Social work research and practice

The legitimacy of social work as a scientific discipline, and as a profession, cannot be ensured without taking into consideration a basic characteristic of contemporary scientific and technological systems: the evaluation of results. In our field, this involves evaluating new knowledge, new practical applications, and also new systems of evaluation to improve the services we provide and better allocate public and private resources. The social work discipline and profession must meet the standards of quality demanded of science in advanced democratic societies, where accountability is a necessary condition to obtain funding. At the same time, by innovating our discipline we can provide better services to citizens, manage resources more effectively and, above all, evaluate the results in order to achieve sustainable well-being in the medium and long term. Research, innovation and evaluation unquestionably constitute some of the hallmarks of 21st-century social work. In this sense, the contributions of this book endeavor to advance the development of research as an essential element for the progress of the science of social work and its practical application.

ÍNDICE

Chapter 1. Social work research: Innovating to respond to the challenges of a complex world

Chapter 2. Social work in a brave new world

Chapter 3. Innovation in Social Work Research

Chapter 4. Understanding Practice (Praxis) in Open Systems: Discursive, Visual, Embodied, Liquid and Reflexive

Chapter 5. Epistemic diversities and feminization in the construction of a Science of Social Work

Chapter 6. Systematization in social work: A tool for the construction and transfer of knowledge from practice

Chapter 7. Systematic review of bibliography for social work research

Chapter 8. Responding to Global Environmental Change: A Grand Challenge for Social Work