Developing Integrative Perspectives of Social Work Identity through Dialectics

Abstract

The health and human services arena in contemporary society is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary. Social work’s understanding of the conditions and needs of marginalised populations can positively contribute to the collective efforts to address complex problems in the postmodern world. Throughout history and due to the diversity of its focus and methods, social work has struggled to develop a unified perspective of its professional focus and the core professional transactions. A lack of consensus regarding professional focus has undermined social work’s professional identity, which becomes particularly problematic within the context of the multidisciplinary collaboration in which each discipline is expected to make unique contributions. Recent scholarly discourses recognise that the profession’s characteristic as a distinct integrative science is at the core of its professional identity formation. Integrative science strives to develop new applications of existing theories or design new integrative theories. The current paper seeks to rediscover the value of dialectics, an integrative theory that has been suggested to be applicable to social work practice and education. In doing so, dialectic thinking implied in the writings of social work scholars who strived to develop integrative perspectives of social work identity is examined throughout the history of the profession’s development.

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