Human rights have always been intrinsically woven into social work, but in the UK, often in a way that is either vague or wholly legalistic. In this article, we make a case for embedding a broader and richer concept of human rights in UK social work practice and education. We contrast the international social work perspective on human rights with that of UK professional codes and suggest that the narrow and uninterrogated conceptualisation of human rights in the UK may be acting as a barrier to UK social workers fully understanding and engaging with broader human rights agendas of the sort found in international practice. We argue for the merits of regrounding UK social work in this broader human rights concept, in which radical and emancipatory approaches can be underpinned by a common and unifying rights-orientated perspective. We make this argument, initially, in the context of the Human Rights Act 1998 remaining in UK law, which we see as entirely necessary for the protection of human rights in social work in the country, but insufficient for a broader, richer concept. We also, however, consider a scenario in which the Act is replaced by a British Bill of Rights and argue that such a development would present a further urgent need for embedding a broader human rights concept in UK social work. We close by setting out some of what such a concept might involve.

In an increasingly complex, globalized world, many of the problems confronting social workers are rooted in structural inequalities created or deepened by uncontrolled neoliberal market mechanisms. Yet neoliberal political agendas dominating the global order encourage individualistic models of social work intervention, characterized by managerialism and deprofessionalisation. Critiquing the impact of neoliberalism, those aligned with critical and radical social work traditions have highlighted the use of narrow technicist interventions to disguise the root social causes of people´s suffering and contradicting values of human rights (HR) and social justice (SJ) that lie at the heart of social work as a profession. For social work students to locate themselves confidently within HR and SJ frameworks, they must experience HR and SJ as central to their education. This article draws on doctoral research exploring how HR and SJ are operationalized in social work education in England and Spain. A web survey of social work educators and students was complemented by interviews with educators in both countries. Findings revealed key opportunities for learning, teaching and performing HR and SJ in social work education. We discuss each in turn, reflecting briefly on the implications for enhancing the profile of HR and SJ in social work education.

The history of social work as a profession and academic discipline is inextricably linked with principles of human rights (HR) and social justice (SJ). The Global Standards for social work education promote HR and SJ as unifying themes, yet there is little understanding of how these themes are embedded in social work education in specific national contexts. This article, based on empirical research in England and Spain, explores social work educators' understandings of, and strategies used in learning and teaching about, HR and SJ. Using a critical realist framework, a web survey was followed by qualitative interviews with educators in each country to identify opportunities and challenges in stimulating students' theoretical understanding of HR and SJ, and their application in practice. Findings show that prevailing neoliberal ideology has pervaded social work in both countries (more strongly in England) placing pressure on social work educators to convey narrow understandings of HR and SJ and to adopt increasingly bureaucratic and distant relationships with students. Identifying a range of factors informing educators' understandings of HR and SJ, the research identifies spaces for strengthening the focus on HR and SJ in social work education. The article argues that while university-based social work education remains a fertile site for the deconstruction of neoliberal ideology that threatens the HR and SJ foundations of social work globally, social work and social work education require the development of a distinct, alternative, HR and SJ-based ideology.

No abstract