Archives

  • Pathways Towards a Global Public Sphere
    Vol. 21 No. 2 (2023)

    It is anything but easy to figure out the current global constellation by speaking of ‘multiple crises’ or ‘polycrisis’. Not only because of its complexity, but also because we experience the current situation as unprecedented, we tend to overlook that crises obviously are part of modern society in general. Nevertheless, the global dimension and the complex mélange of the crisis against climate change, the economic and financial crises, the Covid-19 pandemic, but also the questioning of democratic orders, that we are witnessing today, seem exceptional. We are therefore faced in the 21st century with the challenge of simultaneously perceiving the peculiarity of the current crises and the historical continuity that is inscribed in them.

    As already discussed in the last special issue of Social Work & Society (02, 2023), the question of ‘the future’ comes into focus. But what does that mean? Where do we look towards the future? What is the goal we are working towards? In addition to the fact that the future must always remain indefinable and open, as long as we do not want to subject ourselves to totalitarian ways of thinking, we do need images how to direct our thinking and acting. On the background of democratic movements, revolutions and radical reforms since the 18th century, the concept of a ‘global public sphere’, as mentioned by Nancy Fraser and others, could probably provide such a horizon for the future.

    To what extent a global public sphere could play a role in the context of social work, social pedagogy and social policy, had been the question of the Jubilee Conference of Social Work & Society at the 1st & 2nd of June 2023 (Link to the conference page). We are very pleased to present main conference contributions as fully developed articles in the current special issue. This certainly offers us a basis for the necessary discussions and reflections.

    However, an issue of Social Work & Society only becomes complete through the open-topic articles in our SW&S.Forum. It is therefore a pleasure for us that we can once again publish a series of highly stimulating contributions in our SW&S.Forum.

    Therefore, we are very sure that our readers will find inspiring insights and reflections in the new issue of SW&S.

  • Social Work Future(s) — What social work does the world need now?
    Vol. 21 No. 1 (2023)

    The present seems to become endless: Multiple crises, not at least the climate crisis, seem to question the possibility of any a human future. More than that: Apocalyptic scenarios obscure the possibility of future in general. This present constellation goes hand in hand with the neoliberal way of life: The “citizen as consumer” (Nikolas Rose) is supposed to ignore the fact that each consuming act is changing the conditions for the future: the provision of cheap products often conveys the working conditions of people as well as the financialisation and privatisation of housing exacerbate the everyday life of families. So, the citizen consumer should live only in the present without reflecting the possibilities of a human future, following the neoliberal doctrine of present capitalism.

    On the background of such an analysis of the present, the question of ‘the future’ is of main relevance for the humanity in general and for all societal aspects in specific – not at least in the fields of education and care: How to deal with a present, which has become endless? How to re-develop hope and action for a human future?

    The current SW&S.Special Issue is working on that and related questions – under the title: Social Work Future(s). We are grateful for to our guest editors Heather Lynch from Glasgow Caledonian University and Tina E. Wilson from the University of British Columbia, who have been responsible for the current SW&S.Special Issue.  

    In addition to the Special Issue-Articles, SW&S presents, as always, very interesting papers in The SW&S.Forum on various aspects of social work and social policy.

    Therefore, we wish our readers a highly stimulating read with the current issue.

  • Voices of Subaltern
    Vol. 20 No. 2 (2022)

    SW&S Special Issue on “Voices of Subaltern”

    To be represented collectively means becoming part of the public sphere. This is probably the main message of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s thinking. Spivak asked at the end of the 1980s in her most influential essay: “Can the Subaltern Speak?”. This question is still sensitising us as readers as well as members of a specific society to understand the difference it makes, if we as European or North-American scholars or we as South-Asian of North-African activists are asking, who can speak and who is heard. At the same time, not only the post-colonial constellation, but also our position as members of the bourgeoisie or as members of ‘the subaltern’, determines our influence. It has been Antonio Gramsci, who invented this term of ‘the subaltern’ to describe those groups that act and argue from a non-hegemonic position. Gramsci has already pointed out that this not only necessitates a political confrontation, but also a ‘pedagogical mission’. Spivak has struggled with this simultaneity of listening and seeing people and make someone able to speak.

    On the background of Spivak’s concept the current Special Issue of Social Work & Society (SW&S) brings together contributions that address the question of emancipation in the context of existing welfare state. SW&S is therefore very grateful that Michael May from the Hochschule RheinMain (GER) and Kirsten Elisa Petersen from Aarhus Universitet (DK) have edited the SW&S.Special Issue on “Voices of Subaltern”. The current special issue consists of the following articles: Niels Rosendal Jensens (DK) “Understanding subaltern classes and their struggle – past and present”; Dirk Michel-Schertges (DK) reflections on “Subalternity, Class-Consciousness and Resistance“; Kari Kragh Blume Dahls (DK) article on “Speaking for the ‘other’? Representation, positionality and subjectivity in ethnographic fieldwork in Danish and Kenyan education institutions”; Edita Ademis, Maia Portings and Christian Sandbjerg Hansens (DK) article on “The Point of View of Stigmatised Young Girls: Managing Class, “Race” and Place in Polarising Copenhagen“; Trine Elisabeth Møbius Sørensens (DK ) paper on “The muffled voices of the insane child – tracing the small voices of early child and adolescent psychiatry“; Michael May (GER) article on “Can people diagnosed as chronically mentally ill speak?”; Anne Morins (DK) paper on “Suppressed voices and lost opportunities in education and the psychiatric healthcare system – a structural analysis of dilemmas in inter-professional collaboration between sectors”; Tine Fristrup and Christopher Karanja Odgaard (DK) considerations on ”Recalibrating disability towards the term subaltern. The social work of neoliberal-academic-ableism in Danish higher education” and the reflections of Bjørg Kjær (DK) on “Voicing the silenced – One Million Voices and the Danish disability experience”.

    Furthermore, the readers of Social Work & Society will find four very interesting papers in our Forum:

    • Patricia Patty Stoddard Dare, Linda M. Quinn, Shirley L. Porterfield, LeaAnne DeRigne, Miyuki Tedor & Cyleste Collins (US): Net worth of adults approaching retirement age: Personal health, presence of a chronically ill or disabled household member, and out of home caregiving
    • Farid Asey (CAN): If I had a magic wand: Speculative everyday anti-racism for addressing workplace racial discrimination in British Columbia’s public sector
    • Vikram Singh (IND): Education Inequality among the Muslims in India: Historical-Present Scenario
    • Helena Teles & Maria Irene Carvalho (PRT): Understanding Portuguese social workers’ values preferences

    We wish all our readers a very insightful read.

    Conference announcement: Social Work & Society is celebrating his 20th anniversary with a jubilee conference at the 1st and 2nd of June 2023. Please join – in person or digitally. You will find the program and the possibility for registration here.

    Call for Special Issue: Please also note our call for special issue proposals.

  • (De)Institutionalisation in the Fields of Social Services and Social Work
    Vol. 20 No. 1 (2022)

    If we look at the historical processes of ‘institutionalisation’ in the fields of social work, education, and care, we notice that it is not only a constitutive moment, but repeatedly confronted with fundamental objections and attempts at an alternative organisation and practice. Therefore, not only institutionalisation, but the tension between institutionalisation, deinstitutionalisation and reinstitutionalisation, proves to be fundamental. At the same time institutionalisation has to be seen as a historical process and struggle and not as a given frame for social work practices – as well as for caring or for educational practices. Not at least institutionalisation cannot be reduced to a given bureaucratic or economical structure, but as the ongoing dispute and struggle over legitimated and influential agreements how to act and how to organise professional work. In social work research and theory as well as in social policy research and welfare state theory institutionalisation is often defined as the existing (welfare) state and especially in social work theory ‘institutions’ are considered more often as an obstacle than as an opportunity. Looking on the historical and powerful processes of institutionalisation itself – in everyday life practices as well as on the practices of service organisations, or in the legislative process – can open the view on the ambivalences and dialectics of (de)institutionalisation in social work, care, and education.

