TY - JOUR
AU - Juvva,, Srilatha
AB - Abstract Viewing social work as a discipline gives primary attention to theories and perspectives, whereas viewing it as a profession places emphasis on practice and skills. It is assumed that theoretical frames enable a shift from particularities to the glocal view, thus ensuring pluralism. While it is hinted that practice embedded in ‘methods of social work’ is limited and a prisoner of historical practice realms, what one misses in these myopic distinctions is that, in social work the ‘centrality’ of person/client is non-negotiable. These newer conceptualisations embrace ‘in situations’ and radical perspectives across all methods of social work. Methods of social work provide the base to traverse the micro–macro linkages and ensure policy focus on individuals, structure, systems, cultural norms and its consequent impact. Praxis of the methods is imperative to make policies relevant. This article presents the robustness of methods in firming policies, for addressing situations of exclusion and powerlessness, with the values of inclusion and empowerment. Drawing on the Bordieu’s fields of power, capital and habitus, the article elucidates the application of methods of social work in a neo-liberal world to challenge structures that perpetuate inequity and translates the operationalisation of individual agency. Bourdieu, policy, practice, praxis, social work methods The binaries in viewing social work as a discipline or profession have led to many debates, critiques and concerns. Social work as a discipline as well as a profession responds to multiple realities of the people it engages with; it has no one practice paradigm or theoretical boundaries. However, over the years, social work has opposed the sociology of structuralism, i.e. the understanding that all elements of human culture can only be understood in specific relation to one another and their function within a larger system or the overall environment. Thus, binary oppositions appear in social work practice when exploring the relationships between different groups of people namely upper class and lower class, male and female, or developed and underdeveloped, and so on. On the surface, these appear to be merely labels, but what makes them binary opposites is the notion that they cannot co-exist. The problem with binaries is that it creates boundaries between groups of people and leads to prejudice and discrimination. One group may fear or consider a threat the ‘opposite’ group, referred to as the ‘other’. The differences between groups of individuals, such as cultural, class or gender are both real and perceived, which needs tactical mediation, consequently working towards negation of binaries. Both need assessing of dynamics of power, which essentially decides whether the need of the hour is negation or mediation. These binaries are addressed by Pierre Bourdieu. Policies, which are a statement of intent in the form of guidelines, rules, regulations, laws, principles or directions, aim to alleviate a problem, suffering or a situation. It is embedded in a context (poverty), which could be existing (disability), is seen to emerge as a result of a process (unemployment) or may be to address a sudden phenomenon (disasters). Either ways it involves an understanding of reality as well as the undercurrents of reality that influence both the framing and impact of policy. Public policy and social policy are important for social work; firstly because they affect the people and, secondly, they are the tools with which one can further the goals of social work namely equity and justice. While policies aim to address binaries and exclusion they fail as firstly, they do not understand the habitus of the people intended to be reached and secondly assume the habitus of all ‘othered’ to be the same. Thus, the economic capital premise fails due to the lack of appreciation of social and cultural capital which lends itself to symbolic capital. Pierre Bourdieu’s integrated theoretical framework is of immense value to conceptualise reflexive social work practice in general and policy in specific. He effectively discusses the dichotomies in social world, such as micro/macro level of analysis, material/symbolic, empirical/theoretical, objective/subjective, public/private and structure/agency. These binaries are at the core of social work practice and education, which discusses the interrelationship between structural and individual factors. Social work recognises that these dichotomies are an outcome of a political agenda of oppression, marginalisation and inequalities. It also is probably the only professional discipline that admits addressing political context as the core of learning and practice. This makes the profession strong enough to address diversity, complexity and differences that other professions fail to even acknowledge. As a result, social work is able to discern the inherent issues with polices, as social workers have engaged with the individual, community, state and today the globalised world. Methods of social work in this context ably provide the base to traverse the micro–macro linkages and thereby ensure policy focus on structure, systems, cultural norms and its impact on individuals. Praxis of the methods thus is emphasised as imperative to make policies relevant. Bourdieu’s habitus, capital and fields in social work Bourdieu’s concepts help to understand the reason why social work needs to educate the students to locate the contradictions of positivist and the concurrence of non-positivist epistemology, with respect to the mandate of social work. The concept of habitus, which is central to Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, explains behaviour of the oppressed and oppressor, embedded in social structures, such as class, gender, ethnicity, etc. He elucidates the acceptance of social structures as being deterministic of behaviour and foregrounds in his theory, the