Search

To be legitimate, research needs to be ethical, methodologically sound, of sufficient value to justify public expenditure and be transparent. Animal research has always been contested on ethical grounds, but there is now mounting evidence of poor scientific method, and growing doubts about its clinical value. So what of transparency? Here we examine the increasing focus on openness within animal research in the UK, analysing recent developments within the Home Office and within the main group representing the interests of the sector, Understanding Animal Research. We argue that, while important steps are being taken toward greater transparency, the legitimacy of animal research continues to be undermined by selective openness. We propose that openness could be increased through public involvement, and that this would bring about much needed improvements in animal research, as it has done in clinical research.

SUMMARY This paper uses Habermas' theory of communicative action to inspect current difficulties in social work practice. Habermas' categories aie deployed to inspect the nature of professional care, recent increases in bureaucracy and the quality of current social policy. Practical implications are explored in the areas of need assessment, psychiatric support and child protection procedures. The paper argues that communicative methods provide insights, criticisms and practical suggestions for social work, as well as theoretical support for certain practice initiatives. Social work is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, it must cope with the material problem of increasing need and decreasing resources, while on the other, its attempted solutions are being redirected by social policy initiatives emanating from a government unsympathetic to its basic aims. The result is all too obvious to front line workers. While the material problem causes tremendous occupational stress, the solutions on offer amount to an unending gruel of bureaucracy, modern management jargon, and repeated demands for increased efficiency. Over the last decade, a great deal of interest has been aroused in various areas of social science by Jurgen Habermas' Critical Theory (White, 1988; Rasmussen, 1990; Ruane and Todd, 1988). Habermas' work provides a series of conceptual tools and restates the importance of a theoretical base for social work practice (Clark and Asquith, 1985). This paper argues that social work might derive significant gains from employing his conceptual scheme. Such gains are partly perceptual, in that they allow us to see more clearly why and how social work is