Diversity for Social Work

Author(s):

Marc Hill(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

07 SES 03 B, Inclusion of Diversity

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-22

17:15-18:45

Room:

W3.17

Chair:

Francesca Gobbo

Contribution

The presentation deals with the question: to what extent is social work with youth influenced by the personal life histories of the professional staff involved? The focus of inquiry is on the relevance of previous experiences of social workers with migration and diversity in daily interaction with youths who find themselves in difficult situations and who appear endangered from a social perspective. The paper seeks to offer fresh insight into the importance of migration and diversity within social professional fields, in particular in connection with developing measures of care and support for youths from migration families. It endeavors to show, in as plastic and understandable a way as possible, what can be understood when we talk about and strive for a diversity-conscious perspective on education for social work with youth and its professionalization in migration societies.

Method

Quite apart from theoretical concepts such as intercultural competence, we should proceed from the insight that in the age of globalization, virtually all persons gather experiences of migration and diversity, which acquire a guiding role in their thinking. Viewed in this way, it becomes a task in the academic analysis of education to deal critically with “formats of everyday mobility” (Bukow 2016) in order to be able to realize and implement inclusive pedagogical concepts. On a more specific level, we need to ask: to what extent can social work profit from the idea of diversity and mobility, and what impact can this have in concrete terms? In order to render this conceptual nexus between everyday experiences in migration societies and professional practice in social work more understandable, the presentation discusses two biographical case portraits of youth social workers. Both case portraits have been elicited and evaluated of the basis of semi-structured biographical interviews as conceived by Schütze (1983) and on the basis of Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss 2012).

Expected Outcomes

This presentation seeks to shift the perspective, illuminating the importance of experiences of migration and diversity in social support work with youth. The core thesis is that a reflective understanding of the situation of youths from migration families and marginalized circumstances can be achieved if the professionals involved in such work sharpen awareness of their own experiences of diversity, placing these in a context of the migration society. The thesis suggests that this self-critical approach serves to generate a better approach to the youths involved, encouraging more effective measures of support in social work. Consequently, in the professionalization of social work, an approach to training centered on biography, coupled with a total-societal understanding of diversity determined by mobility, loom decisive for the development of offerings and measures that are free of barriers and oriented to the life worlds of social work clientele. In sum: new and inclusively effective educational perspectives for social work in migration societies spring from the lived experience of the social workers, aided by an approach grounded on reflection on diversity.

References

Battaglia, S. (1995). Interaktive Konstruktion von Fremdheit: Alltagskommunikationen von Menschen binationaler Abstammung. Journal für Psychologie, 3, 16-23. Bukow, W.-D. (2016). Migration und Mobilität, zwei verschiedene Formate von Alltagsmobilität. Migration und Soziale Arbeit, 1, 4-12. Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. L. (2012). The Discover of grounded theory. Strategies for qualitative research. New Brunswick: Aldine Transaction. Gombos, G. , Hill, M., Wakounig, V. & Yildiz, E. (2015). Vorsicht Vielfalt. Perspektiven, Bildungschancen und Diskriminierung. Klagenfurt: Drava. Hill, M. (2016). Migration mobilisiert. Erfahrungen von Jugendlichen aus Migrationsfamilien als Antriebsfeder für eine urbane Bildungspraxi. Migration und Soziale Arbeit, 1, 38-44. Hill, M. & Yildiz, E. (2012). Migration Moves and Shapes Society. In A. Pilch Ortega & B. Schröttner (Eds.), Transnationale Spaces and Regional Localization. Social Networks, Border Regions and Local-Global Realtions (pp. 155-163). Münster: Waxmann. Lengyel, D. & Rosen, L. (2015). Minority teachers in different educational contexts: Introduction. Journal für International und Interkulturell Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft, 2, 153–160. Rupnow, D. (2016). Essential but Invisible: Migration as Part of Urban and General History. In C. Antenhofer, G. Bischof, R. L. Dupont & U. Leitner (Eds.), Cities as multiple landscapes. Investigating the Sister Cities Innsbruck and New Orleans (pp. 441-458). Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Straßburger, G. (2009). Sozialraumorientierungen interkulturell. Interkulturelle Öffnung und Sozialraumorientierung Hand in Hand. Migration und Soziale Arbeit, 3, 229-235. Schütze, F. (1983): Biographieforschung und narratives Interview. Neue Praxis. Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 3, 283-293. Yildiz, E. (2016). The In-Beetween as Social Practise. In S. Bürkle (Ed.), Migrating Spaces (pp. 151-161). Berlin: Vice Versa Verlag.

Author Information

Marc Hill (presenting / submitting)

University of Innsbruck

Migration and Education

Innsbruck

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