© British Association of Social Workers
Social Work, Social Science and Practice Wisdom
Michael Sheppard is Principal Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Plymouth. His Latest book is Care Management and the New Social Work: A Critical Analysis
Correspondence to Michael Sheppard, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA.
Summary
Social work has for some time had an ambiguous and ambivalent relationship with its social science knowledge base. However, this has arisen, at least in part, because of the emphasis on the outcome or product of social science rather than the process by which research is conducted. This paper, focusing on assessment, argues that an emphasis on process goes some way to closing the gap between social science and social work, that the methods used by social researchers are, in many respects, simply refinements of the methodology of everyday life, and that social workers, when conducting assessments operate rather like practical qualitative researchers. Using Analytical Induction as an heuristic device, it proceeds to explore critical characteristics of good practice in social work assessments. It concludes that practice should be characterized by critical awareness, involving imaginative development of alternative hypotheses, a sceptical attitude towards case assessments and a principle of adopting hypotheses least likely to be in error.
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