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Knowledge has become a key word in social work and a central catalyst for change when it comes to social justice. Not least in a society that is increasingly divergent and in need of handling different crises. Through knowledge there is an ability for creating spaces and practices of emancipation that can tackle these crises. At the same time, knowledge is perceived and used in different ways within social work. An ongoing debate across the fields of social work, and a contemporary challenge, is how to tackle these different perspectives on knowledge. In this workshop we take this debate as our starting point to explore how we can continue developing the concept of knowledge within social work. We will introduce a discussion by presenting results from a study of perspectives on knowledge. 30 focus groups have been done with actors within and around the social services, from users via case workers, development leaders, managers to politicians and policymakers, and also with universities. By highlighting the variation of perspectives on knowledge needed in social work, we want to initiate a discussion of how we, theoretically and empirically, can create a more advanced understanding of the concept of knowledge in the divergent landscape of social work. Are other concepts of knowledge needed in social work to handle this divergent landscape? How are these concepts linked to seeing social work as a catalyst for change when it comes to social justice? Can these concepts be used for creating spaces and practices of emancipation?

The article discusses children’s citizenship by linking the dimensions of being, becoming and belonging to the concept of lived citizenship in the context of contact person and contact family interventions. Drawing on empirical research from Finland and Sweden, the article elaborates on how to identify if, and if so, how, children’s lived citizenship is constructed in contact person and contact family interventions and to what extent these constructions leave room for children’s perspectives. The results of the study indicate that contact person and contact family interventions contribute to the construction of children’s citizenship in various ways that include the perspectives on children and childhood of being, becoming and belonging. However, children’s active participation often seems to be governed by adults. Thus, giving greater attention to children’s intergenerational connections, i.e., adults’ roles in forming children’s citizenship, is needed.

QC 20230627

Child participation and agency are vital elements in child protection. Ensuring child participation can contribute to successful interventions. Social workers are often the central agents in ensuring that children participate in matters concerning them and that the best interest of the child principle is adhered to in these matters. The aim of this study is thus to understand if and how social work education in South Africa and Sweden teaches child participation in child protection work. We study curricula for social work programmes in three South African and two Swedish universities. Results indicate broad themes of similar content in curricula in both countries and both indicate gaps in terms of in-depth training in child protection, as well as children to a very low degree are regarded as agents. Students are not explicitly trained to encourage child participation. Further research can show whether and how such knowledge is developed in practice and how the social work programmes can prepare the students for such development. If social workers should be able to promote child participation, regard them as active agents and support them in developing resilience, they need to have that perspective in their fundamental training.

This study explores the role of immigration and racialization in creating the first Swedish victim support centre in the early 1980s. The study is based on a qualitative content analysis of the archives of Victim Support Sodertalje, the first lasting Swedish victim support centre, from 1983 to 1990. While many of the centre's activities focused on crime prevention, it defined crime and victimization as the province of immigrant communities in Sodertalje, and, notably, as outside-and aberrant from-the imagined racial community of Sweden. Thus, victim support centres were one of the mechanisms to continue to defend the ideals of the Swedish welfare state, but to do so in ways that prevented incursions within Swedish racial homogeneity from the outside.