Social Work Texts Research Articles

Worker and Agency in Textbooks— Images of Which Reality?

A comparative content analysis of major social work texts shows significant variations in the ways in which they treat the relationship between social workers and employing agencies. The implications are relevant to the tensions among workers, agencies, and educators.

Evaluation Findings in Education and Social Work Textbooks

Evaluation findings will probably make a long-term contribution to the improvement of social services and programs when they are cited in the textbooks used to train human services professionals. Although there was some variability, evaluations were nonetheless cited with reasonable frequency in a sample of introductory and advanced text books in social work and education. The citations referred to evaluations of national policies, national programs, local projects and project elements, and there were also citations concerning evaluation methods. Both social work and education texts cited findings on programs and project elements the most. Compared to social work texts, education texts cited significantly more program outcome findings; social work texts tended to cite more references dealing with recipient characteristics.

The Ideology of Some Social Work Texts

Fourteen introductory social work textbooks published during the 1970s were reviewed, by means of a comparative content analysis, to ascertain their ideological and sociopolitical assumptions. Virtually all were found to contain assumptions about the political-economic structure of society, the nature of social class and social class relationships, and the nature of social change. Contrary to our expectations, most authors stated their assumptions quite explicitly. A spectrum of assumptions was constructed, and the implications for using these textbooks were discussed.