Personal, professional and political: minority social workers as policy actors

Abstract

The involvement of social workers in policy-making processes is grounded in a professional requirement for promoting social justice, however, it is inherently a political activity related to the socio-political context in which it occurs. What does this political involvement mean when it comes to minority social workers in multicultural societies, who are expected to act as policy actors in policy arenas designed by the majority group in society? This article is based on the assumption that minority social workers, whose number is on the rise in various European countries, need opportunities and motivations in a socio-political context in order to act as policy actors in cross-cultural political situations. Using insights from the literature on the political participation of ethnic minorities and knowledge in the field of public policy, we present a theoretical Minority Policy Practice model (MPP) to examine different factors that may affect the involvement of minority social workers in policy practice. These new theoretical understandings are expected to serve as a basis for advancing training programmes and designing policy procedures to increase the involvement of minority social workers as policy actors in multicultural countries.

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