Another Snapshot of Social Work in China: Capturing Multiple Positioning and Intersecting Discourses in Rapid Movement

The Early Professional Experience of a New Social Worker in China

“…Some authors have focused on history and characteristics of social work in China (Xia & Guo, 2002;Xiong & Wang, 2007), whereas others have examined pilot programs that aim to improve China's social work education, supervision, and professional practice through interchanges of social workers from other countries with their new Chinese colleagues (Ku, Yeung, & Sung-Chan, 2005;Wong & Pearson, 2007). Still other authors have engaged in lively discussion about the extent to which social work in China meets international social work standards (Gray, 2008;Hutchings & Taylor, 2007;Leung, 2007;Yip, 2004) or reflected on their own collaborative experiences with Chinese colleagues (Tsang, Sin, Jia, & Yan, 2008;Yan & Tsang, 2005). Scholars have examined Chinese students' perceptions of social work in the future (Yan, Ge, Cheng, & Tsang, 2009), ñeld placement experiences of master's of social work NEW SOCIAL WORKER IN CHINA 323 (MSW) students (Wong & Pearson, 2007), and the curricula of Chinese social work programs (Yan et al, 2009).…”

Some considerations on the debate on social work in China: who speaks for whom?

“…As part of this political process, culture can obfuscate matters, especially if used for strategic purposes. This results in a lack of consistency in how culture is understood and interpreted (Sin, 2008; Tsang et al, 2008). What might be more appropriate is an analysis of ‘cultural politics’ that draws attention to the way dynamic political systems actually work.…”

“…In any case, despite universal claims about social work, local considerations about culture do seem to militate against imperialistic applications of Western social work (see e.g. Tsang, Yan & Shera, 2000; Tsang et al, 2008; Yuen‐Tsang & Wang, 2002) and they are constantly undermined by political machinations. The temptation is to think about these debates through the lens of postcolonial theory, which features prominently in the ‘indigenisation’ literature where claims to the universality of social work are seen as imperialistic (Gray, 2005; Gray & Fook, 2004; Gray et al, 2008).…”

“…In the international social work literature, ‘indigenisation’ generally refers to a process of knowledge transfer from the West to the rest, that is, the process of adapting, adjusting and modifying imported knowledge from the Western developed nations to fit diverse local or national contexts in the developing world. This is a complex political process involving multiple agents with the powerful State determining which parts of Western social work are relevant to China's political agenda and the respective interests of all involved (Tsang et al, 2008). It is not a rational process of applying universal benchmarks or standards.…”

A response to the debates between Hutchings and Taylor and Jia on the Global Standards in China

“…The recent debate in the International Journal of Social Welfare (Hutchings & Taylor, 2007;Jia, 2008;Sewpaul & Jones, 2005;Taylor & Hutchings, 2008) on the relevance of the application of the Global Standards to China points to problems with processes of standardisation given the unique political, economic, cultural and social contexts in which they are applied. China is a case in point where the rebirth of social work is relatively recent and fraught with complexity (Tsang et al, 2008).…”