Semiotic Analysis in the Study of Social Work

Research and professional practices have the joint aim of re-structuring the preconceived notions of reality. They both want to gain the understanding about social reality. Social workers use their professional competence in order to grasp the reality of their clients, while researchers’ pursuit is to open the secrecies of the research material. Development and research are now so intertwined and inherent in almost all professional practices that making distinctions between practising, developing and researching has become difficult and in many aspects irrelevant. Moving towards research-based practices is possible and it is easily applied within the framework of the qualitative research approach (Dominelli 2005, 235; Humphries 2005, 280). Social work can be understood as acts and speech acts crisscrossing between social workers and clients. When trying to catch the verbal and non-verbal hints of each others’ behaviour, the actors have to do a lot of interpretations in a more or less uncertain mental landscape. Our point of departure is the idea that the study of social work practices requires tools which effectively reveal the internal complexity of social work (see, for example, Adams & Dominelli & Payne 2005, 294 – 295). The boom of qualitative research methodologies in recent decades is associated with much profound the rupture in humanities, which is called the linguistic turn (Rorty 1967). The idea that language is not transparently mediating our perceptions and thoughts about reality, but on the contrary it constitutes it was new and even confusing to many social scientists. Nowadays we have got used to read research reports which have applied different branches of discursive analyses or narratologic or semiotic approaches. Although differences are sophisticated between those orientations they share the idea of the predominance of language. Despite the lively research work of today’s social work and the research-minded atmosphere of social work practice, semiotics has rarely applied in social work research. However, social work as a communicative practice concerns symbols, metaphors and all kinds of the representative structures of language. Those items are at the core of semiotics, the science of signs, and the science which examines people using signs in their mutual interaction and their endeavours to make the sense of the world they live in, their semiosis. When thinking of the practice of social work and doing the research of it, a number of interpretational levels ought to be passed before reaching the research phase in social work. First of all, social workers have to interpret their clients’ situations, which will be recorded in the files. In some very rare cases those past situations will be reflected in discussions or perhaps interviews or put under the scrutiny of some researcher in the future. Each and every new observation adds its own flavour to the mixture of meanings. Social workers have combined their observations with previous experience and professional knowledge, furthermore, the situation on hand also influences the reactions. In addition, the interpretations made by social workers over the course of their daily working routines are never limited to being part of the personal process of the social worker, but are also always inherently cultural. The work aiming at social change is defined by the presence of an initial situation, a specific goal, and the means and ways of achieving it, which are – or which should be – agreed upon by the social worker and the client in situation which is unique and at the same time socially-driven. Because of the inherent plot-based nature of social work, the practices related to it can be analysed as stories (see Dominelli 2005, 234), given, of course, that they are signifying and told by someone. The research of the practices is concentrating on impressions, perceptions, judgements, accounts, documents etc. All these multifarious elements can be scrutinized as textual corpora, but not whatever textual material. In semiotic analysis, the material studied is characterised as verbal or textual and loaded with meanings. We present a contribution of research methodology, semiotic analysis, which has to our mind at least implicitly references to the social work practices. Our examples of semiotic interpretation have been picked up from our dissertations (Laine 2005; Saurama 2002). The data are official documents from the archives of a child welfare agency and transcriptions of the interviews of shelter employees. These data can be defined as stories told by the social workers of what they have seen and felt. The official documents present only fragmentations and they are often written in passive form. (Saurama 2002, 70.) The interviews carried out in the shelters can be described as stories where the narrators are more familiar and known. The material is characterised by the interaction between the interviewer and interviewee. The levels of the story and the telling of the story become apparent when interviews or documents are examined with the use of semiotic tools. The roots of semiotic interpretation can be found in three different branches; the American pragmatism, Saussurean linguistics in Paris and the so called formalism in Moscow and Tartu; however in this paper we are engaged with the so called Parisian School of semiology which prominent figure was A. J. Greimas. The Finnish sociologists Pekka Sulkunen and Jukka Törrönen (1997a; 1997b) have further developed the ideas of Greimas in their studies on socio-semiotics, and we lean on their ideas. In semiotics social reality is conceived as a relationship between subjects, observations, and interpretations and it is seen mediated by natural language which is the most common sign system among human beings (Mounin 1985; de Saussure 2006; Sebeok 1986). Signification is an act of associating an abstract context (signified) to some physical instrument (signifier). These two elements together form the basic concept, the “sign”, which never constitutes any kind of meaning alone. The meaning will be comprised in a distinction process where signs are being related to other signs. In this chain of signs, the meaning becomes diverged from reality. (Greimas 1980, 28; Potter 1996, 70; de Saussure 2006, 46-48.) One interpretative tool is to think of speech as a surface under which deep structures – i.e. values and norms – exist (Greimas & Courtes 1982; Greimas 1987). To our mind semiotics is very much about playing with two different levels of text: the syntagmatic surface which is more or less faithful to the grammar, and the paradigmatic, semantic structure of values and norms hidden in the deeper meanings of interpretations. Semiotic analysis deals precisely with the level of meaning which exists under the surface, but the only way to reach those meanings is through the textual level, the written or spoken text. That is why the tools are needed. In our studies, we have used the semiotic square and the actant analysis. The former is based on the distinctions and the categorisations of meanings, and the latter on opening the plotting of narratives in order to reach the value structures.

