Social Theory, Social Change and Social Work

Nigel Parton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134799220
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery
• Index: Social Sciences

Social Theory, Social Change and Social Work has two inter-related themes. First to account for and analyse current changes in social work and secondly, to assess how far recent developments in social theory can contribute to their interpretation. Representing the work of a range of academics all involved in research and teaching in relation to social work, it considers issues of central significance to everyone interested in the theory, policy, and practice of social work.

Chapter 1

Social Theory, Social Change and Social Work

An Introduction

Nigel Parton

Ever since the early 1970s social work in Britain has been highly contested and subject to a variety of public, political and professional debates and opprobrium often in the full glare of media attention (Franklin and Parton, 1991; Aldridge, 1994). However, recent years have witnessed new levels of uncertainty and change characterised by the ‘destabilisation of an entire service system’. While this generates energy, excitement and new ideas, as Harding (1992) argues, it also generates high anxiety and stress for those involved, particularly if they have few opportunities to understand or influence it. ‘The certainties of a professionally-driven, local authority-controlled service system no longer exist, and few people have a clear vision or experience of the potential alternatives’ (Harding, 1992:3).

At one level these uncertainties arise from the changes ushered in by the Children Act 1989, the National Health Services and Community Care Act 1990 and the Criminal Justice Act 1991, together with changes in the training of social workers, particularly the Diploma in Social Work (CCETSW, 1989). At another level, however, they reflect much wider and fundamental changes in the state, the economy and society more generally. What becomes evident is that the uncertainties which characterise contemporary social work can also be seen to characterise the nature and form of social transformations in Western societies more generally and which have been the focus of important debates in social theory.

The pace and intensity of change has been such that it has proved difficult to take stock of what is happening, what the implications might be and what futures might be opening up. It certainly seems that we are living through an important period of change in social work—in its priorities, organisation and day-to-day practices—and that its rationale and social locations are shifting in fundamental ways. Our central concern in this book is to analyse the changing nature of social work in the context of these wider social transformations and current debates in social theory. What can social work learn from these wider debates and how far can changes in contemporary social work be seen to exemplify particular instances of much wider transformations? However, the central question we are addressing, from our diverse perspectives, is how can we best understand and re-conceptualise contemporary social work and how can this then inform social work itself?

The other central theme running through the book is that conceptual and theoretical debate about social work and for social work has been severely lacking in recent years at a time when such debate is needed more than ever. The social-work academy has been marginalised. Yet, if social work is to think independently and reconstruct itself, academic debates, drawing on contemporary developments in social theory, are important. We should not be embarrassed by saying things that are troublesome and awkward and thereby open up the possibilities of seeing the world in different ways.

The purpose of this introductory chapter is threefold. It aims to provide a beginning framework for analysing the contemporary nature of social work and how this has changed over time. Second, it summarises some of the perspectives that have emerged in social theory in recent years for accounting for the nature of contemporary society and the key elements of social change. Reference will be made to perspectives associated with postmodernity, postmodernisation and post-Fordism. Finally, I will attempt to articulate, throughout the chapter, some of the key issues which social work is currently addressing and which figure centrally in the book.

The Contemporary State of Social Work

The emergence of social work is associated with the transformations that took place from the mid-nineteenth century onwards around a series of anxieties about the family and the community more generally. Social work developed as a hybrid in the space, the ‘social’ (Donzelot, 1979), between the public and the private spheres and was produced by new relations between the law, administration, medicine, the school and the family. Social work was seen as a positive solution to a major problem posed for the liberal state; namely, how can the state establish the health and development of family members who are weak and dependent, particularly children, while promoting the family as the ‘natural’ sphere for caring for those individuals and thus not intervening in all families (Hirst, 1981)? Social work developed at a midway point between individual initiative and the all-encompassing state, which would be in danger of taking responsibility for everyone’s needs and hence undermining the responsibility and role of the family.

