Three Decades of Social Work in France: from Security within the Welfare State to a State of «Disembedded Modernity»

This article gives an overview of trends in policy on the functions and role of social work in French society over the past twenty years. The author suggests several reasons for the current feeling of crisis of professional identity among professionals and the complexities of the political demands made on social work. These are analysed as a consequence of the specific French context of decentralisation of the State and of the multitude of approaches to organisation and to professional training programs. On a broader level, it seems that French social work reflects many characteristics of “modernity” being concerned with difficulties in defining a clear identity, lack of a clear territorial and institutional base (or “disembeddedness” to borrow Giddens term) and difficulties in finding a clear voice to make its values heard in an increasingly politicised arena of public debate.

Book Review of “The Origins of Social Work: Continuity and Change”. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, by Malcolm Payne

Malcolm Payne’s latest work proposes to survey the continuity and change in social work from its inception and origins, up until the present day. In order to do justice to the theme, its author could have concentrated on developing a narrative of a national enterprise, or restricted himself to a regional analysis (Western European Social Work) or opt instead for a more narrowly focused cultural exploration, White Anglo-Saxon Social Work (WASSW). One can only infer that limiting himself in this fashion would have struck the author as parochial, or rather, that only a truly global enterprise could satisfy his capacious mind. One is left to marvel at the invocation of Darwin’s great work and wonder what was the process of the author’s “natural” selection of this material.

Homelessness, Social Work, Social Policy and the Print Media in Australian Cities

Homelessness is a significant social problem worldwide. This paper describes an Australian study that examined print media representations of homelessness and social work, social policy and social work responses to homelessness in three Australian cities. The research included a content analysis of seven Australian newspapers and semi-structured interviews with 39 social workers employed in the field of homelessness in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. The detailed results of these studies have been published separately elsewhere. This paper reports on how discourses in the print media, social policy and social work practice co-exist in constructing homelessness as a particular social problem, influencing social work responses to homelessness. The research found that individualism is central to many dominant discourses evident in the print media, social policy and social work practice, and that social work is practiced within unequal power relations embedded in organisational contexts.

Edna Chamberlain (1921 -2005): A Leader through Times of Transition and Change

Professor Edna Chamberlain was an outstanding leader in Australian social work. She contributed extensively to social work education at the University of Queensland, the social work profession through her leadership of the Australian Association of Social Workers and to the community through advocacy for progressive social policies. Her life experiences were influential is shaping her career and her particular teaching and research interests. Early in her life, Chamberlain was exposed to individual deprivation as a result of the Great Depression. This provided the incentive for a career in social work. She worked as a social work practitioner for some years and entered the academic world until after the death of her husband. In the university and profession, she was confronted by conflict between traditionalists and those wanting immediate reform. In managing these tensions, she tried to find the common ground but these tensions also moderated and changed her views about the purpose and practice of social work. Her rich practice and later research and teaching background provided a strong basis for her professional leadership, research activities and curriculum initiatives. Whilst social casework methods were influential early in her career she sought in later years to integrate the private pain of individuals with social policy and community planning by focusing on the purpose of social work – demonstrating her commitment to the disadvantaged in the context of social justice.

Influential Social Workers: A Preliminary Exploration of Social Work Faculty

The profession of social work in the U.S. has been influenced and is being influenced by a wide-range of advocates, politicians, practitioners, and educators. This paper is a preliminary attempt to systematically examine who social work faculty consider influential in shaping the field. Identifying influential social workers is an important step in understanding the history of a profession, its current state, and its future trajectory.

Herman D. Stein

Herman Stein, President of the International Association of Schools of Social Work from 1968 - 1976, has for more than sixty years excelled as an educator, scholar, internationalist, university administrator, and leader in a variety of professional associations. From almost the beginning of his career, the world has been the stage on which he has played those many roles, all of them with an abundance of talent. In fact, while he was in the graduate program of what is now the Columbia University School of Social Work, he had to decide whether to become a social worker or an actor. As an undergraduate he became involved in student theatrical productions, where he teamed up with the famous comedian, Danny Kaye, who became a life-long companion and friend. At the end of Steins first year in the social work program, he was invited to join an off-Broadway variety show that helped to launch Kaye on his meteoric rise on both stage and screen. "If I´d joined," Stein has said, "the theater probably was going to be where I would make my career as a character actor." Fortunately for social work and social work education, he chose instead to continue his studies at the School of Social Work, from which he received his master's degree in 1941 and the doctoral degree in 1958. While the world has been his stage, education has been at the heart of his manifold activities. Following a period of direct service practice as a caseworker in a well-known private agency in New York City, he was recruited by the Columbia School of Social Work in 1945 as a faculty member. With an interruption for a significant overseas assignment from 1947 to 1950, he continued at Columbia for another fourteen years, rising through all professorial ranks to Professor and Director of the School's Research Center.