped codify radical social work, such as Jeffry Galper (1975), Mike Brake (1975) and Harold Throssell (1975). They were building on the views expounded by earlier social workers such as Octavia Hill, Jane Addams & Bertha Reynolds, who had at various points over the previous 200 years sought to make social work & charity more focused on structural forces. More recently writers such as Stephen A. Webb, Iain Ferguson, Susan White, Lena Dominelli, Paul Michael-Garrett and Stan Houston have further developed the paradigm by incorporating inter-disciplinary ideas from contemporary political philosophy, anthropology and social theory. These include the ideas of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Pierre Bourdieu and Jurgen Habermas.

A new journal published by Policy Press called Critical and Radical Social Work: An international journal promotes debate and scholarship around a range of engaged social work themes. The journal publishes papers which seek to analyse and respond to issues, such as the impact of global neo-liberalism on social welfare; austerity and social work; social work and social movements; social work, inequality and oppression - See more at: http://www.policypress.co.uk/journals_crsw.asp

Focus of critical social work

Major themes that critical social work seeks to address are:

• Poverty, unemployment and social exclusion
• Racism and other forms of discrimination
• Inadequacies in housing, health care and education
• Crime and social unrest (although the critical approach would be more focused on the structural causes than the behaviour itself)
• Abuse and exploitation
• The impact of Neoliberalism and austerity Capitalism

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Sub-theories of critical social work

As critical social work grew out of radical social work, it split into various theories. They are listed below, with a selection of writers who have influenced the theory.

• Structural social work theory ( Ann Davis, Maurice Moreau, Robert Mullaly)
• Anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive social work theory (Neil Thompson, Dalrymple & Burke)
• Post- colonial social work theory (Linda Briskman)
• New structural social work theory (Robert Mullaly)
• Critical social work theory (Jan Fook, Karen Healy, Stephen A. Webb)
• Radical social work theory (Mike Brake, Iain Ferguson)

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Dialectic explanations of free will

While critical social work has a strong commitment to structural change, it does not discount the role of free will. Critical analysis in social work looks at competing forces such as the capitalist economic system, the welfare state or human free will as all affecting individual choices. Therefore, according to critical theory the aim of social work is to emancipate people from oppression and allow individual liberty to prevail.

“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) ^[1]

Practice models

Some of the practice theories that critical social work utilises include:

• Working collectively
• Building community, cooperation and consciousness
• Helping people to understand the social consequences of the market system and the economisation of life
• Helping people deal collectively with social problems rather than individualising them
• Making alliances with working class organisations and recognise social workers as ‘workers’ themselves
• Civil disobedience, such as the intentional and surreptitious violation of agency policies that perpetuate capitalist oppression

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See also

• University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work
  • University of Denver Social Work Doctoral Program
    • Glasgow Caledonian University Scotland, Social Work Doctoral Program
      • York University

References

1. Original material adapted from presentation by M. Hanlon, School of Social Work, ACU
2. Bailey, Roy; Mike Brake (1975). Radical Social Work. Pantheon Books.