Be ready for the clash of powers: theorising power for teaching policy practice in social work

Balaz, Roman

doi:10.1080/13691457.2022.2161485

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Policy practice in social work challenges this view of the division between social workers and social policy experts. The term "policy practice", first coined by Jansson in 1984, has been particularly developed in the USA in the 1980s and 1990s (e.g., Figueira-McDonough 1993;Jansson 1984;Wyers 1991), and in recent decades, it has gained increasing interest in the social work literature with social work and other academic scholars pursuing several lines of research, such as studies on the ways of involvement in policy practice (Pawar 2019;Saxena and Chandrapal 2022;Weiss-Gal et al 2020); factors enhancing or constraining policy practice (De Corte and Roose 2020; Weiss-Gal and Gal 2018); social work education for policy practice (Balaz 2022;Pawar and Nixon 2020;Pritzker and Lane 2014;Weiss-Gal and Gal 2019;Weiss et al 2006;Zubrzycki and McArthur 2004); academic involvement in policy practice (Gal and Weiss-Gal and Weiss-Gal 2017); societal and welfare state changes impacting on social work professional activity and policy-related activities (Klammer et al 2020;Strier and Feldman 2018); social work policy engagement both at the macro and micro levels and fields (Elmaliach-Mankita et al 2019;Gal and Weiss-Gal and Weiss-Gal 2020;Sery and Weiss-Gal 2022;Weiss-Gal 2017); the role of social work associations in policy making (Guidi 2020); and social workers' political participation (Ritter 2007(Ritter , 2008Rome and Hoechstetter 2010) or policy engagement through running for an elected office (Amann and Kindler 2022;Binder and Weiss-Gal 2022;Lane 2011;Leitner and Stolz 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Workers’ Involvement in Policy Practice in Portugal

Carrilho

Branco

2023

Social Sciences

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This article presents the results of the first survey-based study in Portugal about the level of involvement of social workers in social policies, aiming to determine if policy practice is embedded in Portuguese social workers’ professional practice and which factors may enhance or constraint such practice. Combining the Civic Voluntarism Model by Verba and colleagues and the Policy Practice Engagement Model by Gal and Weiss-Gal, which were considered as the main predictors of social workers’ engagement in policy practice, this study followed a quantitative approach, based on 265 valid answers to an online survey obtained through snowball sampling. The findings showed a low level of engagement in policy practice activities among the social workers, especially those requiring a greater public exposure and acting with the media, policymakers, or public officers to share opinions, make a proposition, or report a problem. Considering the main factors of the socio-political context, the professional context, the organisational context, and individual factors, the findings showed that individual factors explained most of the differences in the social workers’ involvement in policy practice, especially when considering interest and efficacy. This study pointed out the need for further research in this area.

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