Dennis Saleebey

Is a Critical Pedagogy for the Profession of Social Work Possible

Abstract In this essay, we address the perspective of progressive educators who maintain that academic curricula should be approached through the use of a critical pedagogy. We begin with a review of theories and methods in critical pedagogy and present a set of social and institutional issues that mediate against its use in social work education. We argue that, paradoxically, many of these obstacles in fact make the use of a critical pedagogy indispensable. Basic philosophical, conceptual, and methodological principles of a critical pedagogy for social work are elaborated.

The “Power of Place”: Another Look at the Environment

The profession of social work has long claimed its niche as that space where the traffic between the environment and individuals, families, and groups occurs. Person-environment is a code for this transactional space. The reign of the ecological/systems model of understanding and practice, and that staple of curriculum, human behavior and the social environment, all stake out in one way or another this conceptual and practical habitat for the profession. It is, in fact, one of the distinguishing marks of the helping that social workers do—that we always and ever must understand human problems, suffering, possibility, capacities, and need in terms of their context; we must understand how the environment promotes challenges and offers resources; and we must understand how the individual or family interacts with those factors. But there is a sense of the environment that social work has, to a significant degree, ignored—that is, the immediate, proximal, often small environment where people play out much of t...

The Estrangement of Knowing and Doing: Professions in Crisis

THE PROFESSIONS, once the singular mark of a literate, technologically sophisticated society. are, as Jacques Barzun states, “under siege.”’ Battered by unhappy and disbelieving clients. dragged into courts to defend their practice. accused of untrammeled greed and failure to honor the implicit ethical contract struck with clients, the professions seem to have responded by developing internal defensive alliances against the public and by refusing to disclose or prosecute the malpractitioners among their own. No profession seems to view the problem as its own or perceive the problem as a visible symptom of institutional pathology. Rather, the public is considered to be too frivolous or too ignorant to appreciate the rigors and esoterica of professional practice. However, both the public and the professional may be missing the point: the underlying malaise may stem from the prevailing conception of knowing and doing. The profession of social work has not been immune to these doubts, critiques, and cnncerns. Whether it is the internal debate about the nature of the profession,’ concerns about the

Building a Knowledge Base: A Personal Account

The social work academy has been of many minds about how best to build a knowledge base that will signal, once and for all, that social work is a profession. We have searched the social sciences for theories ripe for plucking practice principles, directives, and guidelines. We have embarked on the grand project of creating knowledge from within by examining what we do and building theory from that. We have made stabs at the positivist project of objectively evaluating the relative effectiveness of modes of practice with particular clients, vowing to employ only those of demonstrated efficacy. We have searched the minds and hearts of practitioners and clients for an ephemera called practice wisdom. We have boldly jerrybuilt theories for understanding and practice from both familiar and exotic materials. Few of these satisfy. All surely contribute something to the satchel of tools that professional social workers tote, but the grand sweep of a unified theory for practice, so much on our minds only a generat...

(Editorial) Practicing the Strengths Perspective: Everyday Tools and Resources

I AM PLEASED TO HAVE BEEN ASKED to be the editor of this special edition of Families in Society on the strengths perspective. The strengths perspective has many shades and hues—many different textures. It clearly is still developing, perhaps now somewhere in its latency or pre-teens. Not yet having the rigor of more mature theories, models, perspectives, or methods, it is possessed of an energy and exuberance that youth often commands. Maybe it will not grow up to be a theory, but, rather, settle into its middle years as a way of thinking about, understanding, and configuring the work that social workers do. Whatever the case, to really embrace a strengths approach to practice, teaching, research or inquiry requires of us a different ambience or demeanor; a set of commitments and appreciations that diverge from the usual professional cant and canon.

Response to “Ending Social Work's Grudge Match”

This is a sly and oftentimes funny piece. The wrestling metaphor is clever, as is the over-the-top hyperbolic introduction, In one corner, in black spandex … (McMillen, Morris, & Sherraden, 2004, p. 317). The extravagant literate vigor expended here surely gets ones attention … well, it got mine. But it seems clear to me that the authors have a hammerlock on problems and cannot let it go. It takes dedication and single-mindedness to keep a wrestling hold like that, leaving little energy for considering other moves and strategies. This is by way of saying that I am still not sure that the authors get it.

Notes from a Naïf: Primary Prevention in the New Era

The planned erosion of the welfare society, begun in earnest during the Reagan administration, and crowned most recently with the end of “welfare as we know it,” creates a very different set of expectations, strategies, and strains on efforts to mount effective prevention programs and policies. My experience and my continuing education, formal and informal, in doing community work during this time of dramatic change in the relationship between citizens and government, has led me to some critical assumptions about the nature of that work and its relationship to the often unrealized dream of the prevention of human ills, afflictions, and pains. Before engaging these assumptions, let me address some of the predilections of preventive and interventive programs that may not be particularly helpful. • Focusing exclusively on the individual or family—ignoring the context, the neighborhood or community—built, natural, or symbolic. • Focusing primarily on identifying and targeting risk factors, problems, deficits, and disturbing behaviors. • Isolating prevention programs from other formal and informal efforts to build and extend the health and capacity of community residents. • The requisite that the elements of any program should be sufficiently standardized, narrowly defined, and subject to manipulation so that they can be measured and evaluated—usually in quantifiable terms—is good for the evaluators, not so propitious for the success of some programs. • Interventions and prevention programs are conceived and elaborated without genuine input from residents and citizens (from inception to completion), and without awareness of the dramatic effect of culture, local institutions and associations, and the tempo and pace of local environments

Book Review: The Search for Structure: A Report on American Youth TodayThe Search for Structure: A Report on American Youth Today. By IanniFrancis A. J.. New York: Free Press, 1989. 336 pp.

vention. A discussion of the case highlights successes and significant errors in judgment, based upon the multisystems approach. The third section of the book provldes additional information about and examples of African American families that are seen by therapists. It is significant that Boyd-Franklin describes the features exhibited by functional single-parent, femaleheaded families, lest therapists assume that such a configuration automatically guarantees dysfunction. She explores the plight of middle-class African American families, a group that is often ignored and for whom the effects of racism are often assumed to be minimal. The author highlights the existence of African American couples in all classes. She presents pertinent cross-class and class-specific issues as they relate to African American couples. In the last section of Black Families in Therapy, the process of therapist self-exploration described early in the book is augmented by discussion of graduate schools and training programs. BoydFranklin wants students who are interested in working with African American families to engage in training that prepares them for their work on many levels. She wants programs to help students move from the raw desire to help to an understanding of what and where the needs are. Also, she wants them to be knowledgeable enough and free to decide whether they are willing to do what will be required for them to become effective practitioners with African American families of all types. The final chapter, which presents implications for further research, supports BoydFranklin’s view that her work is a beginning. She encourages others to apply the multisystems approach broadly and to expand upon her ideas.