Understanding International Social Work

A Critical Analysis

Richard Hugman

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781350313521
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Trabajo social

Adopting a global frame of reference, this textprovides a clear and comprehensive comparative analysis of international social work, using case studies to illustratepractice issuesin different geographical locations. This book is essential reading for all students of social work taking modules on international practice.

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Introduction – The Global Growth of Social Work

The Early Days of Professional Social Work

As a formal profession, social work can be dated from the late 1800s (Payne, 2005). These early beginnings can be seen in the combination of activity to create formal education and training for the various practices that were called ‘social work’ at that time. The objectives of early social work were focused almost entirely on assistance for those people who were seen to be experiencing problems of daily life that were grounded in poverty. Whether we consider the work of the Charity Organization Societies, hospital almoners and ‘police court missionaries’ (focused on assistance to individuals and families) or the work of the Settlement Movement (focused on communities) the common factor was the impact of industrialization, urbanization and modernization on those people who were regarded as lacking resources to deal effectively with the problems that they encountered.

These main types of early professional social work can be seen to have developed at around the same time in many countries of Northern Europe, Scandinavia and North America. A significant aspect of professionalization was the move to establish education and training programmes at a university level. This has been identified as having been particularly significant given the numbers of women from middle-class backgrounds who entered social work at this time, but whose opportunities for a professional identity were limited (Walton, 1975). Different claims are made about which of the various national developments of professional social work education can be considered the ‘first’ instances of formal tertiary level programmes. For example, Riga (2008, p. 73) refers to the Amsterdam School of Social Work as ‘the world’s oldest school’ (it was founded in 1899 and is now the School of Social Work and Law in the Hogeschool van Amsterdam). In the United Kingdom, training programmes conducted by members of the Charity Organization Society and of the Settlement House movement from the 1870s coalesced in the London School of Sociology in 1903 (Parry & Parry, 1979). In the United States, the School at Columbia University traces its origins to the New York Charity Organization Society summer course of 1898 (which led to the founding of the School in 1904) (Healy, 2008a, p. 138).

In whatever way we date the beginnings of professional social work, however, the underlying importance of such a debate is often lost in the detail. In other words, the important point to note about these various claims to the origins of professional social work is that they span many countries. For example, Healy (2008b, p. 1) notes that when the First International Conference of Social Work convened in Paris in 1928 there were delegates from 42 different countries. The Second and Third Conferences were held in the 1930s and by 1939, 75 schools of social work from 18 countries were in membership of the International Committee of Schools of Social Work (ICSSW) (Healy, 2008b, p. 4). Also emerging from the First International Conference on Social Work was the International Permanent Secretariat of Social Workers, which initially represented social workers from eight countries (Healy, 2008a, p. 177). As will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 6, these organizations grew respectively into the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), the International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW) and the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW). At this point, however, what is equally as important, if not more so, than considering in which country different aspects of social work first emerged is that from its earliest days social work as a profession can be seen as international.

By the 1930s social work had also spread from the advanced industrial countries of the global North to some countries of the South, through colonial relationships (Midgley, 1981). In particular, we can note that schools of social work were founded in various countries of the South through the 1920s and 1930s, including programmes at Yanjing University (now Beijing, China) (1922), the University of Buenos Aries (Argentina) (1924), the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai (India) (which was, until 1944, the Sir Dorabji Tata Graduate School of Social Work) (1936) and the University of Cairo (Egypt) (1936) (Badran, 1975, p. 38; Viera, 1976, p. 261; Queiro-Tajalli, 1995, p. 87; Department of Urban and Rural Community Development, 2004, p. 31). Professional education was often the driving force in the growth of social work in these countries, with appropriate services being initiated to make use of the graduate workforce, such as the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour in Egypt which was founded in 1939 (Walton & El Nasr, 1988, p. 153). That these educational programmes and services were modelled on the work of, and in many instances actually founded by, social workers from the global North is not in question and this point will be discussed in depth in the subsequent chapters. What is important to note here is that from the early decades of the twentieth century professional social work was spreading rapidly throughout the world.

