Resumen

According to the political scientist Fritz Reheis, politicial education – civics education – is “the entirety of all processes by which a person is shaped for life in the community and shapes themselves” (Reheis, 2016). While Social Work is a profession that supports and educates people in all phases of their life in communities, the scientific discourse in Germany is unsure whether and how political the profession and its’ members can or should be. Nevertheless, Social Workers are working in civics education when they help to shape clients’ lives or communal endeavours (Schmidbauer, 2021). In order to fulfill this task and its’ political mandate, Social Workers need to be competent in politics and civics themselves – otherwise they would not be able to pass it along. For my doctoral thesis, I have compared ten different Social Work curricula at as many Schools of Social Work in Germany. My goal was to find out if and how future social workers are receiving – or are at least able to receive – training for political situations and political work and if the skills taught are the ones that are needed in practice. In addition to a content analysis of Social Work study programmes I held focus groups to let students of Social Work and Social Workers discuss my findings about “their” study programme. In additions, participants were asked if the skills taught on paper were also the ones that are taught in reality – and if they are the ones that are needed in practice. What transpired was that while civics education takes up a very small part of the, it is seen as a cross-sectional teaching task. Furthermore, it became visible that formal learning spaces are not the only aspect of university education where learning happens. I wish to present my full findings in the presentation.

Palabras Clave (separar con comas)

social work, social workers, social policy, politics, social policy engagement, policy engagement, direct democracy, democracy, social activism, advocacy, politics as a job, profession, holding elected office, political mandate, biographies, civics education, political education, social work study programme, content analysis, learning,

Resumen

This study examines Jewish women’s activism in Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox society in Israel who are engaged in ongoing efforts to transform their community norms and conventions, which they find discriminatory and restrictive of all women in those religious communities.\ Informed by thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with fourteen activists about their life stories, the findings indicate\ that personal or social events perceived as significant in the women’s lives as children and adolescents acted as catalysts for activism. These events were central to their personal narratives and became embedded in the women’s activist identity, as they came to perceive activism as the most “natural” response to life challenges. Specifically, two types of events were identified: events in the individual-family-community sphere, and events in the public-national sphere. Both of them affected the interviewees and led them to act, whether out of antagonism and anger at a perceived injustice, or out of a sense of power and constructive thought. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the new and unique phenomenon of religious women who, despite being educated to accept and comply with the conventions of a patriarchal society, choose to make their voice heard and lead sociocultural changes in the public space. The findings emphasize the personal-political nexus and provide insight into the activists’ motives for fighting for their values and for committing to long-term activity in the public sphere – despite considerable personal costs.\ As social workers who work with activists from minority groups, it is important to understand the meaning of childhood experiences both as a motive for action and as a sensitive area that must be given a place in development and empowerment processes.

Palabras Clave (separar con comas)

Women activists, Social activism, Personal narrative, Life story, Religious women in Israel

Resumen

This paper, inspired by Strier et al. (2012), aims to understand the extent to which, and how, social class and related terms, are being represented and discussed in the social work academy. There has been increasing neglect of social class and issues related to social structure in the U.S., in favor of other types of identity and individualistic explanation for adverse social outcomes. The paper begins by reviewing the overall state of macro practice in the profession and relates it to the issue of social class and its importance for social movements and effective activism. Next, the paper explores how social justice is understood in social work, with particular reference to the relationship between distributive justice and recognition theory, within the larger context of intersectionality. The paper then discusses how social class has been approached in scholarship and how understanding of the concept has changed over time. Insights derived from a synthesis of the literature give rise to several research questions as well a conceptual framework that is used to undertake a content analysis of several leading social work journals. Finally, after presenting methods and findings, the article discusses the results and conclusions, summarizing trends in how social class is discussed in the social work academy. It suggests the need to more rigorously apply social work ideals with respect to understanding both subjective microscopic experiences of social class, especially those of the white working class, and the objective macroscopic factors that both give rise to the former and are key to structural and systemic reforms. Concerns are raised about the declining willingness of social work scholars, and ability of the wider profession, to confront the economic hegemony of neoliberalism.\ 

Palabras Clave (separar con comas)

Social class, social structure, individualistic, social work, intersectionality, identity, activism, neoliberalism, content analysis\ 

Resumen

The global quest to construct social work knowledge is ongoing. Despite a commitment to research knowledge production, there is uncertainty about what constitutes social work knowledge (Jacobsson \& Meeuwisse, 2018) and how this may reproduce privileges and oppressions (Schmid \& Morgenshtern 2023). The geopolitics of knowledge production impacting how and by whom knowledge is produced in social work today requires examination for the pursuit of epistemic justice (Muñoz Arce, 2023). A responsibility of the International Association of Schools of Social Work research committee is encouraging research that builds knowledge in supporting the work of social workers. This presentation will describe a systematic review project initiated by the IASSW research committee that examines the production of social work knowledge around the world. Limited comparative studies exist and have focused on utilization of social work knowledge rather than construction of social work knowledge (Kreisler \& Marsh 2016). Respecting diversity through joint social action requires an understanding of what social dynamics and privileged ideologies influence knowledge production (Gray \& Schubert, 2013). Presenters will discuss re-positioning social work knowledge production for the future.

Palabras Clave (separar con comas)

social work knowledge, epistemic justice, knowledge construction