However, the space occupied by social work has always been complex as it is related to and, in part, dependent upon numerous other, more established discourses, particularly law, health/hygiene, psychiatry and education. As a consequence, defining the nature, boundaries and settings of social work, as distinct from other practices, has always been difficult. This difficulty may be one of social work’s key defining and enduring characteristics (Stenson, 1993), for social work is in an essentially contested and ambiguous position. Most crucially, this ambiguity arises from its sphere of operation between civil society, with its allegiances to individuals and families, and the state in the guise of the court and its ‘statutory’ responsibilities. This ambiguity captures the central, but often submerged, nature of modern social work as it emerged from the late nineteenth century onwards. Social work occupied the space between the respectable and the dangerous classes, and between those with access to political and speaking rights and those who were excluded (Philp, 1979). Social work fulfils an essentially mediating role between those who are actually or potentially excluded and the mainstream of society.

As the twentieth century proceeded, the growth of modern social work was increasingly dependent upon its inter-relationships with the welfare state, which provided its primary rationale and legitimacy. As a result it mediated not only between the excluded and state agencies, but between other diverse state agencies and a wide range of private and voluntary philanthropic agencies and the diverse and overlapping discourses which informed and constituted them.

Thus the emergence and essential ambiguities of modern social work were closely related to the development of new forms of social regulation associated with the increased sophistication and complexity of modern society (Garland, 1985). These new forms of social regulation were characterised by notions of normalisation, discipline and surveillance (Foucault, 1977), and were originally associated with the development of the modern prison but were increasingly reflected in the school, the hospital, the family and the community. Modern systems of social regulation became blurred and wide-ranging (Cohen, 1985; A.Howe, 1994). The central focus of modern systems of regulation was the classification of the population based on the scientific claims of different experts in the ‘psy’ complex (Ingleby, 1985; Rose, 1985). Increasingly, modern societies regulated the population by sanctioning the knowledge claims and practices of the new human sciences—particularly medicine, psychiatry, psychology, criminology and social work.

The ‘psy’ complex refers to the network of ideas about the nature of human beings, their perfectibility, the reasons for their behaviour and the way they may be classified, selected and controlled. It aims to manage and improve individuals by the manipulation of their qualities and attributes and is dependent upon scientific knowledge and professional interventions and expertise. Human qualities are seen as measurable and calculable and thereby can be changed, improved and rehabilitated. The new human sciences had as their central aim the prediction of future behaviour.

The emergence of modern forms of social regulation was an integral element of the development of modernity. Modernity involved the recognition that human order is neither natural nor God-given (as in traditional or pre-modern society) but is essentially vulnerable and contingent. However, by the development and application of science it can be subject to human control. Contingency was discovered together with the recognition that things could be regular, repeatable and predictable and hence ordered. The vision of politicians joined with the practices of professionals and scientists to improve the world. The vision was of a hierarchical harmony reflected in the uncontested and incontestable pronouncements of reason. ‘The modern, obsessively legislating, defining, structuring, segregating, classifying, recording and universalising state reflected the splendour of universal and absolute standards of truth’ (Bauman, 1992: xiv).

Such assumptions were most evident in Britain, and elsewhere, with the establishment of the welfare state in the post-war period. The establishment of modern social work was a small, but significant, element of the ‘welfarist’ project as it developed in the twentieth century, and is most appropriately characterised as a ‘bureau-profession’ (Parry and Parry, 1979). The key innovations of ‘welfarism’ lay in the attempts to link the fiscal, calculative and bureaucratic capacities of the apparatus of the state to the government of social life (Rose and Miller, 1992). As a political rationality, ‘welfarism’ was structured by the wish to encourage national growth and well-being via the promotion of social responsibility and the mutuality of social risk and was premised on notions of social solidarity (Donzelot, 1988). ‘Welfarism’ rested on the twin pillars of Keynesianism and Beveridgianism.