    We are therefore very grateful that the German research initiative “(De)Institutionalisierung des Pädagogischen” from the Universities of Duisburg-Essen and Wuppertal has edited the current Special Issue of Social Work and Society on “(De)Institutionalisation in the Fields of Social Services and Social Work”. The SWS&.Special Issue consists of four articles: Ingo Bode (GER) on The (de-)institutionalisation of empowerment. The complex remake of child and family welfare arrangements in Western Europe; Griet Roets, Matthias Remmery, Dries Cautreels, Simon Allemeersch, Toon Benoot, and Rudi Roose (BEL) on A Critical Exploration of Institutional Logics of De-Institutionalisation in the Field of Disability Policy and Practice: Towards a Socio-Spatial Professional Orientation; Christian Reutlinger (CH) on The Relational Constitution of Institutional Spaces. Balancing Act between Openness and Pedagogical Space Shaping in Open Child and Youth Work; and Sascha Neumann (GER) on The institutionalisation of childhood and the institutionalisation of education. Reconsidering a not so simple relationship.

    In addition to our SW&S.Special Issue, we present our readers in the current issue a diverse and impressive SW&S.Forum. Iria Noa de la Fuente-Roldán & Esteban Sánchez-Moreno (both ES) focus The Great Recession and Social Exclusion: Homeless People in the City of Madrid in their opening paper; Christoph Gille & Ute Klammer (both GER) discuss the possibility of Researching Welfare Regimes from Below in a comparative way regarding Youth Unemployment in Spain and Germany; the Stigmatisation of Youth in Residential Care as Epistemic Violence is reflected by Sara Blumenthal (A) in her article; Anna Slozanskas, Svitlana Stelmakhs & Iryna Krynytskas (all UA) topic are the Vulnerable Families in Ukraine as the Main Social Service Users in the pre-pandemic and the pandemic period; Abdulaziz Albrithen & Nadir A. Yalli (both UAE) grapple with the question of The Relationship between Organisational Factors and Job Frustration among Saudi Social Workers; and finally Claudia Equit, Matthias Euteneuer & Uwe Uhlendorff (all GER) look how Single Mothers Figure out Their Future Family Life.

    We wish you an enjoyable and informative reading.

    From the editor's desk

    Social Work & Society is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a jubilee conference in June 2023. So, save the date: “Social Work and Society: Pathways Towards a Global Public Sphere. Jubilee Conference” on the 1st and 2nd of June 2023 at the Wuppertal University (GER). The conference will be conducted in a hybrid format.

  • Social Policy in Social Work Education and Practice - Innovative Approaches
    Vol. 19 No. 2 (2021)

    SWS - NEW ISSUE

    The ‘London Edinburgh Weekend Return Group’, a group of public sector workers in the UK, have published in 1979 their Discussion Notes for Socialists under the title In and Against the State. As state workers, the members of the group asked whether they can contribute to a radical reform of the state – or they will inevitably promote the reproduction of the existing (capitalist) state. The question of promoting a political transformation from an ‘internal’ position in public sector agencies is even more evident 40 years later. The welfare states and as part of it, the (public) social sector, have been reorganised and newly conceptualised in fundamental ways in the last decades. So, in the existing context of managerialism, as a major piece of these ‘new’ (investment or activation) states, social service workers in general and social workers in particular, are confronted with their position of being part of state regulation – and being regulated themselves. Therefore, the question of dealing with ‘the political’ is of essential, even existential importance in the current days.

    Social Work & Society is more than pleased to present a SW&S.Special Issue in our second issue of 2021 on Social Policy in Social Work Education and Practice – Innovative Approaches, edited by by Sarah P. Lonbay from Sunderland University (UK) and Marija Stambolieva from Osnabrueck University of Applied Sciences (GER).

    Dealing with ‘the political’ should be a ‘natural’ part of social work education – and practice. This premise is discussed in the current SW&S.Special Issue in five papers from different respective European authors. Reeli Sirotkina & Kersti Kriisk (EST) reflect in their paper the Insider-outsider view of social work curricula in Estonia – and raise the question: Should one competence of future social workers be policy literacy? In his article Social Work and policy practice: group reflection and policy inquiry Tony Evans (UK) argues for a structured policy reflection in social work education. Lluis Francesc Peris Cancio (IT) is also dealing with The need to improve social work students’ skills as future social policy actors in his paper, where he shows experiences and prospects in undergraduate training. Social work education should include a Pedagogy of the protest – so teach social workers about collective action and the social policy context. This is the main argument of Mariam Zaidi (US) & Håvard Aaslund (NOR). In their closing article Joachim Thönnessen & Christiane Westerveld (both GER) take a look on Professionalization in low-threshold drug aid – betwen managerialism and practitioner knowledge, by discussing possible bridges between the caring aspect of social work and managerialistic approaches.

    SW&S Forum

    The current SW&S.Special Issue is supplemented by three very interesting papers on different aspects of social work and social policy in the SW&S.Forum. Immigrants’ experiences of the importance and value of work in Norway are focused by Reidun Ims (NOR) to discuss the Implications for social work. Amy Castro, Chenyi Ma, Claudette Grinnell Davis & Meagan Cusack (all US) look on Hope, Mattering, and Pathways Towards Economic Agency among Financially Marginalized Adults. And last but not least, the question of Responding to New Social Risks is reflected by Paweł Poławski (POL) in his view on The Southernization of Social Welfare in Poland?

    Hopefully the new issue of Social Work & Society will be a pleasant read for all of you.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Is Out-of-Home Care in a Crisis? Perspectives on Child and Youth Welfare Systems in northern Europe and Germany
    Vol. 19 No. 1 (2021)

    SW&S-Cover Vol. 19 No. 1 / 2021

    NEW: SW&S Special Issue on “Is Out-of-Home Care in a Crisis? Perspectives on Child and Youth Welfare Systems in northern Europe and Germany” (Vol. 19, Issue 1, 2021)

    Current societies are based on the family household. The everyday family care and its economy ensure the reproduction of existing societies in fundamental ways. This is evident not least in the family orientation of social services and social work. At the same time, families are the greatest source of hazard for children and adolescents. This is also reflected in the provision of social support by welfare states. The field of out-of-home care is located in this contradicting context and shaped by these contradictions between family orientation and an alternative provision for the socialisation in the private sphere of the family. If you look at the current pandemic situation, these relationships become particularly clear: Families are thrown back on themselves and at the same time the need for public support for children and young people increases significantly. It is therefore not only appropriate, but urgently necessary, to address the issue of out-of-home care, especially in an international comparison perspective. We are therefore extremely pleased that Social Work & Society (SW&S) is able to open its 19th volume with a SW&S.Special Issue on “Out-of Home Care in Crisis”, edited by Zoe Clark (Siegen / GER).

    All papers in our new Special Issue, titled “Is Out-of-Home Care in a Crisis? Perspectives Child and Youth Welfare Systems in northern Europe and Germany”, come from the European context, so they reflect the question of out-of-home care against the background of expanded welfare states and their transformation in the recent past. Their common interest is also in the question of possible and necessary research perspectives in this field.

    SW&S Forum

    The new issue of SW&S is completed by contributions from Elia Sepúlveda, Roxana Contreras & Alejandra Mora about “Socio-natural Disasters and Poverty: An Analysis from Emergency Decrees Issued in Chile”; Angela K. Louw & Izanette Van Schalkwyk concerning “Guidelines to enhance the psychosocial wellbeing of the San community living at Platfontein in the Northern Cape Province”; and Alevtina V. Starshinova, Olga I. Borodkina & Elena B. Arkhipova on “Youth as Social Service Consumers: the Case of Russia.”

    Reading the new issue is highly informative and enlightening. Therefore, take the time and devote yourself to the contributions of the Issue 1, Volume 19 of Social Work & Society. We wish all of our readers a very fruitful and stimulating insights.

    Thanks a lot for your interest,
    your SW&S.Co-Ordinating Office

  • Child Maltreatment, Child Protection and Child Well-being – Research across Borders
    Vol. 18 No. 3 (2020)

    Social Work & Society, Vol. 18 No. 3 (2020)

    NEW: SW&S Special Issue on “Child Maltreatment, Child Protection and Child Well-being – Research across Borders” (Vol. 18, Issue 3, 2020)

    Especially in childhood studies, in social work research and in the context of social policy studies the problem of child maltreatment, child protection and the question of child wellbeing have been discussed thoroughly in the last 10-20 years. Additionally the concept of children as active agents has been put forward in the last decades. Nevertheless, these perspectives have mostly been discussed in parallel. That means that we conceptualise children on the one side as potential victims only, in need for protection; and on the other side we think of children as independent actors in general. But both of these ideas are not entirely convincing. The relevant questions are rather how the participation of children in child protection can succeed, or how the voices of children can be heard and responded to in cases of child maltreatment.

