Social work practice and social science history

Edgar Marthinsen

doi:10.1921/swssr.v15i1.505

Authors

Edgar Marthinsen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1921/swssr.v15i1.505

Keywords:

social work, science history, knowledge production, respect and recognition

Abstract

Social work may be regarded as a product of the Enlightment together with other social sciences. The ontological shift from religious perspectives to a secularly based responsibility that opens up for political as well as individual action is regarded as a baseline for modern social work. Social work itself has struggled to develop an academic identity and a sustainable social field within the social sciences. Social work has historically experienced a gap between research and practice, relating to social sciences and other subjects as part of its teaching without a firm scientific foundation for social works own practice. If social work earlier developed related to ideas of welfare and social policy in practice it may now be moving in a new direction towards more than being based on scientific development within its own field. Over the last decades the need for scientific development within social work has strengthened its relation to research and social science. There seems to be arguments to support that social work is moving with research in directions which may be regarded as an epistemological turn based on understanding of knowledge production as well as a linguistic turn where the construction of meaning enhance the importance of regarding different lifeworlds and worldviews as basis for claiming some egalitarian positions for different positions as clients as well as researchers and practitioners.

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