Title: Promoting Anti Oppressive Practice
1Promoting Anti Oppressive Practice
2Julia Phillipsons framework
- heightened (self and general) awareness
- plus
- developing knowledge
- plus
- developing skills in challenging sexism
- leads to
-
- practising in gender aware and gender
equality-enhancing ways -
3What are you training students to become?
- Key purpose of social work
- a profession which promotes social change,
problem solving in human relationships and the
empowerment and liberation of people to enhance
well-being. Utilising theories of human
behaviour and social systems, social work
intervenes at the points where people interact
with their environments. Principles of human
rights and social justice are fundamental to
social work - International Association of Schools of Social
Work and the International Federation of Social
Workers, 2001 -
4But what is social work?
- Social work is one of the most political of
all professions. Indeed it has virtually no role
outside of the welfare institutions where it is
located..social work is deeply affected by
dominant political ideas and its practitioners
are seen as key instruments in the
operationalisation of government policy - Yelloly Henkel, 19959
5Or is it this?
- Social workers.are expected to exercise
individual judgements of great complexity in
conditions of extreme uncertainty -
- Pietroni, 199536
6The politics of power but what is power?
- Oppression, discrimination and all that
- The nature of power
- The formation and maintenance of power
7Oppression
- the term oppression describes the experience
whereby individuals or social groups are forced
into a situation by the use of power (external
oppression). Although it is associated with the
overt use of force or coercion, it can also be
associated with a subordinate, oppressed
individual or group who apparently accepts the
status quo and colludes with their own oppression
(internalised oppression)
8So what is discrimination?
- this occurs where the outcome of oppression is
that individuals, groups or communities have
reduced opportunity to participate in society and
are thereby marginalised. The marginalisation
(which may result in overt or covert harm)
results from being seen to be part of a group
which shares a socially constructed
characteristic e.g. race, gender, class,
disability, sexual orientation, religious belief
9What hierarchical power structures have in common
- The oppressor group is taken as the norm
(dominant group) - The oppressed group is reinforced as being the
other (subordinate group) - The oppressed group is typically blamed for the
inequality which exists so called control
myths
10Empowerment as a process
- the process of empowerment results in people
becoming less deferential and less accepting of
the present patterns of power. It offers the
route through which individuals/social groups are
able to, or are enabled to, redress or overcome
or reduce the discrimination that they are
experiencing AND fight back against the
experience of oppression.
11- Empowerment ..
- can only happen when both discrimination and
oppression are being tackled
12What does empowerment feel like?
- Not accepting dominant definitions of self
- Not feeling personally responsible for your
situation the power to disbelieve
internalised control myths - Having your voice heard in decision making
- Gaining more control over your life
13interlocking circles of oppression and privilege
- The ways in which our differing social identities
can reinforce or dilute our experiences of
oppression, discrimination and privilege over
time and between situations
14liberalising or liberating?
- Anti-discriminatory practice describes practice
where discrimination and unfairness are
challenged (liberalising practice) - Anti-oppressive practice describes practice where
the intention is to enable service users to
become empowered (liberating practice)
15-
- The social work profession promotes social
change, problem solving in human relationships
and the empowerment and liberation of people to
enhance well-being - BASW Code of Ethics, 2002
16So how do power relations get formed and
maintained?
17How is identity formed and maintained?
- Personal messages and experiences
- Cultural and community level messages and
experiences - Institutional and societal messages and
experiences
18Sociological explanations
Psychological explanations
Behaviour explained in social group terms
Behaviour explained in individual or family terms
19The PCS Model
Personal Psychological Practice Prejudice
C
Structural Social divisions Social
forces Sociopolitical
Cultural Commonalities Conformity
S
20So how does PCS operate within social work?
- At personal level
- Through our individual practice
- At cultural level
- This is the way we do it here
- Professional culture
- At structural/institutional level
- Policies and procedures
21The dual dimensions for SW practice..
- being alert to the ways in which our own lives
and our service users lives may be affected by
gender/disability/ethnicity/sexual orientation
and so on (at PCS levels) - being alert to the ways in which sharing
gender/disability/ethnicity/sexual orientation or
being of a different gender/disability/ethnicity/s
exual orientation may affect the working
relationship - Remaining alert to externalised and internalised
effects of socially constructed oppression
22The RAC approach to intervention.
- Recognition
- Active rejection
- Continuous re-evaluation
23Its more than the sum of its parts
- A climate is created in which one can perceive
that expectations (about self and others) can be
challenged and reframed to allow the
possibilities to be considered and - People can move from being passive victims to
active agents in their own lives - the transferring of hidden individual fears into
a shared awareness of the meaning of them as a
social problem (Mitchell, 1975)
24How do you see difference?
- As an opportunity
- diversity
- enriching
- open practice
- cope curiously
- POSSIBILITIES
- As a threat
- deficient
- dangerous
- closed practice
- cope defensively
- EXPECTATIONS
25What do you think is the rationale for services?
- Service led
- Consumerist
- Choice
- Goods services created to meet peoples needs
- Focus on inputs outputs
- Efficiency, economy, effectiveness
- Citizen/Human rights led
- Empowerment
- Equal opportunities
- Civil and human rights
- Concentration on outcomes
- Equality and equity
- Participation, partnership and power-sharing
26Questions to ask
- What knowledge do you need to help you decide
whether external discrimination/oppression is a
factor and of what sort? - Is internalised oppression a possible explanation
for any of the behaviours?
27How do you/we view independence?
- being able to carry out as many activities of
daily living for oneself as possible and only
using the minimum of technical support Ratza
1992 - the ability to be in control of and make
decisions about ones life, rather than doing
things alone or without help Oliver 1993
28Survey of disabled adults, OPCS 1986
- Can you tell me what is wrong with you?
- What complaint causes your difficulty in holding,
gripping or turning things? - Are your difficulties in understanding people due
to a hearing problem? - Do you have a scar, blemish or deformity which
limits your daily activities? - Have you attended a special school because of a
long term health problem or disability? - Does your health problem/disability mean that you
need to live with relatives or someone else who
can help to look after you? - Did you move here because of your health
problem/disability? - How difficult is it for you to get about your
immediate neighbourhood on your own? - Does your health problem/disability prevent you
from going out as often or as far as you would
like? - Does your health problem/disability make it
difficult for you to travel by bus? - Does your health problem/disability affect your
work in any way at present?