Social Work Research in Practice

Ethical and Political Contexts

Martyn Jones, Author, Heather D′Cruz

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781446200797, 9781446200780
• eBook ISBN: 9781446286685
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

This new edition of Social Work Research in Practice: Ethical and Political Contexts explores the intrinsic connection between knowledge, research and practice in social work. The authors argue that through a better appreciation of research, the highest standards of social work can be achieved.

 

The second edition investigates contemporary approaches which impact on the discourses of social work research, including:

 

- Evidence-based practice

- User-led research

- Anti-oppressive practice

- Practice-based research

 

Each chapter has been fully updated with a rich range of case examples and references. Further reading is also included, so that readers can expand their knowledge.

This book is a valuable resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as practitioners working in the field of social work.

Heather D?Cruz works as a Consultant: Research and Professional Education.

Martyn Jones is Associate Dean at RMIT University.

 

1

Research, Social Work and Professional Practice

Introduction

For the new edition of this book, we have slightly changed the book’s title to Social Work Research in Practice: Ethical and Political Contexts. We believe that by adding ‘in practice’ to the title, we more clearly reflect our view that social work research is another social work method or approach, in addition to the more well-known case, group, and community work that are seen by some people as ‘real’ social work.

Our book is intended as a practical guide to negotiating the ethical and political issues associated with different ways of knowing in social work research. We aim to show that social work research, like all social work practice, has to recognize the importance of ethical and political contexts that influence practice. We show how social work research, along with other practice approaches, can realize the emancipatory goals and objectives of social work. We look at how research can improve practice. We take the approach that practice as direct service to clients may inform important research questions about the effectiveness and appropriateness of policies that shape social work practice and service delivery. Our approach shows how to practice research in anti-oppressive ways, so we do not have a separate chapter on anti-oppressive research.

However, in addition to changing the title of our book to better emphasize our interest in the emancipatory aims of social work achieved through research, in this new edition we also include important developments in the social work that have emerged since 2004 when the first edition of our book was published. These developments include:

• participatory research practice that involves service users, including a specific application as child-centred research

• evidence-based practice that emerged in health and medicine and is now a commonly used concept in social work, and associated debates that incorporate different ways of knowing

• multidisciplinary professional practice that usually involves different ways of knowing, and approaches to ‘evidence’ as legitimate knowledge, with implications for research

Fundamentally, these additional dimensions consider what knowledge-for-practice is, how it may be generated, what is considered to be legitimate ways of knowing and generating such knowledge for practice: all of these issues underlie research as an approach to social work practice (D’Cruz, 2009: 70–73). We aim to show how social work research is an important way of contributing to social work theory and knowledge. Finally, we hope that, as a result of reading this book, you will start to appreciate and understand social work research and even become passionate about it!

Challenges in teaching, learning and doing research

The aims of this book and the approach taken are a way of addressing some of the fears and misconceptions that may exist among many social work students and also practitioners with regard to research. The general aversion to social work research is almost a standing joke, coming from knowledge of our own student days, much shared knowledge by social work educators, and our own experiences of teaching social work research. Such attitudes have not changed over the years, with familiar descriptions given by many social work educators of students ‘bad-mouthing’ research (Epstein, 1987: 1) and students and practitioners having ‘a phobia’ (Marlow, 2011: 2) about research. These attitudes are based on much misinformation, for example, that research is only about ‘numbers’ or that it is ‘cold and impersonal’. For some social workers and students, research is simply ‘an added complication to their everyday working lives’ (Gibbs and Stirling, 2010: 441).

Aside from the aversion that some social work students and practitioners have to learning and doing social work research, we have also noticed that the processes of learning and doing research pose particular challenges. Social workers are familiar with the mantra of ‘applying theory to practice’, and there is a considerable literature that investigates the connections between knowledge-for-practice and knowledge-in-practice in social work as well as other ‘helping professions’, such as nursing, medicine, and psychiatry (D’Cruz, Jacobs and Schoo, 2009a; Greenberg, 2009; Hardy and Smith, 2008; Higgs et al., 2004; Holmes, 2009).

