Social Work and Social Justice: What Are We Fighting For?

Social justice as a unifying theme in social work education: principles to realize the promise of a new pedagogical model

“…As noted above, understandings of how to order a just society often differ (Reisch, 2002;Solas, 2008). In some cases, they may include passing legislation in order to address perceived structural issues.…”

“…This perspective has wide support in many circles (Solas, 2008;Van Soest & Garcia, 2003). Marsh (2005), for instance, affirms that social justice functions as the profession's foundational ''organizing value''.…”

“…Even more troubling is the fact that conceptualizations of social justice can be opposed to one another (Solas, 2008). Groups across the ideological spectrum have used the notion of social justice to support mutually contradictory actions (Reisch, 2002).…”

Comment on John Solas: “What Are We Fighting For?”

“…Examples include need, rights, ethics, power, practice, evidence, culture, discourse, equity, and social justice, and it is the last of these that is John Solas' concern in his paper (Solas, 2008). Articles such as this, which question some of the taken-for-granted assumptions embedded in social work writing and thinking, do the profession a service and John Solas' paper is welcome for this reason.…”

“…In recent years, the emphasis in social work has been, in my view (and presumably also in John Solas'), too much oriented to survival in a hostile environment and to accommodation with these dominant discourses, so that the critical edge that once characterised social work (or at least a significant stream within it) has been lost. Solas (2008) advocates a form of ''radical equality'', an idea that, if followed through, requires the asking of some fundamental and important questions. Traditional social policy thinking has been concerned with equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, and has seen the two as separate and indeed opposing concepts; one precludes the other, with equality of opportunity seen as the weaker liberal option, and equality of outcome, assumed to be more desirable, requiring stronger state intervention and a more ''radical'' political stance.…”