Social Work Internationally Post-1945

The worldwide conflict of 1939–45 had a major impact on the development of social work. Not only were individual social workers caught up in the conflict in many different ways, but the course of development of the profession as a whole was affected. Among the many individual stories of that time are examples such as that of the founder of the School of Social Work at the University of Warsaw, Helena Radlinska, whose own house as well as the School buildings were destroyed; two-thirds of her colleagues also were killed (Healy, 2008b, p. 6). These events of destruction and loss were repeated in different ways in many places. At the same time social workers also played positive roles embodying values that have come to be seen as core to the profession, such as Irena Sendler who, amongst many others, worked at personal risk to protect the lives of Jewish children in the middle of the Holocaust (Wieler, 2006).

Social work was also part of the post-war reconstruction. At a national level, in different countries, social workers participated in the rebuilding of social infrastructure. Internationally, too, social work played an important post-war role. For example, the ICSSW (as it still was until 1955) was involved from the earliest days in the fledgeling United Nations (UN). It was granted consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1947 and the various organizations that grew from the ICSSW and the Permanent Secretariat (IASSW, ICSW and IFSW) have maintained this link to the present time. The then president of the ICSSW, René Sand (who was both a physician and a social worker), played a prominent role in the establishment of the World Health Organization (WHO) (Eilers, 2008, p. 65), and one of his successors as president of the IASSW, Herman Stein, was very influential in the early days of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (Kendall, 2008, pp. 111 – 13). As we will see in subsequent chapters, the UN and its various constituent organizations (especially UNICEF) in different ways have been part of the development of social work internationally, both in the form of having key international social workers in influential roles within them and in providing institutional support for the development of the profession. (We will also see, paradoxically, that there are strong arguments in favour of the view that other entities of the UN act in such a way as to create the conditions that necessitate social work and related forms of intervention.) Significant international non-government organizations (INGOs), such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), have also had a close relationship with social work since the immediate post-war era, with the same mixture of social work action in their formation and in their contribution to the development of international social work (Healy, 2008a, p. 123).

One of the significant global trends of the 1950s through to the 1970s was the achievement of independence from colonial rule by many countries in Africa and Asia. It is in this period that an increasing concern with social development became part of the debates about international social work (Hall & Midgley, 2004). In some countries social work either emerged in this period as part of the social development movement or became associated with social development as a practice. In other countries, however, this connection was not made or else the development of social work followed a Western model of what Midgley (1981, 1997) has described as ‘remedial welfare’. Thus, social work in this period has to be understood in the context of what has come to be known as ‘post-colonialism’ or ‘neo-colonialism’.

Social work in ‘post-colonial’ settings has, in many instances, been part of a struggle between processes of modernization and a critical rejection of the dominance of Western influences. It is in this period that the ideas of ‘indigenization’ and ‘authentization’ came to identify a central debate in the field of international social work (Walton & El Nasr, 1988; Osei-Hwedie, 1993; Nimagadda & Cowger, 1999). The question is whether forms of social work from countries of the global North can be adapted appropriately for the national and cultural contexts into which they are introduced (indigenization) or whether it is necessary to construct a genuinely local professional model (authentization) (Walton & El Nasr, 1988, pp. 148 – 9; see discussion in Chapter 5). Critics of the processes by which social work spread from the countries in which it originated, especially those who consider that ‘international social work’ has effectively been the importation of (often individualized American models) theory and practice from the global North into other countries, have even at times questioned whether the very concept of social work itself is relevant in the global South (Midgley, 1981; also see Gray & Fook, 2004; Payne & Askeland, 2008). At the same time, the professionalization of social work has been a part of the wider processes of modernization in countries of the global South that has been embraced by practitioners and academics in the social welfare field in much the same way that it was also sought enthusiastically in earlier decades by those in the global North.

