Modern Critical social Work: From Radical to Anti-Oppressive Practice

(Chapter 9)

Anti-Oppressive Practice in Context

“Anti-Oppressive Practice draws on sociological discourses, especially

critical social science ideas, and concepts from the consumer rights
movements, to construct understandings of client ‘needs’ and
appropriate social work responses to them” (Healy, K., 2002, p. 172).

It “highlights the structural contexts of service users’ problems urge

social workers to facilitate service users’ critical consciousness of, and
collective responses to, the causes of the problems they face” (Healy,
K., 2002, p. 173).
This approach is “located… between the strengths perspective and
post modern practice” (Healy, K., 2002, p. 137).

Anti-Oppressive Practice is the latest wave of critical social work

tradition like radical, feminist, anti-racist, and structural practices
(2002, p. 173).

The Foundations of Modern Critical Social Work

Modern critical social work “refer[s] to a broad range of practice

approaches including: Marxist social Work; radical social work;
structural social work; feminist social work; anti-racist social work; and
anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory social work” (Healy, K., 2002,
p. 173).

“The key features of critical social science paradigm that are especially
relevant for modernist forms of critical social work includes the claim
that macro-social structures shape social relations at every level of
social life… for example… capitalism shapes relations between middle-
and working-class people”(2002, p. 173). This goes for Euro-centrism,
and Patriarchy.

“Critical social scientists… hold that the world is divided between

‘haves’ and ‘have nots’” and that their difference in interests are
“irreconciliable” (2002, p. 174). For example, “The ‘haves’ are…
middle class, male, Europeans, heterosexuals, and the able-bodied,
while the ‘have nots’ are… the working class, women, non-Europeans,
gays and lesbians, and people with disabilities” (2002, p. 174).

“Another feature of critical social work is the view that the oppressed
are complicit in their oppression” (2002, p. 174) via imposed
“dominant-ideologies that present the current social order as just”
(2002, p. 174) and the ‘normal’.

“A final feature of critical social science paradigm relevant to modern

critical social work is the emphasis on empowering oppressed people
to act, collectively, to achieve social change” (2002, p. 174).

The Early History of Critical Social Work

“Although critical social work theories gained prominence during the

1960s and 1970s, critical social workers have always existed within the
profession of social work” (2002, p. 175).
“Perhaps the best internationally known ‘first-wave’ critical social
worker is Jane Adams who worked in the Settlement House Movement
in Chicago from 1890s onwards…” (2002, p. 175).

During the middle part of the twentieth century, a small number of

leading social work commentators challenged the profession to move
beyond its increasingly individualistic orientation. For example, in
1949, Norma Parker, a leading Australian social work academic,
advocated for human rights framework for analyzing social issues and
for promoting service users’ well being” (2002, 175).

The Birth of Radical Social Work

“During the 1960s and 1970s radical social work emerged as a

distinctive practice approach…” (2002, p. 175). The reason why is
because of “the growing influence of sociology, particularly critical
sociology, on social work and social policy; critical social change
movements; and the discovery of poverty as a public policy concern”
(2002, p. 175).

“Drawing on… Marxism, radical social workers argued that social

workers should recognize that the origins of service users’ problems
lay in unjust social structures, rather than their personal histories”
(2002, p. 176). This arose the need for critical consciousness raising
within the profession and with service users.

The Diversification of Critical Practice Models

Because of the diversity of critical social work, there was obvious

friction on which ideology should receive primacy. “The Prominent of
these new critical practice models were: feminist social work; anti-
racist social work; and structural social work” (2002, p. 176). All these
theoretical social work practices collided as a result of their diverse
ideology of the same critical stance on society and its structures.

Anti-Oppressive Practice

Out of all the conflict because of the diversity of critical social work,
arose anti-oppressive social work practice. It first arose in the United
Kingdom in the late 1980s. Some of the key and influential scholars on
AOP were such authors as Dalrymple and Burke, Baines, Dominelli, and
Benjamin (2002, p. 178).

The reason for its emergence was to move beyond class oppression
and to extend to the personal and cultural bases of oppression–which
must be integrated with structural analysis of oppression.

The Definition of Anti-Oppressive Practice is “A form of social work

practice which addresses social divisions and structural inequalities in
the work that is done with ‘clients’ (users) or workers; where it aims to
provide more appropriate and sensitive services by responding to
people’s needs regardless of their social status and it embodies a
person-centered philosophy, an egalitarian value system concerned
with reducing the deleterious effects of structural inequalities upon
people’s lives; a methodology focusing on process and outcome; and a
way of structuring social relationships between individuals that aim to
empower service users by reducing the negative effects of hierarchy in
their immediate interaction and the work they do” (2002, p. 179).

