Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The backdrop for this book is Sweden. The country's rich heritage of welfare provision but also recent cultural diversity offers a unique Nordic context to the subject matter. The contributors engage with these new conditions for Swedish social work through an intersectional lens. Topics explored include:
- Digging in the present: A day in the life of a school counsellor
- We live in a political world: Between needs and money
- The problematic labour market situation of immigrants to Sweden: Consequences and causes
- Tackling the contradictory nature of social work
- Using anti-oppressive practice to promote social inclusion in social work education
The result is a book that is personal and reflexive, and positions the contributors' narratives as a window to understand and address social problems.
Narratives of Social Work Practice and Education in Sweden should engage those interested in the Swedish welfare state, and who want to learn about how social work is taught and practised in this country. Intended to be a general introduction, the book provides guidance to those considering working in the field and for those newly qualified. It also provides examples for students of social work to connect personal narratives to social work settings.
Synopsis
This book brings a novel approach to issues of connecting social work practice to theory and the personal life narrative. The authors each find their own unique way of integrating the self, theory, and practice, in different social work practice and education settings. Contributors use the methodology of narrative to tell their story about their social work journey, be that in research, teaching, or practice.
The backdrop for this book is Sweden. The country's rich heritage of welfare provision but also recent cultural diversity offers a unique Nordic context to the subject matter. The contributors engage with these new conditions for Swedish social work through an intersectional lens. Topics explored include:
- Digging in the present: A day in the life of a school counsellor
- We live in a political world: Between needs and money
- The problematic labour market situation of immigrants to Sweden: Consequences and causes
- Tackling the contradictory nature of social work
- Using anti-oppressive practice to promote social inclusion in social work education
The result is a book that is personal and reflexive, and positions the contributors' narratives as a window to understand and address social problems.
Narratives of Social Work Practice and Education in Sweden should engage those interested in the Swedish welfare state, and who want to learn about how social work is taught and practised in this country. Intended to be a general introduction, the book provides guidance to those considering working in the field and for those newly qualified. It also provides examples for students of social work to connect personal narratives to social work settings.
Synopsis
Foreword: Emeritus professor Viviene E. Cree, MA BA PhD FAcSS Emerita Professor of Social Work Studies
Introduction (Preface or new Ch. 1? TBD): Linda Lane & Michael Wallengren-Lynch
Chapter One: The importance of narratives by Linda Lane & Michael Wallengren-LynchIn the introductory chapter, the authors draw out broader background issues that the book will cover. Starting with a brief discussion of the development of social work education and practice in Sweden, the chapter links the emergence of the profession to international social movements that sought to understand, combat, and eradicate social problems. The aim of the chapter is to provide a context upon which the narratives can be understood; i.e., to link them to theories, methods, and practices. In the chapter, the authors argue that narratives as a method of enquiry have distinctive features that make it useful for generating new insights in social work practice. The chapter concludes with brief introductions to the other book chapters and identifies which social work theories and practices they relate to.
Chapter Two: We Live In A Political World: Between Needs and Money by Kristina Alstam
This chapter outlines a classical conflict within the domain of social work; that between clients exposing a need and budget cuts regulating or de-emphasizing that very same need. Beginning with a personal memory of having turned down a vulnerable elderly client's application for a place in a residential home, the chapter continues to expose this conflict through examples taken from the domain of social work for the elderly and that of schooling. The author argues that the way we institutionally deal with the needs of the elderly and that of children in certain aspects seem to conflate; especially notable in the way that needs are made to be reduced in the face of financial austerity. Closing with a discussion about how these matters may position the research field of social work, the chapter asserts that practitioners and academics need to join forces to combat this false dichotomy. The chapter furthermore argues that a large part of the responsibility for that task lies with the academy, which is outlined as an important agent in the undertaking to educate future social workers, to arm them with the necessary skills to accomplish the disclosure of the ideology that urges us to make do with what we have.
Kristina Alstam has a PhD in Social Work and is currently engaged as a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg. Her field of interest revolves around issues of social class and the redistribution of resources, discourses about families and parenting as ways of mediating a commonsense understanding of social class, and the manner in which ideologically connoted discourses about welfare regimes and austerity cut-backs are circulated, defended, and contested within the domain of social work. She has also directed attention towards questions close to social work practice, such as prevention/promotion programs or social work in the interface between supervision and community work in disadvantaged residential areas.
Chapter Three: A day in the life of a school counsellor by Michael Wallengren-Lynch This chapter starts with the author's reflections on his school time and fast forwards to the current time of recently moving to a new country and setting up a new life. The chapter explores his role as a school counsellor by presenting 'artefacts' from that time. The role of reflection is important for the author, and the chapter offers the reader an example of how this author connected his own narrative with the role of school counsellor and the profession of social work.
Michael Wallengren Lynch has a doctorate in social work fro