individual’s own agency. The contexts in which people operate are influenced by these structures. However, the complicated layers of the contexts, make it not only hard to understand, but any attempts to demystify them become complex as well. Therefore, it is imperative to give primacy to the agency of the individual for self-determination and making choices, even though the contexts are challenging. For example, a person with disability functions in a physical environment that limits mobility; and therefore is not able to access recreational spaces due to inaccessible buildings. The social and environmental context denies the person the opportunity to access and utilise the recreational service. However, when these barriers are transcended and the individual, by using agency, works towards making the recreational services accessible, the social structures are also forced to change. Such is the power of agency of the individual and the collective. A wheelchair user contends with the disapproving gaze due to stigma that is a part of the socialisation process within an abilist habitus/society. This limiting and exclusionary gaze needs to be interrupted in order to create an inclusive environment. Thus, it targets the habitus of the excluding and the excluded. One way of transcending this barrier is to create attitudinal change in people, through awareness and education; so that being disabled and being seen in public becomes accepted as a regular occurrence and the habitus is transformed to be inclusive and accepting. Social work practice is in a unique position to ensure the policy transforms the capacity of individual and individual structure (the disabled person and school/playground), groups (cross-disability groups and different structures of hospital, shopping spaces, etc.) and state (employment guidelines, welfare parameters, rights expansion, etc.). This change needs to be regularly and constantly reinforced so that it becomes a part of the habitus. A social worker may understand the ‘habitus’ of the people as the embodiment of social structures and history in individuals, as a set of dispositions, internal to the individual. Such an understanding that both reflects external social structures and shapes how the individual perceives the world and acts in it, is needed for policy formulation and implementation to make it accessible. In doing so, it opens a whole realm of engagement from the individual to the community to elucidate the oppression of the oppressed and the acrid power of the oppressor. It opens up a window to realise that though the social structures embodied in habitus do not determine behaviour, yet the individual is predisposed to act in accordance with the social structures that have shaped them. It is this unconscious affinity and conformity that maintains social structures. Thus, the individual’s primary habitus, inculcated in childhood, is more durable than the secondary habitus that one may acquire or live in, or learnt later (Power, 1999). Thus, gender is an aspect of the habitus that is inculcated practically from the moment of birth. Ideas of criminality and morality are also a product of habitus. Then the dispositions that constitute the habitus are also structured, inevitably reflecting the social conditions in which they were formed. Thus, the habitus of a girl will be similar to the habitus of most girls in a similar geographical region. Similarly, class disposition of the primary habitus is extremely durable (Power, 1999). Even if an individual moves away from the class background of one’s childhood, subtle aspects of a person’s accent, mannerisms, betray one’s origins. Habitus elucidates an important reality, of that, it is not only the product of structures and producer of practices, but it is also the reproducer of structures. The habitus tends to generate practices that coincide with the social conditions that produced it. Habitus thus does not indicate predictability; instead ensures social synchronisation. This explains why people continue to act in accordance with the structures and reproduce the structures that helped to create their habitus. It even suggests that the structures may be reproduced with modifications but not necessarily always so. Hence, the National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (2015), which, in principle, was seen as a good policy, is being strangled by many challenges. This policy was initiated by the Government of India to scale up skilling with speed and quality and promote innovation to generate sustainable employment and livelihood. It provides an umbrella framework and common standards for all skilling activities and links the skilling with demand centres and the existing institutional arrangements within the country (https://www.msde.gov.in/National-Policy-2015.html). The primary challenge of the policy is the very idea of skill, as conceptualised in the policy and as per the habitus of the larger unemployed do not match. Employment for a majority of the youth today is ‘an office job’, which roughly translated, means a salaried white collared job. Yet, the policy aims at providing sustenance skills at large, which will equip a majority of the unemployed to join the informal/service sector for employment. However, interestingly, ‘entrepreneurship’ as an idea, which begins as an informal initiative with formal support, has the approval and viability as an option for both policy makers and users. Thus, when a policy is framed on the assumptions of the policy makers who may not be aware of the true habitus of the policy users, the policy becomes a flawed attempt to reach the ‘intended users’. The policy builds a road map for change without contextualising how habitus in a subtle way controls the socialisation processes responsible for the reproduction of a workforce and an unemployed labour reserve. The various socialising agents (such as schools, families, etc.) shape the consciousness