Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

ween’ reflect the majority view which implies that it is difficult, without some
guiding parameters, to respond because of the complexity inherent in such a
statement.
Two possible frameworks for taking the debate forward using history
are as follows. Firstly, as set out in detail in Skehill, 5 we can use the breakdown
of approaches to history offered by Dean 6 into progressive, critical and problematisation
stories to consider how social work, as a predominantly female
profession, has either challenged or reinforced traditional gender assumptions
within the broader socio-political context. As set out in Skehill, 7 using the example
of social work in the Republic of Ireland, three arguments are possible.
The first is that women have gradually and successfully occupied space
in the public sphere such as in social work from the time of philanthropy in the
late nineteenth century through to the present day and that the dominance of
women in social work is one key indicator of success in ‘occupying’ the social
space (Progressive Story):
From a reading of the relationship between philanthropy and social work in the
early twentieth century, we could construct the story of social workers in Ireland as
representing a progressive strategy which struggled and succeeded in occupying the
discreet space of family and child care, in particular in the public sphere during a
time when Ireland was a mostly patriarchal and conservative country, dominated by a
Catholicism. In Ireland, professional social work could be described as one of the first
“female professions” where women had the opportunity to engage actively outside of
this discourse in the sociopolitical context in an effort to mediate between individual
need and social context. 8
The second argument – the critical story – is that “while occupying certain
public spaces, professional social workers operated mostly in the realm of
consensus politics and individualism, with little or no engagement with feminist
ideologies or practices”. 9 I go on to argue that while there is a strong his-
5
Caroline Skehill, “Women and the History of Social Work in the Early to Mid-20th Century in the Republic of
Ireland,” in Amid Social Contradictions. Towards a History of Social Work in Europe, ed. Gisela Hauss and Dagmar
Schulte (Opladen: Budrich Publishers, 2009).
6
Mitchell Dean, Critical and Effective Histories: Foucault’s Methods and Historical Sociology, (London: Routledge, 1994)
7
Skehill, 2008.
8
Ibid., 28.
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