Suchergebnisse

Social workers can work more effectively for welfare reform by building on an analytical framework that includes compassion and justice. This framework is based on an understanding of the lives of mothers with low or no incomes and an examination of the distribution of income and wealth within the context of a comprehensive definition of welfare.

Claiming a lesbian identity in a heterosexist culture is an act of empowerment in the struggle against oppression. This article dis cusses both the nature of the oppression that lesbians face and the strengths and skills that lesbians demonstrate in constructing the unique components of their lesbian identity.

This article presents feminist standpoint theory as an alternative epistemology for social work research—an alternative theory of what makes knowledge possible and how to get it—and discusses the outcomes and consequences of a research so transformed. Three issues raised by standpoint theory are used to refocus the questions of social work research: What is the base of the research? What is the purpose of the research? How does this project incorporate researchers' ref lexivity?

This article traces the tides of three waves of feminism that have flowed within the United States and highlights the critical contributions of theoretical insights from these waves to expand and enhance social workers' understanding of the lives of women and the social environment. In particular, the article highlights the specific contributions of a set of core concepts (gender, care, power, difference, and diversity) that emerged within feminist theory and analysis during the second and third waves of U.S. feminism to social work's understanding of women's lives and the social environment and to assessment of the person—environment interaction.