    The authors of the new SW&S.Special Issue “Child Maltreatment, Child Protection and Child Well-being – Research across Borders” are dealing especially with these and similar questions in all their 12 papers and are thus responding to a crucial point in the current debates on child maltreatment, child protection and child well-being. We are therefore very pleased that Timo Ackermann from the University of Applied Science in Berlin (GER), Friederike Lorenz from the Free University of Berlin (GER) and Meike Wittfeld from the University of Duisburg-Essen (GER) have designed the new SW&S.Special Issue against the background of the second international Child Maltreatment Conference 2019. We wish our readers a very inspiring and informative read of the new SW&S.Special Issue.

    SW&S Forum

    The new edition of our magazine is completed by the contribution of Jonathan Parker & Magnus Frampton “By Dint of History: Ways in which social work is (re)defined by historical and social events”.

    Take the time and read the articles in our new Issue of Social Work & Society (SW&S). It's worth it – as always, we think.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Teaching Poverty in Social Work Classroom – Perspectives from Global South and Policy Implications
    Vol. 18 No. 2 (2020)

    NEW: SW&S Special Issue on “Teaching Poverty in Social Work Classroom – Perspectives from Global South and Policy Implications” (Vol. 18, Issue 2, 2020)

    Poverty has always been one of the main indicators for social work and social policy. This is one of the reasons for the even partial dingy image of social professions. Nevertheless, the attempt to transform social work into a white-collar job is historically also well observable: The dynamic of turning child and youth welfare primarily into a field of child protection is historically only one of the last examples for this development, e.g. in Europe or Australia. It can illustrate, how social work is at the one side politically addressed to move away from an empowering and critical or even radical self-conception – even everyday social work has never been such a political actor in real. But the neoliberal agenda puts any public infrastructure close to inefficiency and sees it as an obstacle to economic development and social evolution. On the other side, social work itself often tried to overcome its dingy image and its status as a semi- or quasi-profession by turning away from social conditions and focussing on individual behaviour and clinical as well as evidenced based programs.

    Against such a neoliberal agenda and the corresponding tendencies of privatisation, commodification and marketisation of the existing public infrastructure and services, poverty and social conditions in general have been put on stage again from critical social work theory, social policy research and especially from political and social movements in the last years. Also, the international relations of poverty or gender inequality have been discussed more and more in the fields of social work and social policy in the 21st century.

    On that background the Co-Ordination Office of Social Work & Society is particularly pleased to present the new SW&S.Special Issue on “Teaching Poverty in Social Work Classroom – Perspectives from Global South and Policy Implications”, edited by an outstanding international editorial group from China, India, Israel and South Africa: Gao Jianguo (Shandong), Rajendra Baikady (Jerusalem & Johannesburg), Sajid S.M  (New Delhi), Cheng Shengli (Shandong) and Wang Yuxiang (Shandong) are editing the current SW&S.Special Issue.

    This consists of eleven articles, reflecting the question of teaching poverty in social work education especially for the Asian, but also the European context, by looking at the different aspects of the broad and complex topic of teaching poverty to (further) social work professionals.

    SW&S Forum

    Beside our SW&S.Special Issue we present our readers in the current SW&S.Forum a contribution on “Claiming” equality and “doing” inequality – Individual action plans for applicants of social assistance by Rickard Ulmestig, Verner Denvall, and Kettil Nordesjö.

    The new SW&S.Special Issue not only points out the necessary broadening of perspectives that the Global North has to undertake, but can also represent the need for global perspectives in general, which we are particularly aware of in the face of the current pandemic. With this in mind, we wish our readers a very stimulating reading of the current SW&S.Issue.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Renegotiating Social Citizenship – Democracy in Welfare Service States
    Vol. 18 No. 1 (2020)

    SW&S Special Issue on “Renegotiating Social Citizenship – Democracy in Welfare Service States” (Vol. 18, Issue 1, 2020)

    How to deal with “the state”? This question has often been a tricky one for social work research and theory as well as for debates on social welfare policy: In concepts for a radical social work theory the state has sometimes been seen as a ‘monolith’, dominating the everyday life of the people; in more social democratic or liberal versions of social work theory and research the state has been conceptualised as a given structure, a precondition for social work and social services in general. From a social policy and social welfare perspective, “the state” has ever and anon been identified as the potent source of social regulation.

    All these examples show that “the state” has been widely under-theorised and underexposed in the debates on social work, social services and social welfare. Recommendations from neo-marxist, feminist and (post-)structuralist positions to take the state not as a monolith, a given structure or a uniform body of regulation, but as a field of conflict, a material condensation of power and a relation of power are still not a matter of course.

    Not at least all neo-liberal policies have shown in the last 30-40 years, how flexible the (welfare) state can be: On the basis of their own critique on the welfare state in the 20th century, but also on the basis of the common liberal critique of the (welfare) state, neo-liberal policies were able to place alternative concepts of de-regulation, privatisation and so called public-private partnerships or social investment- and activation-strategies.

    On that background the question of a theoretical as well as political reflection of the current state is more than needed – not at least in the current situation, we are all in, in times of Corona.

    Therefore, we are more than happy, to be able to present you the current SW&S.Special Issue on “Renegotiating Social Citizenship – Democracy in Welfare Service States“. Hans-Uwe Otto from the University of Bielefeld (GER) has edited this Special Issue in cooperation with Jean-Michel Bonvin from the Université de Genève (CH) and Arne Wohlfarth and Holger Ziegler, also from Bielefeld (GER). For detailed information on the different chapters and the 16 papers of the new SW&S.Special Issue please have a look in the introduction.

    SW&S Forum

    Four other very inspiring papers are presented by different international groups of authors and single authors in the new SW&S.Forum: Adam Andani Mohammed, Sayed Uddin (both MAS) & Bassoumah Bougangue (GHA) reflect in their paper the Indigenisation Process of Social Work Practice in Malaysia; Catrin Heite, Veronika Magyar-Haas, Lea Moser, Marion Pomey, Morad Salah, and Franziska Schlattmeier (all SUI) recommend Theoretical Considerations on Vulnerability and Autonomy, based on Children’s Narrations about Sport in Adult-dominated Contexts. In his paper Filip Wolters (SWE) is focussing on The Accumulation of Standards for Treatment Decisions in Social Work (1847-2018). A photovoice study on the perceptions among unemployed youth of information technology in Mamelodi, South Africa is discussed bay Magogodi Nkuna, Martina Jordaan (both RSA) and Peter Zängl (SUI).

    Take a look and enjoy the new Issue of Social Work & Society (SW&S).

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Moving to Nowhere Land? (Un)Certainties in transitions to work for the young generation
    Vol. 17 No. 2 (2019)

    NEW: SW&S Special Issue on “Moving to Nowhere Land? (Un)Certainties in transitions to work for the young generation” (Vol. 17, Issue 2, 2019)

    Work is constituting the human nature. Already before Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have elaborated their theory of the capitalist mode of production, the human nature has been identified as the nature of a working man, being able to conceptualise his work – in difference to the working animal. The animals are doing, what they have to do, without reflection on their work. But work as labour has become the fundamental source for exploitation and alienation in the formation of societies as capitalist societies, following Marx. In critical correspondence to Marx and Engels different thinkers in the 20th century have argued, that we have to be aware of the fact that work is not labour per se and that empirically work as human activity is always much more than labour. This if of course an insight, that Hannah Arendt, but also Andre Gorz and others have reflected in their work.

    Understanding the fundamental character of work, we understand that work is not only a constitutive moment of human nature, but structuring social relations in a fundamental way. This is not only the case in capitalist societies, but also in social relations in general, if we look at all the (often gendered) work for human reproduction, not at least all care work.

    Social work and social services have always been fields for public care work. As part of the policy and the practice of regulating social relations publicly, social work and social services are established in the welfare regimes since the 19th century. Therefore social work have been linked to work as labour from the beginning: Social workers and other care workers are part of the labour force in modern societies, and social work users are often addressed as people, which should be reintegrated in the so called labour market.