A number of assumptions characterised ‘welfarism’. The institutional framework of universal social services was seen as the best way of maximising welfare in modern society, and the nation state worked for the whole society and was the best way of progressing this. The social services were instituted for benevolent purposes, meeting social needs, compensating socially caused ‘diswelfares’ and promoting social justice. Their underlying functions were ameliorative, integrative and redistributive. Social progress would continue to be achieved through the agency of the state and professional intervention so that increased public expenditure, the cumulative extension of statutory welfare provision and the proliferation of government regulations backed by expert administration represented the main guarantors of, fairness and efficiency. Social scientific knowledge was given a pre-eminence in ordering the rationality of the emerging professions, which were seen as having a major contribution to developing individual and social welfare and thereby operationalising increasingly sophisticated mechanisms of social regulation.

Social work, in its modern emergence in the context of welfarism, was imbued with a considerable optimism, and it was believed that measured and significant improvements could be made in the lives of individuals and families by judicious professional interventions. The establishment of social service departments in the early 1970s reflected the belief of the Seebohm Report (1968) that social problems could be overcome via state intervention by professional experts with social-scientific knowledge and technical skills. It was imbued with a commitment to enhancing social citizenship through promoting greater equality and solidarity. Seebohm envisaged a progressive, universal service available to all and with wide community support. The notion of the generic professional social worker represented the hallmark and aspirations of the new service.

There seemed a consensus that social work was a positive development for all in the context of ‘welfarism’. This consensus had a number of elements. It was assumed that the interests of the social worker, and hence the state, were similar to, if not the same as, the people they were trying to help. It was to be an essentially benign but paternalistic relationship. Interventions were not conceived as a potential source of antagonism between social workers and individuals and families. When an individual or a family required modification this would be through casework, help and advice, and if individuals did come into state care this was assumed to be in their—and the community’s—interests. Interventions which had therapeutic intentions necessarily had therapeutic outcomes so that social work was allowed a large degree of independence and discretion to carry out its work. In the process, the essential ambiguities, tensions and uncertainties which lay at the core of its operations remained partially submerged.

The growth of social work and its claims to expertise during the twentieth century was characterised by its increasing allegiance to social casework. Not only did casework provide a systematic approach to practice, it also helped to unify internally an occupational group placed in a variety of locations and with diverse roles and responsibilities. Similarly, it provided an internally coherent knowledge base derived from psychodynamic theory and ego-psychology (Payne 1992; Pearson el al, 1988). While it would be incorrect to assume that casework dominated the thinking and practices of practitioners in a coherent and consistent manner, in Britain it provided a focus for professionalisation, and legitimated its location in the ^‘psy’ complex more generally. Casework, however, provided a distinctive contribution in its claim to be concerned with the whole person and to provide particular personal skills in human relationships and an understanding of individuals and families. It provided a method for assessment and intervention and thereby appeared to legitimate social work and to overcome its essential ambiguities.

However, just at the point at which modern social work emerged in the early 1970s to play a significant part in the welfarist project, ‘welfarism’ itself was experiencing considerable strains and ultimately crises. A combination of slow economic growth, increases in inflation and a growth in social disorder and indiscipline undermined the central economic and social pillars of welfarism and the political consensus which supported it. In the process, the various human sciences and the bureau-professionals who operated and applied them were seen to be found inadequate for the problems that were presented. At one level the criticisms levelled at social work from the mid-1970s can be understood as a specific case of the neo-liberal approach which has dominated government in recent years, in terms of an antagonism towards public expenditure on state welfare; an increasing emphasis on self-help and family support; the centrality of individual responsibility, choice and freedom; and an extension of the commodification of social relations. However, this would be simplistic. Social work has failed to meet the aspirations expected of it and vocal criticism has come from a variety of quarters, including the left, feminists and anti-racists, from a variety of user groups, other professional and community interests, as well as the anti-welfarist right (Clarke, 1993). Increasingly, social work and, in particular, social service departments were seen as costly, ineffective, distant and oppressive, leaving the user powerless and without a voice.

