This book advocates the development of international social work, both as offering an important perspective on practice at local level and as a distinct form of cross-border and supra-national activity. The author argues that the effects of globalization and regional policies on the welfare sector have implications for the users of social services and community development programmes which require all social professionals to have a better understanding of these processes and consequences and of the international networks through which they themselves might operate. Some of the material used...

Social work has always been a contested activity and its status as an academic discipline remains uncertain. There is currently renewed interest in the theoretical and research dimensions of social work, at a time when significant changes in the broad social, political and economic context in which practice takes place require a re-evaluation of social work's role and a re-examination of its identity. This timely book brings together leading social work academics to examine the state of social work at the beginning of the 21st century. With their focus on the relationships between research,...

First published in 1999, in the light of recent moves towards deprofessionalisation and instrumentalism, Karen Lyons has conducted extensive research into the challenges facing social work training as a higher education discipline. Here, these challenges are located in a discussion of wider changes in both higher education and the personal social services, and are also linked to debates about professional education and the nature of knowledge. The analysis is based on original data and includes reference to pedagogical and cultural factors, and to internal and external policies which might...