In short, Anti-Oppressive Practice is:

The latest wave of critical social work, like radical, feminist, anti-racist,
and structural social work (2002, p.173).

All social workers understand original causes of oppression, which lay

within social structures; committed to transforming those structures.

Social workers duty is to raise consciousness because they belief that

the true origin is not in themselves, but in unjust social structures.

Social Workers must empower clients to act collectively to achieve

social change.

Social Workers reflect on access to power and develop strategies to

share power with clients.
5 Core Assumptions of Anti-Oppressive Practice

There are multiple forms of oppression (ageism, sexism, racism,

classism, etc.), they interact with each other and all are harmful.

Oppression is tied to unequal power relations and divisions in society.

Critical reflection is paramount to reducing disempowering effects.

Social work is always political and must include a broad range of

interventions at the personal, structural and cultural level.

There is no time limit on the work and there is no enforcing optimism

or any focus on fixing.

The 5 Practice Principles

They are: Critical Self-reflection, Critical Assessment (of users’

experiences of oppression), Empower Service Users, Worker in
Partnerships (with clients), and Minimal Intervention.

1. Critical Self-reflection means to “reflect on ways in which our own

biographies, especially how our membership of particular social
divisions, shapes our practice relationships” (2002, p. 183).

2. Critical Assessment means to “consider how the service users’

membership of specific social divisions and their historical and
geographical context shape their experiences and the options for
action available to them” (2002, p. 184).

3. Empower Service Users means to “seek to overcome the cultural,

institutional and structural, as well as the personal, obstacles in life in
order for clients to taking greater control of their lives” (2002, p. 185).

4. “Worker in Partnership means that service users should be included

as far as possible as fellow citizens in the decision-making process
which affects their lives’” (2002, p. 186).

5. Minimal Intervention means, “to reduce the oppressive and

disempowering dimensions of social work intervention. Social workers
should also aim to intervene in the least intrusive and least oppressive
means possible” (2002, p. 187) as early as possible.

Anti-Oppressive Practice: Some Critical Reflections

There are serious concerns about Anti-Oppressive Practice in ‘high risk’

decision-making because it doesn’t believe in prioritizing danger or risk
due to its oppressive nature. For example, a husband that is very
abusive towards his spouse and children, Anti-Oppressive Social
Workers will see it as an oppressive intrusion if we take the children
away from the family and send the mother to a women’s mid way
house.

It also minimizes the capacity of social workers to act in ‘high-risk’

situations.

Intervention is not always oppressive. What may be oppressive to

some, may be liberating for others. This is simply not the belief of Anti-
oppressive practice because it contradicts its mandate to be anti-
oppressive for all. For example, the spouse of the abuse husband
above, maybe have actually come in so that the Social Worker does
intervene so that she/he can get away from the abusive relationship.

Provides no way of prioritizing different and conflicting needs of clients.

Anti-Oppressive Practice is in an oppositional stance where the ‘anti’ in

anti-oppressive practice implies fighting against other groups of
people; creating discrimination on the bases of those who oppress first
in order to oppress the oppressors.

Anti-oppression should also have greater recognition of institutional

contexts–which, in the end, limit the application of Anti-Oppressive
Practice.

The structural analysis of power relations in anti-oppressive practice

does not recognize other different forms of power relations.
Postmodern Approaches in Practice (Chapter 10)

Postmodern Practices in Context (Healy. K., 2002, p. 193-4)

Postmodernist think that everything in the society is socially

constructed. Therefore, clients’ needs and the theoretical practices,
such as critical social work practices, are also socially constructed; just
like capitalism, patriarchy, and inequality. Though the formal base of
postmodernism is critical sociological discourse, it breaks away from its
theoretical frames to cite that it is all socially constructed and
therefore is subject to criticism. Postmodernist also think that, because
all the formal critical social work practice is socially constructed, it will
not end oppression because it works in a frame of oppression by
believing that there is one truth and not multiple realities in society
therefore oppressing those who have different frames of thought and
different realities.

Postmodernist also believe that it is by discourse and not through

macro structures, like capitalism or patriarchy, of society that cause
inequality. That discourse firmed these structures into existence and
due to its socially constructed processes, does inequality exist within
macro structures like the examples stated earlier.

