Vol. 23 No. 2 (2025): Empowering Vulnerable Populations: Protection, Support, and Adaptation

It has been a fundamental insight for social work and social policy to understand the common vulnerability of men. The need for care is probably the only anthropological dimension at all. To understand the existential significance of vulnerability and the human need for care has fundamental consequences for the issues that social work and social policy address: autonomy exists only alongside mutual dependence; liberty and equality are only two sides of the same coin; and democracy, as a system of equal participation (‘one man, one vote’), is the necessary consequence of recognising vulnerability of all human beings. Therefore, current libertarian ideas of a radical individual freedom necessarily entail the exploitation of others in order to mask one’s own dependence on them as well as current nationalistic and chauvinist concepts, prioritising one’s own community over all other people and groups can only be done at the expense of recognising that all people are in need of care and are, by that very fact, fundamentally equal. However, this quasi-anthropological insight can only be grasped if one takes into account the historical and social conditions in which these specific vulnerabilities and dependencies on care manifest themselves. Social workers, pedagogues, and all others in the fields of social policy know all about that. After all, the concept of ‘the social’, as it has been established in the welfare states since the late 18th century, is ultimately based on the insight that the experience of specific vulnerability, as a result of poverty, homelessness, a lack of educational opportunities, violence, illness, unemployment, migration or gender inequalities, entails a public responsibility. This leads to the implementation and establishment of social policy and social work/social pedagogy – as well as public education or health care. That is why social work, social pedagogy and social policy must always be underpinned by an understanding of the existential vulnerability of all people as well as an analysis of how this has manifested itself historically in relation to the specific experiences of individuals and groups.

We are therefore delighted that the current special issue of Social Work & Society is focusing on the topic of vulnerability. Olena Karaman (Poltava/Ukraine) & Gulmira Sultanbayeva (Almaty/Kazakhstan) have kindly edited this issue under the title “Empowering Vulnerable Populations: Protection, Support, and Adaptation”. There, our readers will find reports and analyses on vulnerability among different groups in various regions of the world. Linked to this is the important point that those who implement support for vulnerable groups – not least social workers and social pedagogues themselves – are constantly confronted with the vulnerability of their own position. In the current issue, our readers will find the following articles on this topic.

As always, our SW&S.Special Issue is complemented by a selection of extremely interesting forum articles, which we are therefore delighted to present to our readers.

Once again, our readers can look forward to a highly stimulating and informative read.

SW&S.Co-Ordinating Office