    In the last years, the transition of people from school to work places, but also from being employed to being unemployed and the other way around have been focussed more precisely in the theory and research on social work and social services. Looking on these ways of becoming part of the labor force, of being out of that game for a shorter or longer while, especially in the case of young people, and connected issues, is what all papers of the new SW&S Special Issue on “Moving to Nowhere Land? (Un)Certainties in transitions to work for the young generation” are sharing.

    We are very happy to present you this current SW&S Special, edited by Christian Schröder (GER). He himself has published two papers in the new SW&S Special Issue: one together with Ute Karl, Claudia Muche and Inga Truschkat (all GER) on The development and transformation of mainstream notions on ‘Career Guidance’. A discourse analysis on EU policy papers on (un)employment and a second one on Social Work and the Organizing of Transition to Work. Shahinaz Khalil (GER) is listening in her paper on the Voices to the Younger Generation and on that background she is claiming for Political Responsibility and Societal Development. In their paper Jan Skrobanek, Tuba Ardic and Irina Pavlova (all NOR) are discussing Youth Employment Mobility as an experience of (un)certainties in Europe. Transitions to work and adulthood are what Sebastiano Benasso (IT), Simone Castellani (POR), Anna Cossetta (IT), Christiane Dittrich (GER) and Andreas Walther (GER) are reflecting on in their paper Transmission Belts: On how young adults in Germany and Italy make meaning of mobility in transitions to work and adulthood. Also Andrea Plögers (GER) paper, Being nowhere – Meet me in the third space!, is on relevant current experiences of young people in the state of transition, but in this case, of young people, experiencing migration. Sabrina Göbel, Annabell Hansmeyer, Marei Lunz and Ulla Peters (all LUX) have contributed a paper to the current SW&S Special Issue on Occupational Aspirations of Care Leavers and their Pathways to Work. Last but not least, Ulrike Zöller (GER) is coming back to the challenges of transition to social work and social services by looking on Cross-border labor market participation in the Greater Region for young people.

    SW&S Forum

    Two more papers can complete the second issue of SW&S in 2019: Anne Mäkinen (FIN) on A Social Emergency Tasks in Emergency Response Centers (ERC´s) of Finland and Ruggero Capra on The challenges for social work under the pressures of neoliberal policies: a study of policy changes in the Italian probation.

    Take a look in the new issue of Social Work & Society – the SW&S Special Issue on (Un)Certainties in transitions to work and the papers in the SW&S Forum. We are sure that all papers are highly relevant for further discussions and our own reflections in the fields of social work and social policy.

    Thanks a lot to all our readers, reviewers, and not at least our SW&S authors in 2019. All the best for 2020 and the third decade in the 21st century.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Alienation Theory and Research in Education and Social Work
    Vol. 17 No. 1 (2019)

    NEW: SW&S Special Issue on “Alienation Theory and Research in Education and Social Work” (Vol. 17, Issue 1, 2019)

    “Social Work & Society is dedicated to a critical analysis of the relationship between social work, social policy, the state and economic forces.” This message, written in our Mission Statement, is fundamental for Social Work & Society (SW&S). It is pointing on the main perspective of our Journal: SW&S wants to offer a forum for critical views on the existing social order and on the current cultural hegemonies. Also, SW&S wants to develop a theoretical understanding of the current developments. At the same time, a self-critical reflection does show that this ‘theoretical understanding’ has often been a more implicit or indirect issue in much SW&S papers.

    Our authors have been raised epistemological and methodological questions as well as questions concerning an adequate rationale for social work and social policy from their different points of view. However, theoretical aspects in terms of social theory have often not been the prior focus of the SW&S Special Issues, because we as the editors and as the Co-Ordinating Office of SW&S have not put them in the focus of the journal enough.

    This is mirroring a dynamic in social, educational, and cultural sciences, where empirical research has become more and more the dominant mode of analysis and the theoretical understanding as an issue in itself has fallen slightly behind – especially in regard to the theoretical understanding of social work and social policy in terms of social theory.

    Empirical insights are of fundamental relevance for social work research and practice, but at the same time the current developments, especially on the macro level have to be taken into account also from a theoretical point of view. This is especially true in times of economic crisis and fundamental transformations of the state, as we experience them in the last decades.

    Therefore, we are not only very happy to present the current SW&S Special Issue on “Alienation Theory and Research in Education and Social Work”, edited by Dirk Michel-Schertges and Henrik Skovlund from Aarhus University, Copenhagen (DK). But we also hope that this SW&S Special Issue will support the critical analysis of the relationship between social work, social policy, the state and economic forces in a more theoretical way in future – beside and in correspondence to the empirical analysis.

    The authors of the current SW&S Special Issue reflect the figure of “alienation” as a main analytical instrument in the context of discussions on social work and social policy in the following seven papers: Introduction to Alienation Theory and Research in Education and Social Work (Dirk Michel-Schertges & Henrik Skovlund); Alienation – a long-overlooked concept of relevance to social work? (Henrik Skovlund); Experience analysis and forms of alienation (Søren Nagbøl); Subject to Change - Social Work, Moral Regulation and recent debates on Alienation (Jan Düker); Education and Alienation – Towards a Neo-liberal Arbitrariness (Dirk Michel-Schertges); Alienation, neoliberalism and education (Niels Rosendal Jensen); Countering Spatial Alienation: Social Work in a Stigmatised Neighbourhood in Copenhagen, Denmark (Christian Sandbjerg Hansen); and Young ethnic minority men and their movement into gang related street communities – a question of preventing feelings of social alienation (Kirsten Elisa Petersen).

    SW&S Forum

    In our new issue of SW&S we are really happy to present four further papers on highly relevant topics in the international arena of Social Work and Social Policy: Forcible separation and assimilation as trauma: The historical and socio-political experiences of Australian Aboriginal people (Karen Menzies); Social Development, the promotion of Well-Being, and the Perceived Role of Social Work in Peru (Miriam Gerlach); Situation Analysis of Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Existing Alternative Care Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Mariana J. Makuu); and Researching social space in social work institutions. A case study on a women’s shelter (Marc Diebäcker, Anna Fischlmayr, Aurelia Sagmeister).

    Have a look and have a read in the new issue of Social Work & Society. We are sure that the papers can be a very helpful and inspiring source of your own reflections on social work and social policy.

  • Ambivalences of the Rising Welfare Service State – Hopes and Hazard of Modern Welfare Architectures
    Vol. 16 No. 2 (2018)

    NEW: SW&S Special Issue (Vol 16, Issue 2 – 2018)

    Since the 1980s welfare is under siege. Even if the post-war welfarism was only a short historical period in the modern society so far, it has to be seen as a step in the historiy of civilisation and also as a step to institutionalise some kind of social equality on the level of the nation state. After decades of transformation, we nowadays experience a shifted welfare state all over the OECD-countries.
    In that context, social work and social services are experiencing a highly ambivalent development: Their own conceptual basics, like ‘user-orientation’, ‘self-responsibility’, or ‘activation’ and ‘empowerment’, have become main conceptual welfare strategies in the last years – even in a semantic version. At the same time social security (e.g. transfer income) is often and in some parts of the former ‘welfare-world’ heavily undermined in the last decades.
    The logic of welfare service have been brought to the forefront and contemporaneously inequality is coming back in. This is why our Special Issue Editors are calling the transformed welfare state a ‘Welfare Service State”. This recommendation corresponds to a number of debates in the last years, like those about the concept of the ‘social investment’ and the ‘activation state’; on the ‘pedagogical turn’ in welfare; or on ‘consumerism and welfare’, to name only a few. This correspondences as well as a critical contextualisation of the concept of the “Welfare Service State” are what is discussed in the new Special Issue of Social Work & Society.

    The SW&S Special Issue “Ambivalences of the Rising Welfare Service State – Hopes and Hazard of Modern Welfare Architectures” includes 24 papers on marketisation, globalisation, social citizenship, professional discretion, and on the developments in different fields of social policy and social work. This allows the readers of SW&S to get insights in the current situation and constellation in different regions of the former ‘world of welfarism’. Therefore, we are very thankful to our SW&S Special Issue Editors for making this issue happen.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Early Childhood Education and Care
    Vol. 16 No. 1 (2018)

    NEW: SW&S Special Issue on

    “Early Childhood Education and Care”

    From an early childhood education and care perspective the 20th century can be framed symbolically by positions like those of Ellen Key on the one side and Gøsta Esping-Andersen on the other. Ellen Keys book Century of The Child (1902) can be read as an opening of the school and pre-school critique and the search for child-centered approaches in education and social work (or social pedagogy) in the 20th century. In the first decades and again in the 1960th and 70th we had that struggle for educational alternatives in the face of the institutionalisation of education and care – in different steps and transformational periods.

