The Professional Challenges of Reflexive Modernization: Social Work in Ireland

Abstract

SUMMARY This article examines the impact of reflexive modernization on social work in Ireland. It examines (i) the role and task of the Irish social worker in a society that has modernized more rapidly than any other in Europe; (ii) the meaning of pluralization, civil society and citizenship in an Irish context; (iii) the possibilities offered by a developmental strategy based upon empowerment, trust and user rights; (iv) the professional competence and training of social workers in an entirely university based system that has adapted itself to European training standards; and (v) the relationship between social work, humanism and citizenship in the Welfare State. While the article focuses on one society, it is intended to be a contribution towards the development of comparartive perspectives in international social work discourse. As such it highlights commonalities as well as differences in a global age and therefore should be of interest to a broad readership. It is a paradox that Ireland is modernizing in a postmodem world character ized by fragmentation and polarization. The term 'modernization' is generally associated with the transformation in Western society wrought by the indus trial revolution and the emergence of Welfare States over several centuries. This process involved a fracture with the traditional feudal social order amounting to a fundamental transformation of society, characterized by reflexive modernization at the advent of the twenty-first century (Crook, 1992, pp. 1-2; Beck, 1994, p. 6). Beck (1997) defines reflexive modernization as 'a heightened modernization of society-changing scope' (p. 17). Ireland, which belatedly adopted a modernization project in the 1960s, has had to overcome an economic and cultural gap at a point when the rest of the developed world is moving on to new forms of social organization. Yet the