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• Challenges, Opportunities and Resilience in Contemporary Practice

  Walter Lorenz

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  123

  This paper examines the evolution of social work as a profession within the context of changing socio-political landscapes. Through critical analysis of historical developments and contemporary challenges, it explores how neoliberal ideologies have fundamentally transformed the conceptualization of "the social" and consequently altered the practice and perception of social work. The research investigates the tension between technical-managerial approaches and relationship-based practices in social work, highlighting the profession's struggle to maintain its core values amid political and economic pressures. The paper argues for a re-politicization of social work practice as essential for its continued relevance and effectiveness, proposing a framework that reaffirms social work's commitment to fostering meaningful human connections and addressing structural inequalities. This analysis contributes to ongoing scholarly discourse on the future direction of social work in increasingly complex and polarized societies.

• A kritikai pedagógia és a szociális munka kapcsolata: pedagógia a szociális munkában szakemberek nézőpontjain keresztül

  Janka Kormos

  Views:

  255

  This paper is trying to enlighten the interrelations between pedagogy and social work practice through lenses of professionals and by analysing similar courses of development and professionalization of these two disciplines. My question in this small research basically was how social workers do and educators think about similarities and differences of the two disciplines in practice and in theory as well. Do social workers identify pedagogical situations, which include a process of learning in their social work praxis? If they identify situations when they are participants in a learning process with the service users do they apply educating methods and techniques? Do social workers apply pedagogical methods and skills in their praxis consciously?
  From my point of view the process of empowerment is also a learning process of ourselves and our environment therefore I think social workers would need to facilitate these learning situations to make empowerment happen thus I also think they might need to know of different theories of learning, importance of feedbacks, terms of educational psychology, different learning styles. Based on these thoughts it occurred to me to examine what professionals think about the connection between pedagogy and social work? I was also curious of if social workers can apply a perspective on their professional practise that includes learning situations and educational work as well? Or do they perceive educational work’s and social work’s theories and practises really differently?
  In my research I have done a focal group interview with social workers and educators where we used different approaches on cases from social work practise and try to identify learning situations. In this paper I am using the person-centered approaches of pedagogy and the theory of critical education because I think that is where an overlapping can be found between the objectives of reform education theories and social work.