From the 1980s through to the present day we can continue to see the growth of professional social work in various parts of the world, including Africa, Asia, Eastern and Southern Europe, the Pacific Island states and South America (see, e.g.: Yuen-Tsang & Sung, 2002; Ku et al., 2005; Mafile’o, 2006; Osei-Hwedie et al., 2006; Hugman et al., 2007). The debates about indigenization and authentization continue to be central in all of these regions (Osei-Hwedie, 1993; Yan & Cheung, 2006), as do those between micro-level ‘remedial’ practices that focus on individuals and families and macro-level ‘development’ approaches that focuses on organizations, policies and systems (Mendes, 2007; Olson, 2007). Thus, although social work is now established as a profession in 90 countries (as understood in terms of membership of the IFSW [2008b]), and social workers from around the world regularly engage in dialogue through meetings and conferences, it could be said that the understanding of social work internationally is now more diverse than ever.

But, assuming that such a description is plausible, is this necessarily a negative situation? Recent critical scholarship has questioned the pursuit of a unitary view of social work that embraces all countries and situations (Gray & Fook, 2004). This argument is based on the idea that any sense of the commonalities of social work around the world must, necessarily, be both broad and limited. In so far as social work theory and practice is required to take account of cultural differences then comparisons will have to focus on the ways in which social work can be authentically contextualized. From this point of view, an emphasis on difference is desirable, even if it leads to a sense that there is no one single entity called ‘social work’. Against this view, as has already been implied above, is the idea that there is a sufficient degree of commonality in goals and values that unite social workers in all parts of the world for a common purpose. From this point of view, it can be said, international social work is more than simply a series of connections between particular countries but in recent years has come to represent a more thoroughly ‘global’ phase in the development of the profession. As is made clear in the subsequent chapters of this book, this question of similarity and difference is now one of the most critical issues in understanding international social work.

Social Work and Globalization

The similarities and differences between countries and cultures is one of the central elements in discussions of the phenomenon that has come to be known as ‘globalization’. This concept refers to an analysis of the contemporary world that sees all national economic, political, social and cultural systems as having become increasingly integrated (Bauman, 1998; George & Wilding, 2002). As Sklair (1999) notes, there is not only one theory of globalization but rather this concept is a collection of ideas that variously emphasize the economic, the political, the social or the cultural dimensions of the integration between nation states. Although Sklair himself tends to favour the notion of a ‘global capitalist model’, because of what he sees as the importance of transnational practices (i.e., where individuals and organizations act across national borders without being tied to any one location), at the same time he also notes that political, social and cultural aspects are also important. Indeed, he argues that although there are many negative aspects to this process, to the extent that it is now inevitable it also represents a positive opportunity if used for the pursuit of humanitarian, democratic and just ends.

As many discussions of international social work such as Lyons (1999), Lyons et al. (2006) and Cox and Pawar (2006) have noted, it is not possible to begin to analyse all the different issues that constitute international social work without grasping the significance of globalization and its impact on both social work practices and the social systems within which it is located. For example, the actions of social work are contextualized by the impact of economic, political and cultural globalization. Lyons (1999, pp. 31 – 5) traces the way in which various major international events of the last 50 years have established the background for international social work. These include the post-war reconstruction policies; the ‘Cold War’; the formation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); the oil crisis of the mid-1970s; the evolution of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the World Trade Organization (WTO); the breakdown of the political bloc dominated by the Soviet Union; the growth of other blocs such as the European Union (EU) and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN); the influence of neo-liberal economics and the ‘structural adjustment’ policies of the IMF and the World Bank. (‘Structural adjustment’ refers to shifts within national economic policies from state to private ownership of key industries, the deregulation of markets and reduced trade barriers such as tariffs – all of which are intended to increase trade and hence national wealth.) All of these events have contributed to major shifts in the possibilities for the projects that characterize international social work.

