Power and Social Work: A Change in Direction

Abstract

This article examines the elite model of conceptualizing poverty. The authors contend that elites frame the discussions about employment and poverty; consequently, they prevent any meaningful examination of the root causes of poverty and circumvent any proposals that shift the balance of power. The challenge for social work is that the elite model considers the profession as an agent responsible for executing social policy that supports the status quo. Thus, social workers have unwittingly become part of the problem. The authors argue that the way to address this problem is to transform the profession of social work from within. Among the ways to create this transformation are to focus social work education on the function of politics; strengthen field education; promote action-based research; and integrate a global perspective into practice and policy initiatives.