It may be claimed that journals catering primarily to the needs of social work practitioners should place more emphasis on the practice wisdom and experiences of reviewers than on the academic criteria normally used by scholarly journals. This claim is rejected by the author, and instead, it is argued that social work journals need to be doubly vigilant to ensure that work only of the highest quality is published. Strict adherence to academic merit will not only serve the needs of social work educators but also of professional practitioners.
In the past, social workers have taken a lead in working with individuals involved with justice agencies and advocating for system change. Despite the fact that offender populations continue to increase in size and need, today there appears to be minimal involvement in this system by social workers. Using a mail survey of 400 social workers belonging to one of two U.S. professional organizations, we explore the impact of social work education on the likelihood of professionals choosing to practice with criminal offenders. Results indicate that social workers exposed to offender issues through specific coursework or offender internships during education are more likely to choose to work in justice settings. Implications of these findings for social work education are addressed.
There can be little doubt that neoliberalism has replaced social democracy as the political consensus across Europe and globally. This has led to levels of inequality and relative poverty unprecedented since the post-war social democratic consensus. It has also led to a common sense, neoliberal narrative essential in garnering support for policies that weaken workers' rights, deregulate corporations and businesses, and cut budgets for welfare and public services. Essentially, the narrative is that people should be completely self-sufficient and that to depend on welfare or the state in any way is a sign of poor character, laziness and of membership of the 'underclass.' It is a 'moralising self-sufficiency' narrative (Marston, 2013). Much of social work activity is concentrated in areas of unemployment, poverty and deprivation and what will happen to our values of respect, compassion and care if social workers unquestioningly internalise the above narrative? Maybe a form of authoritarian social work that treats people as 'less than human' (Smithson and Gibson, 2016)? Grasso et al (2018) undertook a study using British Attitudes Study data and found that the generation known as 'Millennials' were more right-wing authoritarian than all previous generations. What might happen if that trajectory continues? The authoritarian attitudes of our current generation of post-Millennial students, labelled as iGen by Twenge (2018), were studied in one Scottish university and the results will be shared in my talk today. What might the implications be for social work education and are we up to the challenge?
This conceptual paper considers aspects of a highly neglected topic: that of Islamic perspectives in social work education and practice. The paper seeks to illuminate both religiously informed values, together with those of practice; in addition to considering types of professional intervention that complement the generalised characteristics of Muslim families. The scale of problems that impact upon Muslim communities in Britain are closely considered, specifically in relation to deprivation, social alienation and domestic violence. In addition, health issues are reviewed in terms of mental health and disability.
