Narrative interview in social work research. Diagnosing biographical and social problems in the profession of a social worker

Abstract

Social work, understood as a professional activity, consists in providing support to people on the basis of a previously conducted diagnosis. The diagnosis of a situation requires the social worker to undertake specific research activities, which include collecting data with the use of selected techniques and tools, processing data or presenting conclusions. In the field of widely understood social work, there are various qualitative approaches and research strategies which constitute an adequate way of explaining social phenomena, at the same time formal and legal regulations and the institutional context create different conditions for conducting research in the profession of a social worker. The adopted methodological solutions, in the form of a model questionnaire of a family environmental interview, are rather in the normative paradigm, which has specific consequences for the analysis of social problems. One of the techniques (or methods) identical to the field of interest and procedures functioning in professional social work, and at the same time enabling the understanding of human experiences, is the narrative interview. Autobiographical narratives collected through this method allow, among others, to diagnose biographical and social problems and to plan support activities on this basis. However, due to the barriers indicated in the paper, a change in the research method towards an interpretative approach seems unlikely.