What has emerged is a reconstruction of social work and the agencies in which it operates which is very consistent with the central themes characterising the reconstruction of welfare more generally. First, there is a particular emphasis on market principles primarily through the ‘quasi-market’ (Le Grand, 1990; Le Grand and Bartlett, 1993), which has a number of features: a split between purchasing and providing responsibilities; a concern for services to be based upon need and the assessment of risk rather than historic demand and service levels; the delegation of authority for budgetary control; and the pursuit of choice through provider competition.

Second, there is the emergence of ‘government by contract’ (Stewart, 1993b): the introduction of contractual rather than hierarchical accountability whereby relationships within and between welfare organisations should be specific and formally spelt out and costed. Similarly, at the consumer/professional interface the nature of the relationships and the focus of work should be formally spelt out in a contract.

Third, there is the development of more responsive and often flatter organisations where responsibilities and decisions are devolved down and where the user/consumer is more directly involved. Notions of enabling, decentralisation and empowerment are seen as of significance and the nature of professionalism shifts. Various performance indicators, outcome measures and business plans are introduced.

Such developments cannot be reduced to the impact of marketorientated approaches alone. ‘Welfare pluralism’ and ‘mixed-economies of welfare’ are summary terms often used to indicate more fluid and fragmented arrangements whereby social work, now often called ‘social care’, is provided by voluntary agencies, private organisations and community initiatives, and where other non-professional staff are seen as more appropriate particularly in the provision of practical services.

In the process, the role and practices of managers become crucial. It is managers, as opposed to professionals, who are seen as the key brokers in the new network (Clarke et al., 1994; Cutler and Waine, 1994), and notions of management frame and supplant the central activities of the professionals themselves and the forms of knowledge they draw upon. There is a clear move away from approaches to social work which are based on therapeutic models and which stress the significance of casework. Social workers, reconstituted as care managers, are required to act as coordinators of care packages for individuals on the basis of an assessment of need or risk. A distinction is made between the purchaser and the provider which effectively splits the traditional social-work role. Care managers crucially require skills in: the assessment of need and risk; coordinating packages of care; costing and managing of the budgets for services; and monitoring and evaluation of progress and outcome. There is a renewed emphasis on inter-agency coordination and multi-disciplinary joint working which has to recognise the increasingly fragmented nature of services and expertise.

The emergence of child protection as a central activity for social workers underlines the centrality of social workers in providing social assessments of ‘risk’ and ‘dangerousness’ (Parton, 1991), but which recognises there are various interests and rights at stake—particularly those of the child and parent(s). Decisions in child care are now carried out in a more legalised context where the need for forensic evidence is prioritised. The assessment and management of risk and separation of the high risk from the rest become crucial, so that both harm to children and unwarrantable interventions in the family can be avoided. Similarly, in recognising that different people have diverse interests and that situations and risks may be judged differently in different circumstances and according to different criteria—for example, arising from different gender or ethnic backgrounds—the monolithic notions of knowledge and power are opened up. It is recognised that cultural relativities are important and that professionals may not always know best.

It is possible, therefore, to identify a complex reconstitution of generic social work and the unified model of the personal social services. A number of elements are evident. First, increased specialisation around client groups and the separation of assessment and care management from the work of direct service provision. Second, the concentration of professionally qualified staff in certain roles and responsibilities—again around assessment and care management—while an increasing number of services are provided by fewer and unqualified staff. Third, the changes attempt to shift the power relationship between the client—now consumer or service user—and the professional. While the main vehi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series editor’s preface
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• 1. Social theory, social change and social work: an introduction
• 2. Social work through the looking glass
• 3. After social work?
• 4. Postmodernism, feminism and the question of difference
• 5. Surface and depth in social-work practice
• 6. Social work, risk and ‘the blaming system’
• 7. Telling tales: probation in the contemporary social formation
• 8. The future of social work with older people in a changing world
• 9. Social work with children and families: from child welfare to child protection
• 10. Regulation for radicals: the state, CCETSW and the academy
• 11. Anti-intellectualism and the peculiarities of British social work education
• References
• Index