Title : International
Social Work: Issues, Strategies And Programs
Authors : David Cox and Manohar Pawar
Publisher : Vistaar Publications, New Delhi, 2006
(A division of Sage Publication India Pvt. Ltd)
Pages : 421 PB
Price : Rs 595
South
Asia is a region of great contrasts. It contains the emerging power of
India as one of the world’s great nations, alongside some of the world’s
least developed countries. At the local level, the region is also one of
great contrasts. It has some of the world’s largest NGOs that have
acquired considerable experience over the years, yet in much of the
region there is significant shortage of grassroots workers. In the light
of such contrasts, the region represents an ideal laboratory for showing
what social work can achieve both within and beyond national barriers.
Social work, as a profession or pursuit, originated in the nineteenth
century. The movement began primarily in the United States and England.
Social work has its roots in the struggle of society to deal with
poverty and the resultant problems. Therefore, social work is
intricately linked with the idea of charity work, but must be understood
as also distinctly different. The concept of charity goes back to
ancient times, and the practice of providing for the poor has roots in
all major world religions. However, the practice and profession of
social work has a relatively modern and scientific origin. During the
Middle Ages, the church had a vast influence on European society and
charity was considered to be a responsibility and a sign of one’s piety.
This charity was in the form of direct relief (for example, giving
money, food, or other material goods to alleviate a particular need), as
opposed to trying to change the root causes of poverty. After the end of
feudalism, the poor were seen as a more direct threat to the social
order, and so the state formed an organised system to care for them. In
England, the Poor Law sorted the poor into different categories, such as
the able-bodied poor and the idle poor. This system developed different
responses to these different groups.
The current state of social work professional development is
characterised by two realities. There is a great deal of traditional
social and psychological research (both qualitative and quantitative)
being carried out primarily by university based researchers as well as
researchers based in institutes, foundations, or social service
agencies. Meanwhile, many social work practitioners continue to look to
their own experience for knowledge. This is a continuation of the debate
that has persisted since the outset of the profession in the first
decade of the twentieth century. One reason for the gap between
information obtained through practice, as opposed to through research,
is that practitioners deal with situations that are unique and
idiosyncratic, while research concentrates on similarities. The
combining of these two types of knowledge is often imperfect. A hopeful
development for bridging this gap is the compilation, in many practice
fields, of collections of ‘best practices’ which attempt to distill
research findings and the experience of respected practitioners into
effective practice techniques. Although social work has roots in the
informatics revolution, an important contemporary development in the
profession is overcoming the suspicion of technology and taking
advantage of the potential of information technology to empower clients.
Many developemnts in social work have already occurred in India,
including a strong focus on social evelopment and on social work in
rural areas. Further work can only enhance the worldwide understanding
of social work’s ability to develop appropriate responses to a wide
range of needs and situations. This is so because despite India’s
well-documented development at many levels, it, along with other
countries in the sub-region, still contains widespread and intense
poverty, significant levels of inequality of various forms, frequent
examples of serious natural disasters, considerable civil conflict,
large numbers of street children and child labourers, and significant
welfare needs within large populations of the elderly, women, and
various minority group members. There is, therefore, a major challenge
to social work to show how it can contribute significantly within an
effective response to such areas of need.
International Social Work: Issues, Strategies And Programs draws
together the practice wisdom emerging within the broad scope of
international social work practice. Using an integrated perspectives
approach, which incorporates global, human rights, ecological and social
developement pespectives, the authors have attempted to prepare the
readers to actively respond to modern global challenges that are
critical to the well-being of the people, communities, nations and,
ultimately, all of us.
This book provides a novel approach to international social work and
social development practice to give the readers alternative theoretical
frameworks that are usually absent on other books in this genre. The
focus here is on the experience of teaching and practicing international
social work, raher than reflecting it on the field. With comprehensive
tables, chapter summaries, learning exercises and questions, possible
research areas, along with recommended readings to prompt critical
thinking and classroom discussion, David Cox and Manohar Pawar have
indeed written an excellent resource for social workers, human services
professionals and development practitioners. q
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