Social Work and the Cultural Dialogue

This article presents an overview of traditional sociological approaches to the role of social work in society and offers an alternative perspective that draws upon anthropological concepts of culture and specifically the conceptualization of American culture as a form of dialogue between dominant and non-dominant groups in American society. Traditional approaches to the sociology of social work have focused on the concept of social workers as intermediaries. Intermediaries convey messages between groups and seek to resolve conflicts and reach agreements. Incorporating anthropological concepts of cultural dialogue, transmission, and reproduction enables a more in depth analysis and understanding of how this intermediary function plays out. It offers the ability to analyze the content of the messages and to create a better understanding of the tension between social change and social control that are part of social work practice. The intermediary approach to social work’s relations with society results in viewing social work as contradictory and somewhat ambiguous in its relationship to society. This ambiguity, in both theoretical and practical terms, has been difficult for the profession to resolve. By incorporating the concepts of cultural dialogue, transmission, and reproduction, it is argued that the role of social workers in society can be more clearly viewed as that of cultural agents engaged in the processes of dialogue, transmission, and reproduction. From this anthropological perspective, it may be possible to resolve the ambiguity between social work as a form of social control and social work as social change.