Moving away from globalization and the “flattening” of Social Work: Preserving Context in International Efforts

Abstract

Contextual awareness has been a professional trademark and has differentiated social work intervention from other professions. Context in social work has traditionally included tangible and intangible factors such as an intimate understanding of the cultural milieu, familiarity with local history, languages, traditions, and sensibilities. The current concern is that given the forces of globalization and managerialism, social work practice and education in many countries have distanced themselves from addressing context in curriculum building and have become mechanistic in program design and delivery. This paper contrasts the concepts of internationalization and globalization. The authors concur with the perspective that the movement to globalize society was the result of economic forces and unfortunately spread into culturally embedded fields such as social work. They propose that globalization in social work has changed the direction of former efforts at internationalization, which were designed primarily to develop cross-national perspectives on human experiences. After a review of current trends in globalization, the authors offer cautionary words about well-intended efforts that can easily become educational frameworks imposed from the outside, with the power of disrupting cultures.