Evidence, Expertise, and Ethics

Abstract

The extent to which people choose their professions and professions choose their practitioners is not always clear; it is in all likelihood a simpatico process. But, growing attention to the study of careers can help elucidate the nexus of personal and professional forces that underpins this complex dynamic. This line of inquiry can also advance knowledge of how it is that individual scholars come to shape the essential features and directions of a profession at a particular point in its history. I use oral life history methods to develop an account of Eileen Gambrill’s emergence as an “influential” in the course of American social work. I begin with a brief overview of the context of the project. I then describe the range of narrative methods which I drew on to craft an account of her personal and professional development vis-à-vis the profession’s zeitgeist at the time. I begin the account itself by defining an influential to establish her status in the field. I then turn to the alchemy of dispositional and situational conditions which, beginning in early life and extending throughout her formal education, furthered her development in this role. I close with a few examples of the significant outcomes of her influence as an integrative scholar who focused her career on bettering the lives of others through evidence-informed, expertly delivered, ethically responsible social work practice.

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