    The struggle for child-centered approaches always had been a background music in the fields of education policy in the last century, but never became a main point on the political agenda till the end of the 20th century. Different to Keys perspective, but also from a Scandinavian point of view – which is known as a social democratic one, Gøsta Esping-Andersen stated at the turn to the 21st century the relevance of focussing childhood, for any societal development in a specific way. To invest in children seems nowadays to be the most efficient and relevant investment current societies can think about, following Esping-Andersen and others.

    So, following the political agenda, childhood education and child care seem to be more relevant than ever before at the beginning of the 21st century. At the same time, poverty of children and their families are growing in most of the OECD-countries, the urbanisation of the world is often shrinking spaces for families and their children, and not at least the human capital approach on investing in children is often totally in contrast to a child-centered approach. And not at least, in contrast to the declaration of its relevance, child care provision tend to be a poorly paid and sometimes also badly trained area of work. On that background it is of major need to reflect the relation between early childhood education and care on the one side and the driving factors in both areas on the other. Therefore we are more than happy to present our readers the current SW&S Special Issue on Early Childhood Education and Care, edited by Linda Houser (Chester), Jessica Kahn (New York) and Corey Shdaimah (Baltimore).

    The SW&S Special Issue includes seven very stimulating and exciting papers on different aspects and on different areas of early childhood education and care: Susan Roll (Chico) article on Examining the Child Care Cliff Effect in a Rural Setting; Elizabeth Palley (Garden City, NY) and Corey Shdaimah (Baltimore) on Provider Perspectives on Child Care in the United States; the paper on Distributed Leadership: A framework for enhancing quality in early learning programs by Heather Beaudin (Guelph); the article by Jennifer J. Otten (Washington) and others discussing the phenomenon of an Increased Minimum Wage in the US: A Mixed Methods Study of Child Care Businesses during the Implementation of Seattle's Minimum Wage Ordinance; I-Hsuan Lins paper (Indianapolis) is focussing the Ranking Work-Family Policies across OECD Countries and therefore asking for Implications for Work-Family Conflict, Gender Equality, and Child Well-being; in theier article Nicole Robinson (Milwaukee) and Aleyamma Mathew (New York) are Examining the Role of Social Justice Grantmaking on Childcare Advocacy and Community Organizing Among Women of Color;; not at least Jing Guo (Honolulu) and Hua Zan (Honolulu) are reflecting the relation of Policy Development and Advocacy: The Analysis of a Paid Family Leave Bill in the Hawaii State Legislature.

    SW&S Forum

    In our new issue of SW&S we are also very happy to be able to present five fascinating papers on other topics in the area of Social Work and Society – from four different continents: Valerie Gant (Warrington) can show empirical results on Siblings of Adults with Learning Disabilities: An Empirical Study in her paper; Onno Husen and Philipp Sandermann (both Lüneburg) are arguing for Connections, who do matter in their paper on Family Centers and German Social Policy; Margaret Pack (Wellington) has evaluated the Field Practicum Experience in Social Work Fieldwork Programs Using an Online Survey Approach, what enables her to present Student and Supervisor Responses in her article; Building capabilities in disabled job seekers has been the topic of a qualitative study Peter J. Robertson (Edinburgh) has done on the Remploy Work Choices programme in Scotland, and so this is also the topic of his paper; the paper of Pius T. Tanga (Alice), Magdaline Tanga (Alice) and Perpetua L. Tanyi (Bloemfontein) is closing the current SW&S Forum. The authors are discussing Child Rights-Based Analysis of Children without Parental Care in Lesotho.

    We are more than sure that I will be more than worthwhile for you to have a look on the new issue of Social Work & Society.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

     

  • Unaccompanied Minors in Europe - Part II
    Vol. 15 No. 2 (2017)

    New SW&S Special Issue (Vol 15, Issue 2 – 2017)

    Because the declaration of a crisis is in itself a historical marker for debates on transforming societies, times of crisis are calling us for a precise look on what is going on. What kind of ‘change’ is named by whom, in what interest? The so called ‘refugee crisis’ has been used in the last years in very different ways – and for very different political and economical interests. ‘Migrants’, ‘refugees’ and ‘strangers’ have become a symbol and symptom of the current political struggle almost all around Europe and beyond.

    After having presented seven different European cases of migration of children and youth (Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland) and one article on the European Union, the second part of the SW&S-Special Issue on ‘Unaccompanied Minors in Europe”, edited by Philipp Sandermann (Lüneburg, Germany) and Maren Zeller (Trier, Germany), is discussing the developments of six additional cases: in France (Isabelle Frechon & Lucy Marquet), Germany (Maren Zeller & Philipp Sandermann), Greece (Andriani Fili & Virginia Xythali), Italy (Monia Giovannetti), England (Jim Wade) and the Netherlands (Elianne Zijlstra, Jet Rip Daan Beltman, Carla van Os, Erik J. Knorth & Margrite Kalverboer). So, having 13 country cases in total, Social Work & Society is able to give its readers and users an extraordinarily and so far missing overview on a current phenomenon and at the same time a deep inside in different and also corresponding developments all around Europe. A comparative article on European Welfare States constructing Unaccompanied Minors (Philipp Sandermann, Onno Husen & Maren Zeller) is completing this remarkable SW&S-Special Issue.

    SW&S Forum

    The new issue of SW&S presents also five very exciting papers in the SW&S Forum: In their article Pia Ringø, Maria Appel Nissen, Mia Arp Fallov, Rasmus Hoffmann Birk and Jens Kjærulff are focussing on ontological models and forms of exclusion to be able to look behind political ideas of welfare and productivity. Alexandra Klein & Sandra Landhäußer are reflecting the voice of children in Early Childhood Institutions on an empirical basis. Judith Metz addresses the Professionalism of Professional Youth Work and the Role of Values. Gender Based Violence and its Impacts to Zimbabwean Children are discussed in the article of Tatenda G.Nhapi & Takudzwa Mathende. Moreover, Jonathan Parker, Sara Ashencaen Crabtree, Azlinda Azman, Bala Raju Nikku and Uyen Thi Tung Nguyen ask about the possibility to outline a Typology of Social Work Assessments in regard to the social work practice in Malaysia, Nepal, United Kingdom and Vietnam.

    Take your time and have a look on the new issue of Social Work & Society!

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Unaccompanied Minors in Europe - Part I
    Vol. 15 No. 1 (2017)

    New SW&S Special Issue

    Migration is not in any way a historical novelty. Especially the history of the so called OECD countries are profoundly influenced by migrants and refugees. Nevertheless, not only migration practices under the current circumstances, in a digitally and technically globalised world, are different to other migration in a former historical context, but also the migration of children and youth in a larger number, coming from different places to the developed welfare states is in parts something different. Therefore social policy and social work have at all costs to deal with the related questions on migration in general, but especially on the question of migration of the group of „unaccompanied Minors“.

    Social Work & Society is therefore more than grateful to present our readers the two-parted Special Issue on “‘Unaccompanied Minors in Europe – Part I”, edited by Philipp Sandermann (Lüneburg, Germany) and Maren Zeller (Trier, Germany). In the first part of the current SW&S Special Issue cases of the migration of children and youth from seven different European countries are presented: Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland. Additionally a paper on the current policy trends and their context in the European Union are complementing the first part of the current SW&S Special Issue.

    SW&S Forum
    Beside the current Special Issue our new issue of SW&S presents a number of highly interesting papers on different topics in the SW&S Forum.

