Dr Karen Lyons, emeritus professor of international social work at London Metropolitan University, reflects on a Social Work History Network webinar (24 April 2024) examining the development of ‘global’ social work values. (748 words)
Social work is generally understood to be a ‘local’ activity, particular to the society and communities within which it is practised.
It is also increasingly identified as a global profession with common values. But is this supposedly global nature in fact a construct prescribed by Britain and the US in the development and the dominance of a particular form of Western thinking?
These questions were recently explored at an event organised by the Social Work History Network. Mark Henrikson, of Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand, took us back a great deal further than the commonly understood origins of social work. He showed how the Church has played a significant role in how societies have viewed people who were poor or ‘different’ in some way.
Henrikson traced the origins of ‘Western’ social work thinking and values, with its current emphasis on individual choice and responsibility, through biblical texts to Calvinism, which took hold in some parts of Europe from the 16th century and spread to North America.
It was to the influence of Calvinism that 19th century social policymakers owed the notion of ‘deserving and undeserving poor’ with its (misunderstood) biblical dictum that ‘those who do not work shall not eat’.
Henrikson said this played a major part in 19th century state responses to poverty. In the UK, this included the 1834 Poor Law and the rise of ‘the workhouse’, as well as the Charity Organisation Society and Settlements, subsequently identified as being the origins of social work.
Calvinistic thinking has again become evident in the rise of neoliberalism, with its overarching influence on the commodification of welfare and the values and practices of social workers in Britian and the US.
Common threads throughout this history have been the need to control ‘deviant’ populations as well as to ‘care’ for ‘the poor’, though there are wide variations, historically and internationally, in who might qualify as ‘vulnerable’ and therefore ‘deserving’.
While the numbers of people living in poverty and the gap between the rich and the poor have increased dramatically over the past 30 years in the West, it is also still true that poverty is increasing due to conflict and climate change.
Race has been and continues to be the basis for prejudice and discrimination and, while race is associated with ‘minority status’ in some societies, this more often relates to the distribution of power.
White power played a significant role in the history of the spread of Christianity and social care through missionaries and colonisation, manifesting in some African countries in the forms of welfare and social work.
It is only relatively recently that the inappropriateness of this imposition has been critically questioned and efforts made to develop forms of social work more closely related to indigenous customs and beliefs, such as Ubuntu.
White privilege has also played a part in the 20th century establishment of international organisations such as the UN and the International Federation of Social Workers and the formulation of global statements, including the Definition of Social Work (2014) and the Global Social Work Statement of Ethical Principles (2018).
As Henrikson acknowledged, more than 70 per cent of the world’s population adheres to belief systems informed by faiths other than Judeo-Christian theology. It is interesting that some of their ideas and values are now being implemented in local social work practices and beyond.
But even at the micro level in societies such as the UK, there is a clash between the values of care and empowerment advocated and the realities of the social control and rationing roles in which most social workers find themselves.
Henrikson and other panel members identified significant questions with regard to proclamations about social work’s global status as well as the values which should govern its practice. There is a need for ongoing research and dialogue.
Growing interest in the environment and ecological social work – and promotion of respect for all people as human beings irrespective of their differences – might show us a way forward.
Other speakers were Sarah Banks, Prospera Tedam and Linda Smith.
This post was first published as an article in Professional Social Work magazine (July / August 2024) and is reproduced with its permission.
Go to the event page (recording and slides available). | Learn more about the Social Work History Network.