We believe that learning and doing in research is challenging for social workers who tend to work inductively – from the specific and practical back to the theory in their actual practice (Healy, 2000: 145–147). Social work research therefore represents the application of abstract and general concepts (‘theory’) in specific research projects (‘practice’) in a way that differs from what is easier and more familiar for most social workers. For research as a practice method, you must first know and understand the different dimensions of research, why they are important, related concepts, and how and when to apply concepts in your own research. This is what applying theory to practice means – without losing sight of the necessity for questioning when formal theories do not adequately apply to practice. This means that even if one learns the prescribed ways of doing research and the concepts described in research texts, quite often one’s own research challenges some of these received ideas because of the special and particular circumstances of the chosen project. For example, you may want to collaborate doing research with people with disabilities – which may require you to develop appropriate methodologies to achieve this (see Stevenson, 2010) – by drawing on what is already known and modifying it with the guidance of expert advisers, which includes the group of research participants (Pitts and Smith, 2007).

We teach research to social work students because we believe that social work practice is more likely to be effective when social workers are able to draw on and evaluate previous research. We hope to encourage and assist social workers to conduct their own research to answer those questions arising in their practice that cannot be answered by the existing literature. By the end of this chapter, we hope that you will recognize the importance of research for social work practice. By the end of the book, you should be able to read and critique the social work research literature and develop your ideas about how you might answer the questions that arise for you in your professional practice. There is potential for social work research to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of this or that policy in addressing the problems that particular groups may experience, such as (un)employment, income support, child welfare and health, asylum seekers and refugees, aged care, disability support services (Fawcett et al., 2010: 143–158). Here are some examples of research conducted by social workers:

• ‘Understanding resilience in South Australian farm families’ (Greenhill et al., 2009)

• ‘Conceptualising the mental health of rural women: A social work and health promotion perspective’ (Harvey, 2009)

• ‘Perspectives of young people in care about their school-to-work transition’ (Tilbury et al., 2009)

• ‘“You’ve got to be a saint to be a social worker”. The (mis)operation of fitness to practise processes for students already registered onto English social work training programmes’ (McLaughlin, 2010)

• ‘Women with cognitive impairment and unplanned or unwanted pregnancy: A 2-year audit of women contacting the Pregnancy Advisory Service’ (Burgen, 2010)

• ‘Life story work and social work practice: A case study with ex-prisoners labelled as having an intellectual disability’ (Ellem and Wilson, 2010)

• ‘Using vignettes to evaluate the outcomes of student learning: Data from the evaluation of the new social work degree in England’ (MacIntyre et al., 2011)

Apart from informing practice and policy change as an immediate concern, research also contributes to social work theory and knowledge-for-practice (Adams et al., 2005; Lyons and Taylor, 2004; Powell et al., 2004), in a complex relationship.

Depending on the aims of the research and the methods used, you can investigate structural patterns of distribution of resources, rewards, opportunities, and burdens, for example, gender pay equity or comparing the health and wellbeing indicators for indigenous (First Nations) peoples and non-indigenous people in the community. You can also investigate the situated patterns of such structural distributions: whether and how individuals within such identity categories as ‘women’, ‘men’, ‘indigenous’, ‘non-indigenous’ experience such inequalities in their daily lives; how they may explain their experiences; how their experiences may differ from or be the same as the structural patterns; and how they may resist, subvert, and otherwise transform situated patterns of privilege and inequality. In short, research can allow us to appreciate structural patterns of human experience and also contribute to understanding the diversity of human experiences, with the approaches being complementary rather than oppositional (Hurley, 2007). However, to achieve appropriate recognition from decision makers, we must make sure that our research is of high quality and is intellectually rigorous.

What is research?

