Tutkiva sosiaalityö - Sosiaalityön tutkimuksen seura

Ta l e n t i a-l e h t i / So s i a a l i t y ö n t u t k i m u k s e n s e u r a
– Terms like “scientifically based social work” or “research-based practice” or
“evidence-based practice” are to a high degree unknown.
– Knowledge in social work is broadly understood as “personal” or experiencedbased
knowledge.
– The relevance of scientific knowledge in social work is seen as very little because
of a lack of time and a lack of competence to read and understand empirical
studies.
– A systematic preparing of new knowledge is seen as too expensive.
– A systematic use of knowledge is seen as accidental except if it is necessary to
argue at court or within an expert opinion.
– Evidence based practice is judged as too costly and too far away from “real”
practice.
– The concept seems to be of real use for “for-profit-agencies”, charities but nonfor-profit
organisations.
– To measure the results of social work interventions feedbacks from clients are
seen as sufficient.
If we look at these results from a comparative perspective we can recognize that
non-profit organisations which are playing an important role in social policy in Germany
and therefore have an enormous influence on policy and training tend to overestimate
the personal experience of social workers and underestimate any form of scientific
thinking. Thus the introduction of the bc-level in social work education could be seen
as a further step to “de-theorize” and “de-qualify” social workers in order to get a
cheap social workforce.
Conclusion
The attempt to find arguments for a social work science leads us back to a problem
which has a lot to do with the self-understanding of social work as a profession. If we
define a “professional” as someone who has specific knowledge and expertise in doing
something and is paid for using this knowledge and expertise properly there is no
doubt about it that social work has to be located within the system which – within a
modern society – is designated to deal with knowledge: the system of science. Within
this system scientists have to elaborate the specific perspective of social work – both
as theorizers and as researchers – and to create a discipline which works within the
social work perspective in an appropriate way – and not within other perspectives as
e.g. sociology, psychology, etc.
From Bourdieu we can learn that even within a critical understanding social workers
need a self-understanding as practitioners and scientists:
“The difficulty of the political fight today is, that the rulers, the right wing as well
as the left wing technocrats or epistomocrats have their interests in reasonableness
and in the general: We are moving towards universes in which ruling needs more and
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