06.06. – 09.06.2017
A Normative Foundation for Social Work?
Social justice is often proposed as an important value of social work. For the International Federation of Social Work social justice is, alongside human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversity, a core ethical principle of social work. Therefore, social workers “have a responsibility to promote social justice, in relation to society generally, and in relation to the people with whom they work.” However, although social justice is proclaimed as such a core value, social workers have found it a slippery concept to define. Contemporary efforts to trace the roots of social justice-oriented social work focus on the settlement house movement. Current social work literature on social justice often focuses on the concepts of oppression, fairness and justice, the capability approach, recognition, human rights and the like. The debate about social justice is very heated, not only in national disciplinary theory and practices, but also in international discourse. The summer school aims to identify the social justice discourses that prevail in different national contexts, and the current political and social problems that fuel current debates on social justice in social work.
Key questions:
International participants of Summer School 2017 will debate different views about social justice, and develop a broad perspective on social justice and social work through focusing on its relevance in the different fields of social work, including generational justice, family justice, cultural justice, and distributive justice.