In our experience, many social work students (and practitioners) reject research because of particular images they have of research and researchers. Before reading any further, you may like to spend a few minutes on the exercise below. This exercise is intended to exorcise any demons associated with the word ‘research’ and explore ways of engaging with what you might enjoy about it.

Exercise: Exorcising the demons and becoming enchanted with research

1 Write the word ‘research’ on a piece of paper. Underneath it write down all the ‘scary thoughts’ that come to mind when you think about ‘doing research’. Now write down any positive thoughts you may also have in a separate list.

2 Next, think about how you will approach the following task. You think you may be eligible for some welfare, education or housing benefits (for example, social security, money to assist you to study, rent assistance) provided by the government or private organizations. How will you go about finding out about what is available and whether or not you are eligible to receive these benefits? Write down the steps you will take.

3 Now think about another process you used to find out more about something you had limited knowledge of previously. Write down what you did to find out about it.

4 Look at the headings or descriptions you have given to the processes of enquiry in these two examples. (Remember, we are looking at what you did–that is, the process, not the specific content, of the enquiry. The aim is to be able to see some equivalence between the steps we take to solve problems of limited knowledge as everyday practices and those linked with the more formal processes called ‘research’.)

5 Do you see any ways in which you can translate the headings you gave to your processes of enquiry into the more formal language of social research? You may be familiar with some of these formal concepts already. Alternatively, you may want to browse through the later chapters in this book where these concepts appear. Don’t worry if these connections are not immediately apparent. They will become clearer as you engage with and reflect on what we discuss in later chapters. We also encourage you to discuss your ideas with peers and friends.

6 Now write down the word ‘enquiry’ and the positive and negative meanings associated with it. How might the word ‘enquiry’ be related to the word ‘research’? How might you ‘control the demons’ (if you have any) and maximize the positive meanings associated with the word ‘research’?

7 Keep these thoughts as a starting point against which to review your engagement with this subject as you read and use this book.

We have used this exercise to introduce you to some of the processes we already use to live in daily life. ‘We are surrounded by research’, for example, to raise children, reduce crime, improve public health, and evaluate public policies (Neuman, 2006: 1). We want to show you that research does not have to be anxiety-provoking, involving complicated statistics, computers, or large amounts of resources. However, at the same time, research does require us to be systematic and thoughtful; to be able to think critically; to be reflective on what we know, how we know, and why we want to know; and to be prepared to change our minds if research outcomes offer new insights. Just because ‘authority’, ‘tradition’, ‘common sense’, or ‘personal experience’ have previously informed us (Neuman, 2006: 2–7), it does not mean that we have trustworthy information. This book adds to these dimensions, the ethical and political complexities associated with different ways of knowing that involve competing claims for what is ‘trustworthy’ knowledge.

The connections between social work research, practice and theory

While the activity you have done and the related discussion suggest that research is ‘seeking knowledge for a purpose’, we want to extend this to incorporate the ethical and political dimensions that are essential to social work research. In recent years, social work research has become an important part of social work qualifying degrees and continuing professional education for practitioners (Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW), 2003, 2012; Humphries, 2008: 2; International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), 2001; The College of Social Work (TCSW) (England), 2012). This development is partly a response to government and organizational demands for ‘evidence’, as ‘useful and relevant knowledge’ (Humphries, 2008: 2) to support policy development and to inform professional practice (Fawcett et al., 2010: 145–153). It is also a recognition by the social work profession internationally that research is an important method of generating knowledge-for-practice as ‘evidence’ of ‘what works’ (Smith, 2009: ...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• Halftitle
• Sage
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Additional Online Material
• 1 Research, Social Work and Professional Practice
• 2 The Research Question
• 3 Different Ways of Knowing and their Relevance for Research
• 4 Methodology
• 5 Designing Research
• 6 Generating Data
• 7 Making Sense of Data: Analysis
• 8 Reporting and Disseminating Research
• References
• Index