Two particular world events serve to illustrate the way in which such events impact on social work. The first of these is the breakdown of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe. The shift over the last two decades from managed economies and political systems to Western-style democracy and market economies has brought significant changes both in daily life for the populations of these countries and the opening up of possibilities for greater communication with other parts of the world. Of particular concern to social workers has been the disclosure and rise of the incidents of social needs in these countries. In the post-Soviet era, for example, there have been opportunities for INGOs of various kinds to develop projects in the countries of Eastern Europe. Some of these have involved professional social workers, while others have not. Some also can be described as having used progressive approaches, while again others have implemented projects and used practices that from the value position of professional social work can be said to be questionable (Payne & Askeland, 2008, p. 125).

The impact of the ‘structural adjustment’ policies and programmes of the IMF and World Bank also have had a marked impact on the terrain of social work. This is most frequently recognized in discussions of social development (Midgley, 1997; Dominelli, 2007). In some parts of the world economically driven development has led to industrial manufacturing and commercial agriculture replacing more traditional local economic activity. As markets have shifted geographically in order to provide high rates of return for international business, local populations, usually in developing countries, have then found themselves simultaneously without employment and no longer having the infrastructure to provide alternative sources of income from their own labour. At the same time, structural adjustment policies had required national governments either to cease development of, or to drastically reduce, social security systems (Deacon, 2007, p. 47). So the net effect was that, at least in some countries, large sections of the population ended up in situations of as much or greater poverty than previously, sometimes because of growing disparities in wealth despite increasing average per capita levels of income (UNDP, 1999; George & Wilding, 2002). Women and children were particularly negatively affected by the impact of these policies (UNICEF, 1999). Moreover, it should be recognized that the impact of such policies is to create conditions in which the more individual and family focused concerns of social workers are exacerbated, including problems of children’s well-being and safety, domestic violence, substance misuse and other social issues that can be associated with social stress.

Over the last half-century, the longer-term trajectory of the impact on social welfare of global economic, political and cultural developments can be described as that of an increasing emphasis on state-based institutions and systems of the post-1945 period which faltered in the 1970s and then was subsequently replaced by various forms of privatization, with the drivers in both directions being economic and political in combination. For writers such as Midgley (1997) and Stiglitz (2003) this rise and fall of social approaches to human well-being must be seen as part of the impact of neo-colonialism. The demise of the ‘welfare consensus’ in the member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was imposed more widely through institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and WTO in ways that echo the manner in which earlier social structures and political systems had been imposed around the world through colonial administrations. For example, the policy goal of ‘rolling back the welfare state’ was a priority of domestic policy not only in these Western countries, but such changes were buttressed by the restructure of global aid and development as well as a concern with trade and international economic relations. Social welfare was retrenched in the domestic sphere and at the same time in relations between nation states. Indeed, the latter strategy was intricately bound up with the former. In this sense it may even be plausible to see the process as that of applying the same principle to both domestic and foreign policies: those who had come to depend on the provision of direct welfare were to be required to learn to ‘fend more for themselves’ (i.e., cease to rely on the support of these governments, whether of their own nation or as part of the international community).

The Nation State and Globalization

In so far as each of these definitions of international social work is based on the idea of movement between countries they assume the existence of the nation state and the political, cultural and moral authority exercised by the state. Thus they raise the question of whether it is possible to envisage a social welfare system or social work practice that is not shaped in some way by the nation state within which the system or practice is to be found. The conventional answer to this question would be to say that the history of social work as a modern profession is often articulated around the growth, or otherwise, of welfare states (compare Esping-Andersen, 1990, and George & Wilding, 2002, with Payne, 2005). Consequently, the various forms of the pr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction – The Global Growth of Social Work
• 2 Different Visions of ‘International’ in Social Work
• 3 Social Work with International Issues
• 4 Social Work and the UN Millennium Development Goals
• 5 Different Forms of Social Work: A Pluralistic and Inclusive View
• 6 The Organizational Contexts of International Social Work
• 7 International Perspectives on Social Work Education and Training
• 8 The Possibility of an International Social Work Ethics
• 9 Professional Imperialism: A Concept Revisited
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index