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BJSW Advance Access published online on August 1, 2005
British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bch281
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.

Article

When and How Does Ethnicity Matter? A Cross-National Study of Social Work Responses to Ethnicity in Child Protection Cases

Charlotte Williams 1 and Haluk Soydan 2

1 Senior Lecturer in Social Policy/Social Work at the University of Wales Bangor
2 Professor of Social Work and Research Director at the National Board of Health and Welfare in Stockholm, Sweden


  Abstract

It is an established part of the conventional wisdom of social work theory and practice that attention to ethnic difference is at the core of best practice. This principle is endorsed in welfare legislation or in the training and education of social workers in most European countries. Little empirical evidence exists, however, to demonstrate that this principle guides practitioner decision making, or to verify the claim that it benefits ethnic minority clients. At a cross-national level, no robust evidence exists to illustrate similarities or differences in social work response to ethnicity. This article reports on aspects of a study that examines these concerns within the context of child protection. It demonstrates, perhaps surprisingly given national variations in legislation and professional practice, that overall, country by country, the child’s ethnic affiliation evokes little significant response by social workers, confirming a largely universalist approach. However, through a detailed focus on the qualitative data, this paper considers the nature of the references to ethnicity that are made by social workers in terms of how they confirm or refute the dominant approach to multiculturalism within social work.

Keywords: child protection, ethnicity, professional judgements, social work practice, vignette study.
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