Mid Sweden University

This article explores the conditions of globally displaced older refugees and outlines the implications for social work as a human rights profession. The study is based on a literature review and two current case examples of globally displaced older refugees facing long-term structural discrimination and human rights violation: older Rohingyas at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border and older Palestinians at the Israel-Gaza and Lebanon borders. The authors suggest that social workers as ‘front-line human rights workers’ are uniquely placed to identify needs, take actionable steps to support and advocate for the human rights of older displaced refugees. It is argued that global social work ethics and principles of social justice and human rights should underpin social work practices that engage people and structures in order to address life challenges and enhance the well-being of displaced older refugees in war zones, at borders and in refugee camps. Future research and welfare projects that aim to analyze the political context that forms the living conditions of forcibly displaced older refugees, whilst enhancing the importance of social workers in interprofessional collaborations in these areas, are discussed.

This paper focuses on how to use critical reflection in social work education in order to encourage students to critically reflect on their standards regarding assessment, opinions and values about aging. Material, both oral and written, from needs assessments of older persons conducted by 106 social work students was analyzed. The result shows that the students initially interpreted needs based on prejudice and assumptions about aging. However, when using Schön´s three steps of reflection in the exercise, together with knowledge of critical social work theories, students became more concerned and reflected more critically on their assessments. This study shows the possibilities of working with pedagogical exercises in order to increase the awareness and critical knowledge of social work students in order to attempt to reduce discrimination. Educating students in critical social work enables them to learn how to comment on and transform the profession of social work and our unjust society, while questioning their own as well as society’s prejudice regarding the needs of elderly persons. 

In recent decades, neoliberal reorganisation of the welfare state has influenced both the practices in social work and the organisation and context of social work education. This has resulted in social work emphasising managerial goals, strongly influenced by New Public Management, and social work reduced to a reified set of skills devoid of theory, context and critical analysis.

Developing pedagogical tools in order to improve students’ self-reflexivity and critical knowledge is thus crucial to social work education, if we want to live up to the crucial values of social work; promoting social change and social development and understanding vulnerability.

The focus of the current study was on uncovering and challenging power dynamics in 106 social work students’ aid assessments in elder care at a university in Sweden. How do students, with a focus on critical reflection, understand and interpret the concept of social rights and assess needs in three vignettes of senior citizens? The reflexive process was conducted in three steps, according to Schön (1987) and the results from the written and group discussions of the study were analysed by means of a content analysis by focusing on repetitions, dominant themes, similarities and differences in response.

Findings show that in the first two steps of reflection, students interpreted needs expressed in the vignettes out of prejudice and assumptions on ageing taken for granted. This resulted in a majority of the students interpreting the older persons’ expressed needs and obvious living conditions in an unintended or unnoticed way.  In the third and final step of the reflection, taking part in the group discussions, where students tried to adopt an aware critical self-reflection approach, they became concerned and reflexive about their interpretations, as they used both their knowledge of intersectional approach and theories of critical social work.

This study shows the possibilities social work education has in terms of working with pedagogical exercises to increase students’ awareness, insight and critical knowledge, and how important this is, as it can help us and the people we encounter in social work reduce oppression and counteract neoliberal changes. In a time when social work is affected by neoliberal managerial solutions to social problems, working with a critical self-reflection approach in social work education is more important than ever.

Traditionally, in Sweden as well as in many other countries there has been a great tolerance of men’s violence against women. In modern time, this violence has been criminalized and defined as a social problem. Since 2007, the work of combatting domestic violence has intensified in Sweden, using as a starting point an action plan adopted by the Swedish government 2007. The plan is called: ‘Action plan for combating men’s violence against women, violence and oppression in the name of honour and violence in same-sex relationships’ (Skr 2007/08:39). As a result of this action plan, several authorities have published different materials with the purpose of increasing the knowledge within social service about violence against women, to better meet the needs of women subjected of violence. How polices in social work are produced has practical significance at several levels; in addition to clarifying society’s responsibility, these also highlight how to draw attention to and address a particular problem. However, instead of just considering policies as possible solutions to predefined issues, we also need to consider how policies represent a problem, and what effects these representations may have. How violence against women is named, framed and conceptualized is important, since explanations that are put forward can affect both policy and practice. The purpose of this study is to investigate how violence against women is conceptualized discursively in one public manual on violence, and five public educational materials originating from the action plan, through Bacchi’s policy approach ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’. The study revealed that many acts are considered to be violence in a Swedish context, where certain acts are punishable, for example battery, while other acts are not, such as neglect. How we understand violence against women and how it can be predicted, prevented and treated may differ depending on which theory social workers adopt. In the material, several theories are mentioned; however, it is hard to say whether any particular theory is advocated. Special attention is given to the situation of so called ‘honour-related violence and oppression’. The study also revealed a representation of abusers in a gender-neutral way, which may disregard women’s specific vulnerability to violence. How violence is conceptualized, named and framed discursively may affect those women subjected to violence, depending on how social workers interpret and apply the materials.

Most unattached older persons who would like an intimate partnership do not want to remarry or be in a marriage-like relationship. A growing trend is to live apart together (LAT) in an ongoing intimate relationship that does not include a common home. We address the debate about whether LAT constitutes a new form of intimate relationship in a critical assessment of research on LAT relationships that applies ambivalence and concepts from the life course perspective. We conclude that among older but not younger adults, LAT relationships are generally a stable alternative to living with a partner, negotiated in the context of current social institutions and arrangements. We propose research questions that address later life living apart together as an innovative alternative intimate relationship. We encourage comparative work on the unique challenges of later life living apart together, their implications for other family ties, and their connection to social and cultural arrangements.