Between Emancipatory Practice and Disciplinary Interventions: Empowerment and Contemporary Social Normativity (original) (raw)
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Theorising the Radical Potential of Empowerment Social Work
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Within recent social work literature, the concept of empowerment as a practice perspective has received wide endorsement. In this article, I argue that adopting the notion of empowerment as a framework for practice requires not only that we think differently about professional practice but, more fundamentally, that we think differently about professional knowledge. Using the work of philosopher Jiirgen Habermas, particularly the distinction he makes among three arenas of human activity-work, interaction, and power-I outline ways in which the functional and cognitive interests associated with these arenas dictate differing orientations to practice, alternate commitments to various forms of knowledge as applicable in practice settings, and different accounts of practitioner error. Implications for professional education are addressed.
12. Empowerment of Social Services Professionals
Amsterdam University Press eBooks, 2006
The Struggle for Knowledge Social professionals are quite capable of agreeing on the most urgent social problems. However, their own practical expertise is insufficiently articulated in the social debate. Osmond and O'Connor (2004) claim that 'in the current environment, an incapacity to articulate what we know places us at a considerable disadvantage'. Welfare workers, for instance, often note differences in interpretation concerning the kinds of problems and the nature of necessary interventions. Knowledge of and access to specific social sector target groups are deployed mainly by solving politically formulated problems.
Measuring Instruments for Empowerment in Social Work: A Scoping Review
The British Journal of Social Work
Empowerment is seen as an important thinking and working framework for social work. Ideally, it is possible to measure the empowering effects of social work. However, various factors complicate measuring empowerment, making it a difficult exercise. In past decades many instruments for measuring empowerment have been developed and there are many variations in the way these instruments have been developed. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the available instruments, scales or questionnaires that intent to measure the empowerment of users of social work in different contexts of social work, by means of a scoping review. A total of 2,711 studies were screened, resulting in 49 unique instruments for measuring empowerment in contexts related to social work. The results show that the found instruments are almost exclusively Patient-Reported Outcome Scales. Whilst many instruments measure individual empowerment, only a few measure community empowerment. The re...
European Journal of Social Work, 2016
For years, the professional field has been searching for methods that could be used to chart the effectiveness of social services. Social workers report that their current systems for registration and measurement do not provide an accurate reflection of their practice. The measurement of client empowerment might offer an alternative method that could improve the evaluation of social services. This method links the need for measuring instruments to the paradigm of empowerment, which has shaped contemporary social work. A scale for measuring psychological empowerment was developed in consultation with social workers and people in poverty, based on validated and reliable measurement scales. It was subsequently tested in two Public Centres for Social Welfare in Flanders (Belgium). Results of confirmatory factor analysis indicate that the measurement model provides a good fit for the data and that the various latent factors are reliable and valid. We conclude that the factors emerging from the factor analysis reflect the three dimensions that form the concept of psychological empowerment: the intrapsychic, interpsychic and behavioural components. Results from the post-test survey indicate that this measurement instrument is promising, and that it could offer a response to current needs, although additional efforts are needed in order to improve the instrument's handling.
Emancipatory Social Work Education and Community Empowerment
In this article we discuss the links between emancipatory social work education and community empowerment. Based on Freirian-Gramscian-Althusserian theoretical analyses and praxis, we argue that the development of critical consciousness has the potential to contribute to radical and empowering social action. In doing so, we draw on the voices of students who have had the benefit of emancipatory social work education, and on our experiences in working in communities. Emancipatory social work education, rooted in critical and radical theories, highlights the iterative relationship between the personal and political dimensions of life, thus rendering the micro-macro dichotomy a false one. It thus brings into sharp focus the complex interrelationship between agency and structure. Emancipatory social work is directed at heightening awareness of external sources of oppression and/or privilege that hold the possibility of increasing self-esteem and courage to confront structural sources of marginalization, oppression and exclusion.
The theory of empowerment: A critical analysis with the theory evaluation scale
Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 2019
Empowerment has received considerable attention in the past four decades and become a threshold framework in the field of social work. Using the Theory Evaluation Scale (TES), this paper critically analyzed the empowerment theory with regard to coherence, conceptual clarity, philosophical assumptions, historical roots, testability, empiricism, boundaries, client context, and human agency within the environment. Based on a thorough review of the literature, the empowerment theory generated an overall score of 39 on the TES. Contrary to popular criticisms, this score demonstrates the epistemological soundness and overall quality of empowerment as a theoretical model. This paper has implications for theory and research by showing that empowerment is an ideal framework for the mixed-methods research paradigm. This paper also has implications for social work practice where empowerment is seen as a countermeasure to traditional practice models which promoted therapists as experts. That is, the findings suggest that social workers at all levels of interventionmicro, mezzo, and macrocan continue to embrace empowerment as the model to help clients influence their own lives. Finally, the findings have relevance for social work pedagogy by justifying the choice of empowerment as a threshold concept in the social work curriculum.