Hi Jonathan. I tend to think it's a field of study, just as, for example, education or criminology are. These are all fields that draw on various disciplines and you can take (e.g.) a more sociological, political or psychological approach, depending on your preference. But I don't think any of these are disciplines in their own right. It's not the trait-based thing I have a problem with. I don't shy away from social workers having expertise. I just thinking it's over-claiming to label it a discipline.

Dear Jonathan,

In the present world everybody is claiming for academic discipline. You can not forbid that. If sexual marketing or image formation are academic, why social work can not be academic?. But, please, notice that all this happened during several last decades, when post-modernist type thinking began to prevail everywhere. In reality I am surprised that You, westerners, are not any more longing for welfare state times of fifties-eighties of last century. When You had holistic understanding of society, more structuralism and functionalism, more truth and more values. I think, that at that golden time scientific disciplines were more academic than it is nowadays with all interdisciplinary approaches. Please, resist to such my understanding.

P.S. Personally I am not so old yet - only 53 years of age. But in soviet times in Lithuania we admired exactly the golden era of welfare states in the West.In scientific approaches and scientific disciplines formation too.

Ah the long debate as this has been asked before, Social work is a profession first--meaning our students go out and work face to face with people --helping them in some way to improve their lives. That is the mission of social work. How does one define a discipline?? We are not for example like history, biology, or even sociology although in the past I have said we are more like applied sociology. As a social work academic and practitioner for many years I know that we have something unigue that while we are not always good at operationalizing does make us different--and that is looking at our clients within their ecologies. But being in universities put us in a bind--we are subject to the expectations of a 'discipline" whatever that is it does include the overarching mandate for research but not necessarily with application--while at the same time we are actually educating people to go out and immediately work with other people--face to face --and usually very vulnerable people. Sociology and criminology do not expect that necessarily--or at least their mission is not that. That is the mission of schools of social

work . So we are kind of misfits in the academic world and usually misunderstood with unrealistic expectations to produce our "OWN" theories, etc. Its does not take anything away from us to draw on disciplines for theory etc..why recreate wheels. Unfortunately even within my own profession of social work there are increasing numbers who do not believe that social workers are needed top teach people to be social workers...so why do we exist at all then??? I am order and have seen change at the detriment of my profession --from within and without and I am sorry that we are loosing our way.

Today in the global context, no discipline natural or social can be independent. Social work is no way exception to this. Social work is an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary applied social and behavioral science. We continue to learn from social and behavioral sciences as well as from our own practice. We do not have a completely independent body of knowledge. But still we are different from other applied social scientists. Social work knowledge as a whole is different from the sum of the parts drawn from others. Yes social work is a discipline and profession.

Social work is a multidisculiplinary field of study within universities with the mission to educate professionals to go out into the world to work with the most vulnerable of society's citizens. In my opinion based on the Swedish context, social work is suffering from a underdog complex. Departments are so focused on finding their professional identity, that they are losing track of necessary contributions from other disciplines such as sociology, psychology, history, economics, political science - upon which they are built. As a result we are losing sight of the structural changes in societies that make social work relevant for modern society.

I am currently a social work student, 3rd year. I find our course is relevant to the issues of today such as globalisation, politics, sociology. However, in saying that, I find there is not enough relevant practical information dispersed from the Universities. I consistently hear that student love hearing about experiences and how social workers have dealt with different situations.

It also seems to me that social work is a little lost in the scheme of things. It is a profession that is difficult to explain as compared with that of medicine or veterinary science.

People usually see us as counsellors or welfare workers. I think we require a professional outline as to what we actually do. Social work, applied science cross paths. It seems as if there is a lot of confusion.

I would like to see social work recognised as a registered profession.

As an Interdisciplinarian, I provide support and professional recognition to innovators within fields, and especially to young researchers whose work and ideas will have a long-term impact on society.

 Does social work represent an academic discipline in its own right?

Basic Definition: An academic discipline or field of study is a branch of knowledge that is taught and researched as part of higher education.

However, academics within the discipline often make claims for it having its own knowledge base. Does this represent merely a wish to engage with professionalism from a trait-based sociological perspective or does it actually have credence?

Everything has credence!  

Social Work as already reached this level on every campus!

Social work is values based - human rights and social justice - not knowledge based. Social work interprets and applies other disciplines' knowledge according to those values and context. That is why social work is different.

If you asked the question, Does psychology represent an academic discipline in its own right? what would people say?

Dear Jonathan,

Based on your question, I split my answer in two parts:

In conclusion, it's an issue of weighing these two parts of my answer. In my personal opinion, both parts should be explained explicitly. Based on part two of my answer, it's justified, that representatives of the discipline Social Work claim their own knowledge base, because they act, work or research in the way, described above, and that's definitely credible .

Kind regards

Detlef

In my opinion social work is a holistic science formed by many sciences, such as law, anthropology, economics, social politics, sociology, social diagnostics; For all this I believe that social work is a shared science. Needing the knowledge of their own social sciences.

On the other hand social work creates and uses its own methodology of intervention and prevention to respond to social problems.