Foundation of Social Work Theory

Running head: FOUNDATION OF SOCIAL WORK THEORY
Foundation of Social Work Theory
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FOUNDATION OF SOCIAL WORK THEORY
Introduction
Social work practices are conceptualized as the application of social work principles,
values, and techniques to provide adequate supports to help people with tangible and intangible
services. The practices also include the psychotherapy and counseling to families, individuals,
groups, and families (Ladson-Billings & Tate IV, 2016). The primary mission of social work is
to meet the needs and requirements of the clients and enhance the well-being factors. Anti-
racism is another social work perspectives that fixes the aims on diminishing the race
discrimination. Anti-racism practices are generally based on theory and practices on action. It
criticizes the racisms and takes actions against to eliminate such practices (Bonilla-Silva, 2017).
The essay aims to develop the critical analysis of the anti-racist perspectives to diminish the race
discrimination. The study would develop the understanding regarding the past history based on
the anti-racist movements and practices. The analysis of the theoretical perspectives presented by
identifying the origins, applications and practices would be presented in this study. Furthermore,
some of the counter arguments would be developed to measure the impact of these anti-racist
practices.
Discussion
‘Race’ is regarded as the human beings who belong to the different species that have the
diverse ancestral and physical features. According to Acuña (2015), racism is defined as the
practices that discriminates a particular social group or individual belonging to another inferior
race. The social workers have identified the requirement of diminishing such racism perspectives
to protect the mankind from being discriminated. It is reported that the anti-racism movement
was originated from the community called BME during 1970’s. Jee-Lyn García and Sharif

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(2015) stated that it is required understanding the traditional of the radical values in UK social
work communities. The understanding regarding such context was quite helpful in engaging the
professionals into anti-racist practices. These influences of the radical strands of value became
prominent in social work practices since 1970’s. In order to develop the radical social work, it
depended in locating social work values with the struggles of the working class. According to
Gillborn (2016), radical social work is determined as the evolution of the social work values as it
focuses on developing the working methods through a framework formulation. Anti-racism
practices tend to focus on promoting the perspective values that is both pernicious and pervasive.
Many of theorists viewed this theory as the regime of white privilege and supremacy maintained
in spite of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of laws. Many of the critics presented
their views against such racial discrimination. The structural, systematic and individual changes
in the economic, political, and social life are required to diminish this social work perspective
that affects the humanity (Van Dijk, 2015). It has been observed that the social work
practitioners often focus on exploring the concept to mitigate the social issues due to racism that
affects the lives of the black people.
Racism and social work represents diverse types of issues and debates that contribute to
the social constraints. In modern Britain, this social movement was much necessary. The social
workers in Britain recognized the necessity of the awareness regarding the impact of social
marginalization (Nowicka, 2018). In today’s world, it has been observed that racism is highly
dominated by the overreaching term of ‘multiculturalism’ discourse. It individualizes the issues
with the service users and describes the cultural differences by focusing on the individual
empowerment. Malik (2015) argued that these approaches are challenged and the anti-racist
social work requires reframing the ‘anti-oppressive practice’. It explores the connectedness of

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FOUNDATION OF SOCIAL WORK THEORY
the racism as a clear form of oppression in the society. In America, racism is viewed as normal in
terms of dominating the black by the white. This theory is often applied to the educational field
where the students from different races face the discriminative attitudes while pursuing their
education in a different country (Darling-Hammond, 2017). The disparities are noticeable
between the dominant and the dominated social groups. In this segment, the major divisions
focus on the gender, race, colour, disability, sexual orientation, preferences, age, and class. It is
implied that the social workers requires strengthening their attitudes and abilities for conducting
the anti-racism practices in diverse ways that can benefit the victimized people (Brown, 2018). It
requires obtaining knowledge and understanding the self-ability to work among different groups
and different social systems.
The elaborated understanding based on the experiences of the victimized people
influence such anti-racist practices. Europeans believed in the discriminative perspectives on the
basis of ethnicity. In describing social-context, it has been observed that the black people were
mainly discriminated and dominated in such regards (Kelliher, 2017). The anti-racist practices
are thus developed to support the equality against race and many people from different parts of
the world joined their hands together to develop the Anti-Racist Practices. For example, the
Grunwick Dispute Case occurred in 1976-1978, which was foreseen as the turning point of the
racism war (Stevenson, 2016). It was just the outburst of the issues between the European
employers and the black and Asian workers. In the year of 1970, black and Asian women
protested against the lower pay structure due to the race discriminative attitude of the European
employers. The European Trade Unions even ignored the issues faced by these Asian women.
Many of the women were from India and Pakistan (McDowell, Anitha & Pearson, 2014). They
had been the settlers in East Africa, which was under the British Colonial rule during that time.