Beyond the Pro and Contra of Evidence-Based Practice: Reflections on a Recurring Dilemma at the Core of Social Work

Currently, social work is witnessing a quite polarized debate about what should be the basis for good practice. Simply stated, the different attempts to define the required basis for effective and accountable interventions in social work practice can be grouped in two paradigmatic positions, which seem to be in strong opposition to each other. On the one hand the highly influential evidence based practice movement highlights the necessity to base practice interventions on proven effectiveness from empirical research. Despite some variations, such as between narrow conceptions of evidence based practice (see e.g. McNeece/Thyer, 2004) and broader approaches to it (see e.g. Gambrill, 1999, 2001, 2008), the evidence based practice movement embodies a positivist orientation and more explicitly scientific aspirations of social work by using positivistic empirical strategies. Critics of the evidence based practice movement argue that its narrow epistemological assumptions are not appropriate for the understanding of social phenomena and that evidence based guidelines to practice are insufficient to deal with the extremely complex activities social work practice requires in different and always somewhat unique practice situations (Webb, 2001; Gray & Mc Donald, 2006; Otto, Polutta &Ziegler, 2009). Furthermore critics of evidence based practice argue that it privileges an uncritical and a-political positivism which seems highly problematic in the current climate of welfare state reforms, in which the question ‘what works’ is highly politicized and the legitimacy of professional social work practice is being challenged maybe more than ever before (Kessl, 2009). Both opponents and proponents of evidence based practice argue on the epistemological, the methodological and the ethical level to sustain their point of view and raise fundamental questions about the real nature of social work practice, so that one could get the impression that social work is really at the crossroads between two very different conceptions of social work practice and its further professional development (Stepney, 2009). However, this article is not going to merely rehearse the pro and contra of different positions that are being invoked in the debate about evidence based practice. Instead it aims to go further by identifying the dilemmas underlying these positions which - so it is argued – re-emerge in the debate about evidence based practice, but which are older than this debate. They concern the fundamental ambivalence modern professionalization processes in social work were subjected to from their very beginnings.

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.

The Role of Social Work in National Development

The approach in this paper will be to define social work and national development first and then try to establish the relationship between the two. The various categories of social work and their presumed influence on the various aspects of development will then be discussed. Thereafter, the discussion will be directed to the overall effects of the process of social work, in its totality, on national development.

Implementing Swedish Models of Social Work in a Russian Context

The economic and social changes taking place in Russia in recent decades have implied a restructuring of the Russian society. Among other things, Russian leaders have expressed a need for the reorientation of social development. In the 1990’s, cooperation was initiated on a number of social work and social welfare projects with international support, a process further speeded up during President Jeltsin’s state visit to Sweden in 1997. Discussions between the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Russian authorities dealing with welfare issues started from the assumption that Russian professional social work was weak and needed to be strengthened. In the 1990's Sida was also given a stronger general mandate to work with other former Soviet countries in Eastern Europe, for example the Baltic States. The Russian-Swedish discussions resulted in projects aiming to raise social work competencies in public authorities, managements and among social workers in Russia. One of the areas chosen for these projects was Saint Petersburg, where several projects aiming to develop new models for social work were launched. The point of departure has been to transfer and adjust Swedish models of social work to the Russian context. The Stockholm University Department of Social Work became responsible for a number of such projects and besides using academic teachers also involved a number of practitioners, such as social workers in disablement services and reformatory staff who could meet and match Russian authorities and partners.

