Striving to strengthen the ecosocial framework in social work in Finland

Satu Ranta-Tyrkkö,Kati Närhi

doi:10.1093/cdj/bsab030

Abstract

AbstractThere is no economic or social sustainability without ecological sustainability, yet the latter can hardly be achieved without the other forms of sustainability. While contemporary consumer societies are still today fundamentally unsustainable, advancing the overall sustainability transition as well as mitigating and preventing the ecological crisis should be high on the social work and community development agendas. On one hand, this is because the ecological crisis both causes and increases social inequality and vulnerability. On the other hand, aspiring sustainability requires profound social and cultural changes, bringing about which belongs to social work and community work’s areas of expertise.Asking how to respond to the socio-environmental crisis and its ramifications in social work education, this article focuses on the currently evolving ecosocial framework in Finnish social work education and practice, paying special attention to the opportunities and hindrances in its realization. The inquiry is based on thematic analysis of advanced level social work students’ views on these issues, as presented on a 5 ECTS (credits as per the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) course Social Work in Ecosocial Transition, part of the University of Jyväskylä’s social work master’s degree curriculum. In countries like Finland, where community development has a marginal role, adoption of the ecosocial framework would inherently strengthen the community based and political orientation in social work.

Highlights

While ecological sustainability is the prerequisite for the other forms of sustainability – economic, social and cultural – in the present world it can hardly be achieved without profoundly sustainable economic and societal practices
Analysing the views of Finnish social work students, who have familiarized themselves with ecosocial work and who have already some contact with social work practice, our concern in this article has been how to make way for the adoption of the ecosocial framework in social work
We identified five categories of factors that either hinder or enable ecosocial work based on their relationship to the doctrine of social work, service users, social work practitioners, social work organizations, or the society at large

Summary

Introduction

While ecological sustainability is the prerequisite for the other forms of sustainability – economic, social and cultural – in the present world it can hardly be achieved without profoundly sustainable economic and societal practices. There is high scientific unanimity that the ongoing processes of wide-ranging and often irreplaceable environmental decay, such as biodiversity loss, climate disruption and deterioration of ecosystems, jeopardize Earth’s ability to sustain complex life Widespread awareness of this notwithstanding, contemporary consumer societies remain stuck on ‘sustained politics of unsustainability’ (Blühdorn, 2014). Liberal democracies, as societies globally, have been notably incapable of executing the radical structural changes required, for that would be politically inopportune and provoke a backlash in the short term The reasons for the previously described dissonance are manifold and complex, implying a broader systemic (Wallerstein et al, 2014) or civilizational (Ahmed, 2010) crisis

Objectives

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Conclusion