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BJSW Advance Access originally published online on October 27, 2006
British Journal of Social Work 2008 38(2):253-269; doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcl337
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.

Changes in the Form of Knowledge in Social Work: From the ‘Social’ to the ‘Informational’?

Nigel Parton

Nigel Parton is NSPCC Professor in Applied Childhood Studies in the Centre for Applied Childhood Studies at the University of Huddersfield. His most recent books include Safeguarding Childhood: Early Intervention and Surveillance in a Late Modern Society (Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2006) and (editor with Kevin Gorman, Marilyn Gregory and Michelle Hayles) Constructive Work with Offenders (London, Jessica Kingsley, 2006).

Correspondence to Professor Nigel Parton, NSPCC Professor in Applied Childhood Studies, University of Huddersfield, School of Human and Health Sciences, Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK. E-mail: n.parton{at}hud.ac.uk


  Abstract

This paper examines the changing form of knowledge in social work over the past thirty years and its implications for theory and practice. In particular, it considers the impact of new systems related to a range of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the shift from a narrative to a database way of thinking and operating. In doing so, it attempts to identify a series of key challenges and questions which need to be considered in order to engage with the changes. In particular, it addresses how far social work is still primarily concerned with subjects and their social relationships and argues that social work now operates less on the terrain of the ‘social’ and more on the terrain of the ‘informational’. Such changes have implications for the relationship between theory and practice in social work and the nature of ‘social’ work itself.

Keywords: knowledge, theory, information


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