Servizi Sociali Territoriali e Università: Esempi di Sinergie Possibili per un Percorso di Qualità

Although – or because – social work education in Italy has for some 15 years now been exclusively in the domain of the university the relationship between the academic world and that of practice has been highly tenuous. Research is indeed being conducted by universities, but rarely on issues that are of immediate practice relevance. This means that forms of practice develop and become established habitually which are not checked against rigorous standards of research and that the creation of knowledge at academic level pays scant attention to the practice implications of social changes. This situation has been made even worse by the dwindling resources both in social services and at the level of the universities which means that bureaucratic procedures or imports of specialisations from other disciplines frequently dominate the development of practice instead of a theory-based approach to methodology. This development does not do justice to the actual requirements of Italian society faced with ever increasing post-modern complexity which is reflected also in the nature of social problems because it implies a continuation of a faith in modernity with its idea of technical, clear-cut solutions while social relations have decidedly moved beyond that belief. This discrepancy puts even greater strain on the personnel of welfare agencies and does ultimately not satisfy the ever increasing demands for quality and accountability of services on the part of users and the general public. Social workers badly lack fundamental theoretical reference points which could guide them in their difficult work to arrive at autonomous, situation-specific methodological answers not based on procedures but on analytical knowledge. Thirty years ago, in 1977, a Presidential Decree created the legal basis for the establishment of social service departments at the level of municipalities which created opportunities for the direct involvement of the community in the fight against exclusion. For this potential to be fully utilized it would have required the bringing together of three dimensions, the organizational structure, the opportunities for learning and research in the territory and the contribution by the professional community. As this did not occur social services in Italy still often retain the character of charity which does not concern itself with the actual causes of poverty and exclusion. This in turn affects the relationship with citizens in general who cannot develop trust in those services. Through uncritical processes of interaction Edgar Morin’s dictum manifests itself which is that without resorting to critical reflection on complexity interventions can often have an effect that totally the opposite to the original intention. An important element in setting up a dynamic interchange between academia and practice is the placement on professional social work courses. Here the looping of theory to practice and back to theory etc. can actually take place under the right organizational and conceptual conditions, more so than in abstract, and for practitioners often useless debates about the theory-practice connection. Furthermore, research projects at the University of Florence Social Work Department for instance aim at fostering theoretical reflection at the level of and with the involvement of municipal social service agencies. With a general constructive disposition towards research and some financial investment students were facilitated to undertake social service practice related research for their degree theses for instance in the city of Pistoia. In this way it was also possible to strengthen the confidence and professional identity of social workers as they became aware of the contribution their own discipline can make to practice-relevant research instead of having to move over to disciplines like psychology for those purposes. Examples of this fruitful collaboration were presented at a conference in Pistoia on 25 June 2007. One example is a thesis entitled ‘The object of social work’ and examines the difficult development of definitions of social work and comes to the conclusion that ‘nothing is more practical than a theory’. Another is on coping abilities as a necessary precondition for the utilization of resources supplied by social services in exceptional circumstances. Others deal with the actual sequence of interventions in crisis situations, and one very interestingly looks at time and how it is being constructed often differently by professionals and clients. At the same time as this collaboration on research gathers momentum in the Toscana, supervision is also being demanded more forcefully as complementary to research and with the same aim of profiling more strongly the professional identity of social work. Collaboration between university and social service filed is for mutual benefit. At a time when professional practice is under threat of being defined from the outside through bureaucratic prescriptions a sound grounding in theory is a necessary precondition for competent practice.

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.

Katherine A. Kendall (USA), Honorary President since 1978

For more than two-thirds of the life of the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), Katherine Kendall has been among its leaders. She began her involvement in 1950, served as the first paid Secretary General of the Association in the 1970's and, now in her late 90's, continues to share her wisdom as Honorary President. Beginning in 1950, she attended all the IASSW congresses except 2 (1990 and 1998) until 2004, when health issues prevented long international trips. She personally knew and worked with every President except the first. Thus, although the IASSW began with sustained involvement and contributions of two remarkable founders, Alice Salomon and René Sand, Kendall has surpassed all in terms of her enduring commitment to international social work education and its professional organization. Kendall's remarkable professional career spans 7 decades. Her international involvements began even earlier.

Katherine A. Kendall (USA), Honorary President since 1978

For more than two-thirds of the life of the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), Katherine Kendall has been among its leaders. She began her involvement in 1950, served as the first paid Secretary General of the Association in the 1970's and, now in her late 90's, continues to share her wisdom as Honorary President. Beginning in 1950, she attended all the IASSW congresses except 2 (1990 and 1998) until 2004, when health issues prevented long international trips. She personally knew and worked with every President except the first. Thus, although the IASSW began with sustained involvement and contributions of two remarkable founders, Alice Salomon and René Sand, Kendall has surpassed all in terms of her enduring commitment to international social work education and its professional organization. Kendall's remarkable professional career spans 7 decades. Her international involvements began even earlier. This article will focus on highlights of her international career, especially her IASSW service. It will also discuss her formative years and mention other aspects of contributions. Materials for the article are drawn from published and unpublished interviews conducted by other scholars, Kendall's own writings, and a personal interview conducted by the author in 2007.