© British Association of Social Workers
Notes on Theory and Practice in Social Work: a Comparative Viewa
Gerhard Smid teaches theory of adult education and researches into trades union education at the Department of Andragology and Social Pedagogy, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Robert van Krieken teaches Social Theory in the Department of Social Work, University of Sydney, Australia.
Please address reprint requests to Robert van Krieken, Department of Social Work, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
Summary
There are still a number of problems surrounding the relationship between theories of social work practice and that practice itself. This paper examines the factors underlying those problems and emphasises their roots in the failure to examine the diversity of social work theories and practices. We refer to one attempt to resolve the problems—the distinction between ‘practice theory’ and ‘theory of practice’—point out some difficulties with it and suggest an alternative, three-fold distinction within theorising: between (a) materialist social theory, (b) strategic practice theory and (c) working concepts.
As an example of how those distinctions can be used, we then briefly discuss the work of Oskar Negt and its introduction into the Dutch welfare context, as it was the issues raised by that which stimulated the ideas in this paper. We conclude by arguing that only this kind of perspective on theorising can produce ideas which are of real use to progressive social work practitioners.