    We very much appreciate your interest in SW&S in his 15th year! We wish all our readers a stimulating reading, screening the new issue of Social Work & Society.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Foster Care and Development
    Vol. 14 No. 2 (2016)

    New SW&S Special Issue

    Modern societies are based on the idea of a family of origin. Even after a historical period of liberalization and diversification since the 1960s and 1970s the family as so called primary socialization agent is still seen as a ‘natural’ source of care, education, and emotional support. Dependent on the welfare state culture families are differently incorporated in the existing system of social support (see e.g. the difference between the ‘conservative welfare regime model’ like in Germany or Austria, where public support has a subsidiary character in regard to the family of origin, and the ‘social democratic welfare regime models’ like in Denmark of in Sweden, where the ‘Volksheim’ has been established as a main support structure providing a basis for every member of the state). Nevertheless the current welfare state can be characterized by replacing the family as the main agent for the oncoming generation.
    Therefore families of origin has been a main focus of social work and social policy since its early days in the late 19th and early 20th century. Looking at social services it is not by mistake that residential care has often been conceptualized and is still be conceptualized as a quasi-family (see for instance the Swiss educational reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, 1746-1827). Beside residential care two alternatives have been developed and established, especially in the last third of the 20th century: (a) so called outpatient services to keep children even in a situation of need in their family of origin (e.g. system of family support) and (b) so called foster care families: The similar structure of the foster family to families of origin shall guarantee the missing caring, educating and emotionally supporting structure for children living in that kind of ‘alternative families’.
    After child protection has become a main issue in social work and in policy programs on children in general, scientific and political debates have lost sight of outpatient services and of foster care a bit. Therefore Social Work & Society is more than grateful to present our readers the new Special Issue on “Foster Care and Development”, including seven very stimulant papers by international experts on foster care, focusing on that part of social work and social policy again:

    • June Thoburn (University of East Anglia): “Achieving good outcomes in foster care: a personal perspective on research across contexts and cultures”
    • Klaus Wolf (University of Siegen): “What is meant by social pedagogical research into foster children?”
    • Ann Phoenix (University of Helsinki): “Diversity, difference and belonging in childhood: Issues for foster care and identities”
    • Daniela Reimer (University of Siegen): “Constructions and balances of normality in the biographies of former foster children”
    • Carmen Hofer-Temmel & Christina Rothdeutsch-Granzer (Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz): “Bridges between families. Contact and its meaning for foster children, foster parents and birth families”
    • Roger Bullock (Dartington Social Research Unit, Totnes): “Can we plan services for children in foster care? Or do we just have to cope with what comes through the door?”
    • Cinzia Canali, Roberto Maurizio & Tiziano Vecchiato (Fondazione Emanuela Zancan): “Foster care: motivations and challenges for foster families”

    SW&S Forum

    Beside the current Special Issue our new issue of SW&S presents a number of highly interesting papers on different topics in the SW&S Forum:

    • Douglas Epps & Rich Furman (University of Washington Tacoma): “The 'alien other': A culture of dehumanizing immigrants in the United States”
    • Idamarie Leth Svendsen (Metropolitan University College (Copenhagen)): “Managing complex child law – social workers’ decision making under Danish legal regulation”
    • Zachary Hozid (Vermont Law School) & David Fazzino (Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania): “The Sociological Imagination of Meals on Wheels: How a Home Delivered Meal Program Sheds Light onto Larger Social Issues”
    • Izabela Kamińska-Jatczak (University of Łódź): “Economization Discourse in the Process of Creating Professional Ideas of Family Assistants”

    It is our pleasure to present you in the 14th year of SW&S such a highly interesting new issue. We wish all our readers that they will enjoy the new issue of Social Work & Society.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • The decline of the middle classes
    Vol. 14 No. 1 (2016)

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    “The Decline of the Middle Classes” – new SW&S Special Issue in August 2016

    Middle Classes have been seen as a main stability factor in modern welfare states and existing liberal democracies. Therefore current development strategies of ‘upcoming states’ in the 20th century had a major interest in building (new) middle classes. Even international reviews on development policies have focused on the level of a rise or a decline of middle classes. At the same time social work and social policy have always been ambivalent on this middle class policy focus, not at least because of the middle class effect of social policy (stabilisation instead of redistribution) and the underclass focus of social work (regulating the poor).

    In the last decades the middle class seems to be under siege – economically as well as culturally: Researchers and policy makers report a decline of the middle class in existing welfare states and in developing countries the rise of the middle class seems to be stopped. Therefore members of the middle classes, especially in the OECD-countries, fear their social decline, e.g. looking on the European trends of unemployment for young people (e.g. Spain or Greece) and the rising inequality almost all around the world.

    On that background Social Work & Society is very grateful to present our readers the new Special Issue on “The Decline of the Middle Class”, edited by Neil Gilbert (Berkeley), Antonio López Peláez and Sagrario Segado Sánchez Cabezudo (both Madrid). The SW&S Special Issue includes six really interesting papers on different aspects of the topic­: Andoni Alonso, Silvia Ferreira and David Alonso (Madrid) argue in regard to labour conditions in the 21st Century that we do have to understand that Middle Class is evolving to Precariat; Marta Blanco Carrasco (Madrid) thinks about Community Mediation: a Tool for Citizen Participation in Public Policy; a paper followed by Melissa Lopez Reyes’ (Manila) paper on Multiple Family SES Indices: Variations between Middle Class and Lower Social Class Undergraduate Samples; Labor, Health, Social Work and the Middle Classes is the topic, Antonio López-Peláez (Madrid) is focussing in his paper. He asks if Spanish Youth have to jeopardize their Health to find a Job?; Fernando de Lucas’ (Madrid) paper is on Crisis, social class, employment and education; and last but not least Enrique Pastor Seller (Murcia) is working on Participation and Social Services: Local Intervention in Spain.

     

    SW&S Forum

    Beside the Special Issue our new issue of SW&S presents a number of highly interesting papers on different topics in the SW&S Forum: Sophie Danneris (Aalborg): One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Diversifying research on active labor market policies; Jennifer Davis-Berman (Dayton): Serious Illness and End-of-Life Care in the Homeless: Examining a Service System and a Call for Action for Social Work; Victoria Schmidt (Brno): Eugenics and special education in the Czech lands during the Interwar Period: The beginning of segregation against disabled and Roma; Priscillah Rukundo, Marguerite Daniel (Bergen): Children orphaned by AIDS in Uganda: Can they thrive under orphanage care?; Pia K. Eriksson (Helsinki): Losing control in pre-adoption services: Finnish prospective adoptive parents’ emotional experiences of vulnerability.

    Being able to present such a stimulatory new issue, we wish all our readers that they will enjoy our new issue of Social Work & Society as always!

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Drugs – Drug Use(r) – Drug Market(s)
    Vol. 13 No. 2 (2015)

    „Drugs – Drug Use(r) – Drug Market(s). Reflections and Perspectives for Social Services”. A New SW&S Special Issue

    SW&S Special Issue

    To identify social work clients as “drug abusers” has traditionally been a typical behavioral pattern. The use of drugs has also been seen as a social problem in the traditional welfare state of the so called western world. This is right and wrong at the same time: On the one side the current (welfare) state has become a new agency of repression – not at least against public drug use, illegal as well as legalized drugs, in bigger cities; on the other side the neo-liberal agenda allows public debates about the liberalization of drug distribution by calling the individual subject a responsible customer.

    On that background the question of drugs, drug use(rs) and drug markets can still be seen as a main issue of social work and social policy in welfare states. At the same time they represent a field of change, where the transformations of welfare can be witnessed.

    Therefore Social Work & Society is very grateful to present our readers the new Special Issue on “Drugs – Drug Use(r)- Drug Market(s)”: Michelle Pelans paper on Re-visioning Drug Use is opening the SW&S Special Issue by discussing the question of its transformation Away From Criminal Justice and Abstinence-based Approaches. In its Cross-National Comparative Study Matteo Di Placido is Comparing Social Service’s Networks for Underage Drug Users, followed by Lis Bodil Karlssons, Ulla Rantakeisus and Kirsti Kuuselas paper using A Narrative Approach to reflect the Recovery Process from Addiction and Abuse. Wes Abercrombie and Mitchell Mackinem are concluding the SW&S Special Issue by reflecting the exploration of Community Based Responses and the Natural History of a Drug Market”.

    SW&S Forum

    Beside the Special Issue the new issue involves also fascinating papers in the SW&S Forum on Ageing and Care of Older Persons in Southern Africa by Jotham Dhemba & Bennadate Dhemba; on Acquiring Life Skills Whilst in Residential Care in Ghana by Esmeranda Manful, Harriet Takyi & Eunice Gambrah; on Axel Honneth’s Recognition Model for Social Work by Stanley Houston; and last, but not least on The Epistemological Difference between “Lifeworld” and “Life Conditions” by Björn Kraus.

