Radical Challenges for Social Work Education

Radical Challenges for Social Work Education
Author: Jane Fenton
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2022-04-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000573559

This book is full of ideas about how social work education can confront the individualising and often blaming form of social work that neoliberalism ushered in four decades ago. Radical social work is an approach to social work that has, at its heart, the departure from solely behavioural, moral or psychological understanding of service users’ problems. Social work had originally been concerned with the moral character of people in trouble (usually poor people), making a clear division between those who were ‘deserving’ of help and those who were ‘undeserving’. The rise of science and the ‘psy’ disciplines then led to psychological explanations for the difficulties people found themselves in. Both explanations for social problems – moral and psychological – with their narrow focus on the individual have been enjoying a renaissance in recent times with the neoliberal self-sufficiency narrative (moral) and the more recent focus on trauma (psychological). Radical social work challenges those explanations, concerned as it is with the circumstances a person might find themselves in – poverty, poor housing, poor education, high crime rates, and lack of opportunities of all kinds. This book is a step towards resurrecting radical social work principles, and it urges us to think about how social work education can be reshaped to that end. Radical Challenges for Social Work Education is a significant new contribution to social work practice and theory, and will be a great resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Politics, Education, Social Work, Sociology, Public Policy, Development Studies, Anthropology, and Human Geography. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Social Work Education.

Rules for Radicals

Rules for Radicals
Author: Saul Alinsky
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2010-06-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0307756890

“This country's leading hell-raiser" (The Nation) shares his impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.

Radicals in Australian Social Work: Stories of Lifelong Activism

Radicals in Australian Social Work: Stories of Lifelong Activism
Author: Carolyn Noble
Publisher: Connor Court Publishing Pty Limited
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2017-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781925501711

The contributions to this book are from people who were involved in the radical and progressive movements in Australian social work from the 1970s onward. The contributors tell their stories and reflect on their achievements and struggles to promote progressive change in social work in Australia. In documenting these experiences, the book provides an important resource for students and practitioners about a critically important part of their professional and educational heritage. The book also outlines a platform of change strategies for re-imaging a radical agenda, as social work responds to the impending social, political and environmental challenges facing future generations.

Rocking the Boat

Rocking the Boat
Author: Debra E. Meyerson
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2008-03-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1633691128

Most people feel at odds with their organizations at one time or another: Managers with families struggle to balance professional and personal responsibilities in often unsympathetic firms. Members of minority groups strive to make their organizations better for others like themselves without limiting their career paths. Socially or environmentally conscious workers seek to act on their values at firms more concerned with profits than global poverty or pollution. Yet many firms leave little room for differences, and people who don't "fit in" conclude that their only option is to assimilate or leave. In Rocking the Boat, Debra E. Meyerson presents an inspiring alternative: building diverse, adaptive, family-friendly, and socially responsible workplaces not through revolution but through walking the tightrope between conformity and rebellion. Meyerson shows how these "tempered radicals" work toward transformational ends through incremental means—sticking to their values, asserting their agendas, and provoking change without jeopardizing their hard-won careers. Whether it's by resisting quietly, leveraging "small wins," or mobilizing others in legitimate but powerful ways, tempered radicals turn threats to their identities into opportunities to make a positive difference in their companies—and in the world. Timely and provocative, Rocking the Boat puts self-realization and change within everyone's reach--whether your difference stems from race, gender, sexual orientation, values, beliefs, or social perspective.

The Radical Imagination

The Radical Imagination
Author: Doctor Alex Khasnabish
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2014-06-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1780329032

The idea of the imagination is as evocative as it is elusive. Not only does the imagination allow us to project ourselves beyond our own immediate space and time, it also allows us to envision the future, as individuals and as collectives. The radical imagination, then, is that spark of difference, desire and discontent that can be fanned into the flames of social change. Yet what precisely is the imagination and what might make it 'radical'? How can it be fostered and cultivated? How can it be studied and what are the possibilities and risks of doing so? This book seeks to answer these questions at a crucial time. As we enter into a new cycle of struggles marked by a worldwide crisis of social reproduction, scholar-activists Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish explore the processes and possibilities for cultivating the radical imagination in dark times. A lively and crucial intervention in radical politics, social research and social change, and the collective visions and cultures that inspire them.

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken
Author: Michael Reisch
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2002
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780415933995

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Quest for a Radical Profession

The Quest for a Radical Profession
Author: David Wagner
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 278
Release: 1990
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780819177513

This book, based on in-depth interviews of radical social workers, who at one time were associated with the Catalyst collective, explores through oral history the social psychological effects of upward mobility on political ideology. Historically large numbers of idealistic activists entered social work and other human services professions, but there have been few studies about the careers of such individuals and what has happened to radicals who pursue careers as community organizers, caseworkers or therapists, administrators or planners. Contents: A Radical Professionalism?; Radical Social Work; The Moral Careers of Radical Social Service Workers-Becoming Radical, Becoming Social Workers, Images of Success/Worlds of Pain, and Occupations and Ideology; Radicalism, Social Action, and Social Service Careers-The Decline of Oppositional Activism, Politics at the Retail Level: 'Radical Practice', The Absorption of Radicalism; and Bibliography.