Like a fish without a bicycle? We need a science of social work! – Report from an invitational conference on the subject of “Shaping a Science of Social Work” at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles) in May 2011

  Hans-Jürgen Göppner, Eichstätt (Germany)

It is incontestable worldwide that social work needs a „science base“. (more…)

Call for papers: New culture of welfare: the clash between managerial ideology, public image and professional identity

The International Social Work & Society Academy 2009/Vilnius (Lithuania)

Welfare regimes are facing a fundamental transformation on a global scale. The shift of paradigms, procedures and perspectives becomes obvious in analysing the dominant social political terms like audit-system, efficiency and effectiveness, self-responsibility and activating. (more…)

New Journal on Social Work Science in Austria: Soziales_Kapital

Colleagues from Austrian universities of applied sciences have started a new online journal on social work called “Soziales_Kapital” (more…)

Research on the current state of the social work profession in Italy

Carla Facchini, Milano, Annamaria Campanini, Calabria and Walter Lorenz, Bolzano (Italy)

Social work training in Italy, at the instigation of the Italian professional Association of Social Workers, was delegated entirely to the universities in 1990. This has given the profession an enormous boost in terms of its public status, and at the same time an enormous task to find ways of utilizing the new opportunities. While the incorporation into the university sector underlined the scientific standing of the profession, its development is overshadowed by the absence of a specific disciplinary category that would give social work an independent base in the Italian academic system. (more…)

First European Module for structured PhD-Studies in Social Work

Hans-Uwe Otto and Melanie Abeling, Bielefeld (Germany )

“New Models of Activism in European Social Work” (PhD_ACT) is the first international 3rd cycle module for doctoral students of social work. (more…)