Structural Social Work: Ideology, Theory, and Practice

The need for an alternative to conventional social work is more obvious today than ever before. Given its acceptance of our present social order and its emphasis on reform of the individual and limited social reform, conventional social work appears powerless to deal with the increasing socialproblems that have already overloaded a diminishing welfare state. By continuing to recycle mainstream theories of social work practice that do nothing to change the present order, conventional social work actually contributes to the ideological hegemony of patriarchy, classism, racism and otheroppressive thought structures. The New Structural Social Work reveals the shortcoming of welfare capitalism as a social system and shows how conventional social work has failed to respond to systemic social problems. Mullaly presents a coherent and consistent theory of progressive social work, with oppression as its centralfocus, and examines elements of its political practice. It is shown how this practice is carried out within the social agency, outside the agency, and within the personal lives of structural social workers. This third edition has been extensively revised and updated, and includes.DT an expanded discussion of the political paradigms that influence social work in CanadaDT a new chapter on feminist, antiracist, and postmodernist critiques of the neo-conservative, liberal, social democratic, and Marxist paradigms that dominated the nineteenth and twentieth centuriesDT a new chapter that assesses the influence of the 'Third Way' and the role that social work plays in Third Way jurisdictions such as the UK.DT improved pedagogical aids to make this book more accessible to the mid-level university market.