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Exploring the spaces between theory and practice : a framework to integrate a structural approach and social work activities

University of British Columbia

This dissertation explores and examines the use of structural social work theory in practice, in order to better understand the processes involved in effectively integrating theory into practice. Structural social work theory was developed in Canada and has been in use for about 30 years. It is related to other progressive approaches such as radical, feminist, anti-racist, anti-oppressive and critical social work. The first chapter outlines the history of progressive social work and situates structural social work theory in this context. The literature review identifies issues and concerns with theory-practice integration specific to structural social work and other progressive social work theories, as well as theory-practice integration in general in the social work field. While the social work literature notes the problems with theory-practice integration, there are few studies examining the factors in the successful use of theory in practice. In addition, the literature tends to focus on individual factors in theory-practice integration, and there is limited research examining interactions between these factors. In-depth interviews were conducted with social work practitioners who utilized a structural social work approach in their practice. Follow-up interviews, a questionnaire and the analysis of documents mentioned by participants provided additional data. The findings demonstrate that participants’ use of structural social work theory in practice progressed through a series of six developmental stages. The stages began with the use of conventional social work activities, and moved to seeing the effects of structural oppression, forging alliances, encompassing structural goals into conventional social work activities, engaging in specifically structural activities, and culminated in adapting structural social work theory for use in practice. Participants’ use of the structural approach and the development through the stages were influenced by external contexts. The interactions between participants and the contexts, or structures, they encountered reflect the agency-structure dialectic found in structural social work theory.

Text

2012-04-18

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/42072

Social Work

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/