    Information from the Co-Ordinating Office

    At the end of the 13th year of Social Work & Society our well known online journal has been restructured. From now on the publication policy of SW&S will be focused on the Special Issue section and a general article section, the SW&S Forum. The SW&S Special Issues will mostly be edited by guest editors (see the Call for Special Issues: http://www.socwork.net/sws). The former SW&S sections “Research & PhD Notes”, “Essays”, “Historical Portraits” and “Book Reviews” have been closed.

    Another change concerns the double blind peer review process. This will be coordinated and controlled by the Co-Ordinating Office for all SW&S sections from now on.

    Enjoy our new issue of Social Work & Society.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Labour Market Policy at Street Level
    Vol. 13 No. 1 (2015)

    “Activation Policy all over?” New SW&S Special Issue on Labor Market Policy at Street Level

    Esping-Andersens well known (tripartite) typology of welfare regimes has been dominant for decades in international welfare state and social policy research. Although researchers have been skeptical on the typology in detail Esping-Andersens model is widely used as a theoretical framework, especially for international comparative work.

    Since activation, privatization, and precariousness have become structural characteristics of the changing welfare states in the last decades, discussions of retrenchment (Levy and others), amalgamation (Dobrowolsky and others), and post-welfarism (Peck and others) question the welfare state model as immovable (Pierson) and as path dependent in general. It seems to be obvious that beside the different paths a quite similar welfare program have been put on the political agenda of former welfare states (e.g. self-responsibility, self-interest, and market competition).

    In social work and education policy activation has become the new strategy in this context. Quite a bit of research had been done on those new programs of activation, not at least in labor market policy as the structure-forming field of social policy and social work. But the street level practices of labor market policy and activation policy in general is still underexposed.

    Therefore Social Work & Society is very grateful to present our readers the new S&WS Special Issue, edited by Daniela Böhringer (Germany), on labor market policy at street level. International scholars from the US, UK, and Germany present highly inspiring papers on different issues regarding the field of labor policy.

    Enjoy the new issue of Social Work & Society.

    The SW&S Co-Ordinating Office

  • Creating Capabilities for Socially Vulnerable Youth in Europe
    Vol. 12 No. 2 (2014)

  • Turning Points
    Vol. 12 No. 1 (2014)

    Special Issue on Turning Points

    Social policy and social work as welfare agencies are agents of social control. Governmentality studies or neo-marxist approaches emphasize welfare as a form of moral regulation concerned with disciplining populations in line with customary ideas of normality. But welfare states can also be defined as societies focused on increasing individual freedom and collective protection – if we take the idea of welfare for granted. In this sense welfare states aim to open spaces for the empowerment and self-determination of citizens and welfare agencies, such as social work. So, social policy and social work are also agencies of socializing and educating people.

    Therefore the question of life trajectories is by special interest for social policy and social work research. By focusing on turning points – so, moments of change in the life course of people – the papers in the current SW&S-Special Issue are opening a fascinating perspective on the question of life trajectories.

    All papers look for turning points in disadvantaged life trajectories: How is that turning points occur?; What influence can be identified by the intervention of social work or social policy?; Which appropriate research approaches have been established so far? – and all papers are based on empirical data, more precisely: on qualitative data.

    The SW&S-Editorial Board is very pleased to contribute to the international debate on those highly relevant questions and therefore very thankful to the guest editor, Maren Zeller (University of Hildesheim/ Germany).

    Also, we are very happy to present to papers on a Model of Analyzing the Possibilities of Power, Help and Control by Björn Kraus and on "Violence, Sex or Work? Claims-Making against the Swedisch ban on the purchase of sexual services on the Internet" by Gabriella Scaramuzzino and Roberto Scaramuzzino.

    All the best to all SW&S-readers: Enjoy reading the current issue of Social Work & Society!

    The SW&S.Co-Ordinating Office

  • Student Attitudes in Social Work
    Vol. 11 No. 1 (2013)

    New Issue! Special Issue on Student Attitudes in Social Work

    Welfare States are under transformation, in Europe as well as in other parts of the world. Probably this is as true as never before since 2008 and 2009, the years of the so called financial crisis have started. Therefore social work and social policy have been fundamentally changed as parts or even as a correspondent to welfare regimes and also as a public service. But social work is not only re-acting in the radically transformed political arena, but acting actively as an agent of the current transformation of former welfare states as well.

    On this background the question of attitudes, of values and motivations, of those who are the daily agents of social work, are of high interest. Especially the ethical, political and professional perspectives of those, who will be the agents of social work practice and research in future, should be focused: Will there be a change in the student’s perspectives as an expression of the transformation? How strong can be a professional habitus of social work students – relatively independent of policy changes or not?

    These questions are so far underresearched. Student attitudes have been focused by individual authors in the last years already, but there are results missing in regard to the transformation of welfare states and social policy in general.

    Hence Social Work & Society is very pleased to contribute to an international debate on those questions of student attitudes by publishing two groundbreaking papers, presenting first research insights from Italy and Germany: Annamaria Campanini and Carla Facchini can show the results of a nationwide survey with almost 2000 Italian BA students and Bernd Dollinger, Nina Oelkers and Holger Ziegler present a first considerations on the basis of a three-parted survey, based on a survey in three main academic courses of social work education in Germany, where around 600 students have been questioned.

     

    Beside the SW&S.Special Issue on attitudes of social work students, the current issue includes a number of highly relevant papers: Michael B. Katz on Biological Inferiority of the Undeserving Poor; Bjørn Øystein on Children and Explorations of Self-Perception in the context of foster care; Sigrid Schilling, Joel Gautschi, Cornelia Rüegger, Olga Kurenkova and Gregori Shcherbakov on International Cooperation in Social Work and not at least Mavis Dako-Gyeke and Emmanuel Sowah Asumang on Stigmatization and Discrimination Experiences of Persons with Mental Illness. But the current SW&S.Issue also includes a very interesting essay on Active Local Information and Communication Strategy within the Context of the European Migration Policy by Anja Van den Durpel and more very helpful reflections on the transformation of the welfare state by Marlene Walk in her research paper.

     

    A current information to the SW&S.readers:

    After SW&S have been funded as a member of the Digital Peer Publishing Initiative (DIPP) and by the German Research Association (DFG) in the last years and till the beginning of 2013, SW&S has to develop a new institutional basis. This process is still under development, but after first steps have been done in the last months decisions will be made at the beginning of 2014. We will inform all our readers as soon as possible. If there was a lack in response in the last months from the SW&S.Co-Ordinating Office, we do have to apologize. But the current situation is a result of our institutional changes and the challenges in a self-organized context of an Open Access Journal like SW&S is one.

    However: We are looking forward to our 11th year in 2014 – even there is enough to worry about. But we will continue to act as a journal interested in a critical and political perspective on social work and social policy research.

    Thanks a lot for your interest and enjoy the current and all future SW&S.Issues!

    The SW&S.Co-Ordinating Office

  • Working at the border
    Vol. 10 No. 2 (2012)

    „Jubilee Edition“ / Part II - 10 years of SW&S: “Working at the border”


    Open Access Journals have been established in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As a reaction on the paradoxical situation of having for the first time the technical possibilities to open the access to a global audience through the internet, but experiencing main international publishers going the other way around by raising the rates for the existing journals massively, the international open access movement adopted the Budapest Open Access Initiative in February 2002 and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access in 2003.

    In that context a group of international scholars from social work and social policy decided in 2001 to implement Social Work & Society. After one and a half year of preparation in autumn 2003 the first issue of SW&S was ready to be launched on www.socwork.net.

    As an early pioneer of open access publishing SW&S joined the Digital Peer Publishing Initiative NRW in 2005 and has been supported by the German Research Foundation from 2009 till 2012.

    In the tenth year SW&S is now a very well known international Open Access Journal, valued by a growing number of users.

    Therefore the Editorial and the Advisory Board really want to thank all authors, reviewers and not at least the users for their support and interest in the last ten years!

