Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The article contends that social work is politically constructed, that its values, principles and commitments are deeply shaped by ideology through the political dimension at all levels of social work intervention, and that social work needs not only to embrace, but also to reshape its political ideology, discourse and political movements.APPROACH: It is argued that the articulation of social work values and principles are an expression of ideology, and that political ontology of social workers’ lives precedes their epistemological and methodological choices. From this premise, the article claims that socialism informs progressive social work values, and that a materialist analysis can influence our understanding of social problems and social relations within deregulated capitalist societies.CONCLUSIONS: Firstly, this article synthesises the Marxist approach of ideology and its relations with ideology in social work. Secondly, it draws out the key insights about the so-called “radical” or “structural” perspective in social work, and the commitments and challenges of its advocates. Finally, it explores and proposes insights on the political ideology of social work for the 21st century.
Highlights
The article contends that social work is politically constructed, that its values, principles and commitments are deeply shaped by ideology through the political dimension at all levels of social work intervention, and that social work needs to embrace, and to reshape its political ideology, discourse and political movements.APPROACH: It is argued that the articulation of social work values and principles are an expression of ideology, and that political ontology of social workers’ lives precedes their epistemological and methodological choices
In order to appreciate that social work is politically constructed, one must understand two main propositions
As McKendrick and Webb (2014, p. 357) argue, “social work involves articulating an ontology of the political subject.”
Summary
This article synthesises the Marxist approach of ideology and its relations with ideology in social work. Social work finds itself inside politically generated social systems or agencies, organisations, and the apparatus of the state This claim is deeply rooted in the ontological assumptions about the nature of the political reality in all societies (Hay, 2006). An understanding of the social work values, principles, commitments, theories and approaches is an exercise shaped by ideology Such reflection shows the constitutive features of how social work is politically constructed at all levels of its intervention. The point is that the claims of social workers are shaped by manifestations of a working and applied ideology, and they embody a preference for certain political explanations (Gray & Webb, 2013a; Hay, 2006; McKendrick & Webb, 2014). The debate offered by this article lies in whether social work is a product of what can be termed as left-wing ideology but where on that spectrum the readership of the article perceives social work as being formed
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