Interviewing, social work, and Chicago sociology in the 1920s

Abstract

The paper examines the work of groups established by chapters of the American Association of Social Workers in the 1920s to develop a systematic and empirically based understanding of the interactional dynamics of the interview in social casework. Now largely forgotten, this work had influence beyond social work. The paper goes on to explore the call by the Chicago sociologist Ernest Burgess to use the ‘verbatim interview’ as a focus of common interest by sociologists and social workers.