Postmodernist urge us to pay attention to discourses like biomedical

discourse and consumer rights discourse that shapes our needs as well
as our wants and finally, our oppressions and inequalities.
Postmodernism seeks to disrupt narratives that oppress in order for
clients to make their own and break free from oppression the best way
they think it should be.

Postmodernism seeks to understand and think outside the box by

using spirituality and religious fronts as a certain possibility that could
help in the disruption and destruction of oppressive narrative; where
critical social work relies on socially constructed and generalized
practices taken from psychological, and sociological sets of discourses.
They also rely on the former health and welfare institutions as part of
the definite answer.

The process of inequality explained by postmodernism: Discourse

(ideas, language, and beliefs about capitalism) to constructing
oppressive social structures (i.e. Capitalism) to inequality (through
capitalistic processes). Problem: our discourse.

So What Is Postmodernism?

Post represents a break with core notions of the Enlightenment.

Post theorist question the narrow definitions of ‘reason’ and ‘progress’

on which a range of influential discourses and practice approaches
depend. Both these words, argued by postmodernist, are political tools
that benefits professional, because they have more reason, then
service users.

Post modernists also use bodily signifiers (that don’t rely on reason) to
detect danger.

Foucault, a postmodernist, also asserts that our claims to ‘help’,

‘empower’, and ‘emancipate’ should be criticized because such
institutions like school, hospitals, and prisons are at the power relation
of power of a subject.

By raising consciousness, we are imposing our truth about the nature

of their experiences.

Postmodernism challenges all social workers to self-reflect on the ways

in which our practices contribute to the control and surveillance of
people we are seeking to assist.

Postmodernism challenges the idea that our identities are fixed, for
example, a ‘working-class’ person, or a ‘women’. Post theorists assert
that our identities are socially constructed through language. That
means our identities are fluid and change according to context.
Postmodernists focus on understanding local diverse experiences of
people within a community, rather than trying to construct a single
story or narrative (i.e. capitalism or Marxism) about an event or a
population.

Post theorists argue that overarching social change projects carry

within them a will to domination and so can reproduce the forms of
domination they were intended to overcome.

At the very least, post theories urge us to be alert to the forms of

domination and push to conformity that may lay concealed in
progressive social change efforts.

Differences Among Post Theories

Postmodernism is concerned with theories of society, culture and
history. It also takes issue with the reason, linearity and progress at
the heart of modernism (architecture).

Poststructuralism is focused on the influence of language on power,

knowledge, and identity (discourse and linguistics).

Postcolonialism take issue with notions such as ‘third world nation’

and the binaries that follow, they seek to re-member, re-write local
narratives, languages, practices long excluded by colonization
(literature).

Key Concepts

Discourse

Refers to the language practices through which knowledge I, truth, our

sense of ourselves, and social relations are constructed. It is also a
collection of words, practices and rules, always have effects, some
dominant, some subjugated, create power and new knowledge.

Subjectivity

Subjectivity is the word used, rather than identity, to refer to our sense
of ourselves. We all have multiple selves that may change, conflict and
be ‘under construction’.

Power

It’s the argument that we are always powerful and powerless at same
time; depending on our own narratives and our discourse. Post
theorists argue that power is exercised rather than possessed, that it is
not only primarily repressive, but also productive and it is analyzed as
coming from the bottom up.

Deconstruction

The term commonly used to describe the process of identifying and

undermining oppositions through which discourses represent things
such as knowledge, identity, and other social phenomena.

Narrative Therapy: A Postmodern Practice Approach

1. Focus on Narratives that Shape Service User’s Lives

Not truth-seeking, but curious and open

Challenges harmful narratives – how “recruited”?

Constructs alternative narratives that honor capacities

2. Separate the Person from the Problem

Externalizing conversations – name it

Alternative future – problem does not control them

3. Reconstruct the Dominant Story of the Self as One of Survival,

Courage, Responsibility and Active Resistance

Focus on strengths and capacities

Build supportive community - Who sees this other ‘you’? Who can
witness this?

Uses and limitations of Post Theories for Social Work Practices

Pros

Pays attention to all identities one has.

Pays attention to specifics and does not generalize.

Cons

Critics question if Postmodernism can provide a coherent framework

for practice.

Post theories are argued that it can be used to support conservative

policy agendas and practice approaches.

It sells out to individualism, greed, and exploitation.

Take away time and effort into social change, justice, and equality.

Anti-Oppressive Practice in Child Welfare (Susan Strega)