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BJSW Advance Access published online on October 27, 2006
British Journal of Social Work, 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

Article

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

Nigel Parton 1 *

1 NSPCC Professor in Applied Childhood Studies, University of Huddersfield, School of Human and Health Sciences, Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Nigel Parton, 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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