Social Work 120

1. Social Work 120 Instructor: Valerie Southard Section 1 - Mon. 3-5:45 Week 2 – 2/7/11 1

2. Today’s Topics The social evolution of values and the interplay of politics, economics, and religion; Explanation of some of the rationale for various forms of discrimination and describe various types of prejudice; The processes of social treatment and social control within social welfare; and American social values. 2

3. Defining Social Welfare The why of social welfare and social work. The synergistic evolution of the institutions of polity, religion, and economy throughout time creates both social problems and their solutions Society has rigid structures that maintain inequality. Social welfare is a context for social control. 3

4. Values in Social Welfare Purposes of social welfare: to help and to control Human service workers must become aware of their values, evaluate them rationally, and change the irrational ones. Attitudes and values are so much part of our lives that we think they are facts rather than beliefs. 4

5. Values in Social Welfare • Values have four identifiable characteristics. • Hunter and Saleeby • Values are always in a state of change. • Very much influenced by our race or ethnicity, age, economy, new social norms. • Two human characteristics that are the bases of values concerning social treatment and social control. • Mutual aid • Protection from others and otherness

6. American Social Values • Values are the bases for social welfare policies and practice. • Values cause us to take action in some cases and to refrain from taking action in other instances. Among the most basic values in the U.S. are: • Judaeo-Christian charity values • Democratic egalitarianism and individualism • The Protestant work ethic and capitalism • Social Darwinism • The New Puritanism • Patriarchy • White Privilege • Marriage and the nuclear family • The “American Ideal” 6

7. American Social Values • Judeo-Christian values • Non sectarian and social rather than religious in nature • Democratic egalitarianism • All citizens are equal before the law • Equal sharing of societal decision making • Equal right to opportunities to garner resources 7

8. American Social Values • Protestant work ethic • The moral basis for American capitalism • Includes values of individualism, personal achievement and worth, and morality of wealth. • Our definitions of “worthy” and “unworthy” poor come out of this work ethic 8

9. American Social Values • Social Darwinism • Extrapolated from the biological theory of Darwinism • Put into a social and economic theory by Thomas Malthus in the 19th century • New Puritanism • Arose from political, economic, and religious changes in the 14th century • Obsessed with ideas about sin and vice • Patriarchy • A system in which power is vested in men • Arose early in human history when male heads of families took absolute over families and clans and conquered weaker peoples 9

10. American Social Values • White Privilege • The adamant belief in the superiority of whiteness • Marriage and the nuclear family • Strong belief in the nuclear family within the marriage system • Patriarchy underlies our expectations for marriage and family • The “American Ideal” • Lookism and Otherism 10

11. More Topics for Today • The five major institutions of society; • Defining social welfare; • The components of social welfare; • Perspective in social welfare; • The fields of social services; and • Areas of social work practice. 11

12. Meaning of Social Institution • Social Institution • A set of interrelated and interlocking concepts, structures, and activities enduring over time that carry out the necessary functions of a society, such as socialization, childrearing, education, and commerce 12

13. Five Major Institutions The economy The polity The family Religion Social welfare 13

14. Social Welfare as an Institution For our purposes, American social welfare is the social institution that provides society’s sum total of all goods and services • To enhance the social and economic well-being of society’s members or • To ensure their conformity to current societal norms, standards, and ideologies • Two functions of social welfare: • Social treatment: the provision of goods and services for the enhancement of human life • Social control: generally, the provision of services to ensure conformity from deviants 14

15. Perspectives on Social Welfare • Functionalism • Manifest and latent functions • Residual Perspective • Institutional Perspective • Functional vs. conflict theory 15

16. Residual Perspective Aid is given: • In emergency situations when other social institutions fail • On a short term basis • As a stopgap measure • With means testing • Encourages recipients to find others mean of help, usually by stigmatizing them • Begrudgingly 16

17. Institutional Perspective This perspective says that: • Social welfare services should be available to all members of society who fit a program’s mandates • Services are not time limited • Means testing is used to see how much should be offered, not as a way to deny services • No stigma for receiving services • No pressure to leave the program 17

18. Newer Perspectives • Conflict theory • Marxism/socialism • Socialist feminism • Radical feminism 18

19. Newer Perspectives (cont.) • Feminist welfarist perspectiveAfrocentrism • Eurocentrism