    We are really happy to present you the second part of our jubilee edition (Vol 10, Issue 2): The new SW&S.Special Issue on “Working at the border”, edited by Catrin Heite (Zurich), Fabian Kessl (Duisburg-Essen) and Susanne Maurer (Marburg); main articles by Margrit Brückner (Frankfurt) on “Understanding Professional Care from the Viewpoint of Care Receivers and Care Givers – The Necessity of a Special Care Rationality”, Priscilla Dunk-West (Adelaide) on “The Sexual Self and Social Work and Policy, or, Why Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Programmes miss the Point”, Rashmi Gupta (San Francisco) / Vijayan K. Pillai (Arlington) on “Elder Caregiving in South-Asian Families in the United States and India”, Zuzana Havrdová / Jiří Šafr / Ingrid Štegmannová (Prague) on “Positions of Social Workers’ Views About Residential Care for People with Dementia”, Marek Perlinski / Björn Blom / Stefan Morén (Umeå) on “Different Worlds Within Swedish Personal Social Services. Social Worker’s Views on Conditions for Client Work in Different Organisational Models.” and Damian Spiteri (Malta) on “Does the Adoption of an In-Depth Questioning Approach Promote Self-Reflexivity? Its Application to the Social Work Education Context.”; three research notes and the current SW&S.Historical Portrait on Clifford W. Beers (by Hans Oh and Jordan DeVylder).

    This is www.socwork.net in the tenth year – the Open Access-Journal for Critical International Debates on Social Work & Social Policy!

    Thanks for your interest and a stimulating reading, again,

    The SW&S.Co-Ordinating Office

  • Transition From Education To Work - A Question Of Justice
    Vol. 10 No. 1 (2012)

    „Jubilee Edition“ - 10 years of SW&S: „Transition From Education To Work - A Question Of Justice"

    Open Access Journals have been established in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As a reaction on the paradoxical situation of having for the first time the technical possibilities to open the access to a global audience through the internet, but experiencing main international publishers going the other way around by raising the rates for the existing journals massively, the international open access movement adopted the Budapest Open Access Initiative in February 2002 and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access in 2003.

    In that context a group of international scholars from social work and social policy decided in 2001 to implement Social Work & Society. After one and a half year of preparation in autumn 2003 the first issue of SW&S was ready to be launched on www.socwork.net.

    As an early pioneer of open access publishing SW&S joined the Digital Peer Publishing Initiative NRW in 2005 and have been supported by the German Research Foundation from 2009 on.

    In the tenth year SW&S is now a very well known international Open Access Journal, valued by a growing number of users.

    Therefore the Editorial and the Advisory Board really want to thank all authors, reviewers and not at least the users for their support and interest in the last ten years!

    We are happy to present you a broad variety of excellent papers in our first „Jubilee Edition“-issue: So, have a look in Vol.10./No 1 of Social Work & Society, including the new SW&S.Special Issue on „Transition From Education To Work - A Question Of Justice", main articles by Jotham Dhemba (Lesotho) and Jason L. Powell (Liverpool) on Fieldwork in Social Work Education and Training and Social Work and Elder Abuse, two research notes and an essay by Magda Frišaufová (Masaryk), Stefan Pohlmann, Paula Heinecker and Christian Leopold (all Munich) and Christian Spatscheck (Bremen) and the current SW&S.Historical Portraits by Anna Amera and Jan Steyaert (Antwerp) on Litsa Alexandraki and Jane Jacobs.

    This is www.socwork.net - the Open Access-Journal for Critical International Debates on Social Work & Social Policy!

    SW&S.Co-Ordinating Office

  • European History of Social Work
    Vol. 9 No. 2 (2011)

    Special Issue on European History of Social Work – and anew look of the SW&S-Journal!

    The current financial crisis in Europe appears to be the further strengthening of the global economic crisis of 2008 and 2009. But in contrast to the marked silence of alternative positions in 2008, the current European debate has opened spaces for anti-hegemonic positions and practices. We can also find more than single voices trying to make sense out of the developments called „financial and economical crisis“ regarding to the cultural and social dimension of these radical shifts in political economy. The demonstrations in of the „European Summer“ in Athens, London, Rome, Madrid, or Lisbon and the European part of the and global occupy movement represents a growing political and public struggle about the future of Europe and the future in Europe.

    On that background Social Work & Society is very pleased to be able to present a SW&S.Special Issue on European History of Social Work, edited by Mirja Satka (University of Helsinki) and Caroline Skehill (Queens University of Belfast). All contributors ask for the historical and often transnational antecedents of the current transformation processes in Europe.
    The SW&S.Special Issue European History of Social Work contains papers by Timo Harrikari on the Making of the First Child Welfare and Juvenile Crisis in Finland, by Gisela Haus on Habituation, Coercion, Education: Labour in the History of Social Welfare, by Vesna Leskošek on Historical Perspective on the Ideologies of Motherhood and its Impact on Social Work, by Kristina Popova on Between Public Health and Social Work: Visiting Nurses in the Struggle Against Poverty and Infant Mortality in Bulgaria 1923-1934 and by Berteke Waaldijk on Social Work Between Oppression and Emancipation. Histories of Discomfort and Inspiration in Europe.

    Further on, the new current SW&S.Issue presents papers by Tumani Malinga, Poloko N. Ntshwarang on Alternative Care for Children in Botswana: a Reality or Idealism?, new SW&S.Essays by Sabine Hering and by Hannele Forsberg and Tarja Pösö, an Historical Portrait on the Austrian social work theorist Ilse Arlt (Maria Maiss), a Book Review by Nicola Carr, and of course a new keyword in our SW&S.Glossary by Kaspar Viladsen.


    Last but not least, we want to advise you to our new design and our new structure: SW&S has changed fundamentally – both aesthetically and functionally. Beside our new new multi-lingual abstract-structure in five languages (Thanks again to our translators: Antje Brock, Zoe Clark, Stephan Dahmen, Ksenia Kuzmina, Daniel Rebbe, Bettina Ritter, Emilie Rosenstein & Yafang Wang) we offer a totally re-newed look, a better structure and a modified search in SW&S from now on.

    Enjoy our improved Social Work & Society-Journal!

  • Practice Research
    Vol. 9 No. 1 (2011)

  • Boundaries of the Evidence Based Strategies
    Vol. 8 No. 1 (2010)

  • Landscapes of Education
    Vol. 7 No. 2 (2009)

  • Orphan Care
    Vol. 7 No. 1 (2009)

  • Marginalized Youth
    Vol. 6 No. 2 (2008)

  • De- and Reterritorialization of the Social - Supplement: Presidents of IASSW 1928-2008
    Vol. 6 No. 1 (2008)

    Social Work & Society celebrates the 80th anniversary of the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) with a SW&S-Special Supplement containing Portraits of all IASSW Presidents.

    We are proud to honour all these leading figures of IASSW and their impressive commitment to and lasting achievements in international Social Work Education and Practice.

    Our special thanks to Friedrich Seibel for editing this outstanding historical document, which is also available in a printed version.

    July 20th 2008

    Fabian Kessl & Hans-Uwe Otto, Co-Ordinating Office SW&S

    This Supplement has also been published as a book
    SEIBEL, Friedrich W. (Editor)
    Global Leaders for Social Work Education:
    The IASSW Presidents 1928-2008
    ECSPRESS-Edition - ECSPRESSE Band 5
    Verlag ALBERT, Boscovice/CZ 2008
    (ISBN 978-80-7326-133-7)

    and is available as "print on demand" from the
    European Centre for Community Education - ECCE
    Rheinau 3-4
    D-56075 KOBLENZ
    Tel. : +49/261/56617
    Fax : +49/261/56953
    Mobil: +49/177/3401938
    E-mail:koblenz@ecce-net.eu
    http://www.ecce-net.eu

  • Festschrift Walter Lorenz
    Vol. 5 No. 3 (2007)

  • SW&S
    Vol. 5 No. 2 (2007)

  • SW&S
    Vol. 5 No. 1 (2007)

  • SW&S
    Vol. 4 No. 2 (2006)

  • SW&S
    Vol. 4 No. 1 (2006)

  • SW&S
    Vol. 3 No. 2 (2005)

  • SW&S
    Vol. 3 No. 1 (2005)

  • SW&S
    Vol. 2 No. 2 (2004)

  • SW&S
    Vol. 2 No. 1 (2004)

  • SW&S
    Vol. 1 No. 1 (2003)