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Social work and social problems: A contribution from systems theory and constructionism
Author(s) -
Michailakis Dimitris,
Schirmer Werner
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
international journal of social welfare
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1468-2397
pISSN - 1369-6866
DOI - 10.1111/ijsw.12091
Subject(s) - social entropy , social philosophy , sociology , social identity approach , social psychology , social network (sociolinguistics) , epistemology , social group , social change , social relation , social identity theory , social science , psychology , social inertia , computer science , political science , social media , philosophy , world wide web , law
Social work builds its identity on social problems. The goal is to generate knowledge about causes, consequences and solutions. However, there is a lack of theory of social problems. We suggest that research on social problems can benefit by ‘bringing the observer in’: L oseke's constructionist framework and L uhmann's systems theory. According to L oseke, social problems appear differently when constructed by different observers. Constructions vary in terms of morality, conditions, victims/villains and solutions. From L uhmann we learn that modern society consists of a multitude of social systems (e.g. politics, science, economy etc.), each operating with their own communicative codes. Combining both approaches, we hypothesise that any social system constructs its own (version of) social problems. Illustrating with the empirical case ‘suicide among mentally ill people’, we examine how a phenomenon is constructed differently as a social problem by four different social systems: the disability movement, politics, medicine and social work.