Modernising Social Work and the Ethics of Care

Recent attempts to 'modernise' social work have emphasised the importance of collaboration, partnership, and participation with individual users of services and the wider community. However, technical-rational aspects of managerialism have proved dominant. Managerialist approaches to s...

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Main Author: Gabrielle Meagher
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Social Work & Society 2004-01-01
Series:Social Work and Society
Online Access:http://132.195.130.183/index.php/sws/article/view/1165
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author Gabrielle Meagher
author_facet Gabrielle Meagher
author_sort Gabrielle Meagher
collection DOAJ
description Recent attempts to 'modernise' social work have emphasised the importance of collaboration, partnership, and participation with individual users of services and the wider community. However, technical-rational aspects of managerialism have proved dominant. Managerialist approaches to social service administration and delivery threaten important dimensions of social work; specifically its caring and democratic-transformative dimensions. However, social work theorists have only recently begun to re-engage with ideas of care. We argue that closer attention to feminist debates about the ethics of care can make a significant contribution to not only rehabilitating the ideal of care for social work but also to moving forward the modernisation agenda itself. We develop a feminist critique of managerialism, and argue that the discourse of the ethics of care offers useful ways of framing arguments to counter some damaging impacts of managerial reforms.
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spelling doaj-art-53215f71dfcd4142967cd07466eea9c62025-08-20T03:13:59ZengSocial Work & SocietySocial Work and Society1613-89532004-01-0121Modernising Social Work and the Ethics of CareGabrielle MeagherRecent attempts to 'modernise' social work have emphasised the importance of collaboration, partnership, and participation with individual users of services and the wider community. However, technical-rational aspects of managerialism have proved dominant. Managerialist approaches to social service administration and delivery threaten important dimensions of social work; specifically its caring and democratic-transformative dimensions. However, social work theorists have only recently begun to re-engage with ideas of care. We argue that closer attention to feminist debates about the ethics of care can make a significant contribution to not only rehabilitating the ideal of care for social work but also to moving forward the modernisation agenda itself. We develop a feminist critique of managerialism, and argue that the discourse of the ethics of care offers useful ways of framing arguments to counter some damaging impacts of managerial reforms.http://132.195.130.183/index.php/sws/article/view/1165
spellingShingle Gabrielle Meagher
Modernising Social Work and the Ethics of Care
Social Work and Society
title Modernising Social Work and the Ethics of Care
title_full Modernising Social Work and the Ethics of Care
title_fullStr Modernising Social Work and the Ethics of Care
title_full_unstemmed Modernising Social Work and the Ethics of Care
title_short Modernising Social Work and the Ethics of Care
title_sort modernising social work and the ethics of care
url http://132.195.130.183/index.php/sws/article/view/1165
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