and mindsets of ‘individuals’ within an authoritarian hierarchical structure, which resemble, in many ways, the structures and dynamics of workplaces. These foster competitive dynamics and inculcate values, beliefs and behavioural tendencies appropriate for adjustment to the prevailing reality of workplaces. Schools, for example, reflect the dominant social reality. It is known that access to schools in affluent neighbourhoods tilts in favour of students from a socially and economically privileged stratum (Gil, 1977). This lack of access to quality education assures that the workforce is reproduced not only in its entirety, but also that each layer is reproduced largely on its own social turf (Freire, 1970). This is supported by Fernández (2018) who, in his review of the book, Early Childhood Education Policies in Asia Pacific: Advances in Theory and Practice, says that the ‘Matthew effect’ in the education sector makes the ‘strong stronger and the weak weaker’ (p. 453). He summarises that interventions such as Early Childhood Education are effective policy interventions ‘for children with low socio-economic or minority backgrounds since they are more likely to find barriers that prevent them from attending preschool’ (p. 453). This reflects powerful and durable dynamics, which permeate societies stratified by wealth, occupation social-prestige, religion, caste and other dynamics which subtly, yet surely, force individuals to play unwitting roles in reproducing a hierarchically structured workforce out of correspondingly structured social strata (Bowels and Gintis, 1976). Different jobs command different levels of rewards, differences, which are assumed to reflect different levels of risks, but which upon analysis appear to be related largely to social power. Friere then further contextualises the practical logic of everyday life, to understand relations of power, and builds the narrative for a reflexive sociology. Thus, the National Policy on Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (Government of India, 2015) and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, 2016) (this act assures the right to work and food security by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed unskilled work and wage employment in a year to an adult in every rural household (https://nrega.nic.in/Circular_Archive/archive/RTP2016_English.pdf) though good initiatives fail to address the inherent social, cultural and contextual beliefs and values, which ensure that the habitus sustains. These state-initiated policies intend to address what is the obvious, namely issues related to poverty and food insecurity; however, they are only partial in their approach. They do not address squarely the intersectional life-diminishing practices. Recipe for praxis Besides habitus, Bourdieu conceptualises practice, field and different forms of capital, such as cultural, economic, social and symbolic and they are useful to understand the complexities of social work practice. It helps to conceptualise the dynamic praxis, which ensures a contextual social work response. Bourdieu accepts that while gender, class, ethnicity, culture, education and the historical time period—all shape an individual’s habitus, the practice, i.e. what one does in everyday life is dynamic and fluid. This ‘practice’ is the site for social work practicum, since ‘practice’ is the result of the relationship between an individual’s habitus, different forms of capital and the field of action. It can be clearly seen that Bourdieu says, habitus shapes and produces practice, but does not determine it. The flexibility of practice though regulated by habitus helps pave the way to recognise and address the subjective/objective dichotomy, as well as other related dichotomies, such as structure/agency and freedom/necessity. Although habitus has a large role in what people do in their everyday lives, or their practice, practice involves more than habitus. Bourdieu in practice sees action as an outcome of a relationship between habitus, capital and field. It is an ‘interrelationship’ established intermittently and fluidly. This demonstrates the versatility of the social work profession that has, at its core, the person–environment–power context for study and intervention/transformation. To illustrate, when a person with mental illness has access to medical support, strong family support and a stable job, the person’s options for recovery are much higher. Due to the availability of these resources and capital, the person has greater chances of recovery. While the causes and manifestations of mental illness might rest in the social factors, they exist concomitantly with the resources in the society and they are expressed through power that exists in structures. These structures can either be limiting or facilitative and this influences the recovery of the individual living with mental illness. Similarly, with the Right to Education Act (Government of India, 2009), while there has been an attempt to make quality education accessible to all, it failed to contextualise the subjective habitus of the marginalised children within the habitus of the elitist school. As a result, children faced discrimination and opted out for lack of dignity but got labelled as ‘drop outs’. Here, the school social worker is in an advantageous position to liaise with the social worker in the community, with the education department and others who work with the marginalised group to evolve a way to protect the right and dignity of the marginalised children and remove the label of ‘dropped out’ to ‘excluded and now included with dignity’. Bourdieu’s fields are structured spaces organised around particular types of capital, consisting of dominant and subordinate positions. It denotes arenas of production, circulation, and appropriation of goods, services, knowledge or status and the competitive positions held by actors in their struggle to accumulate and monopolise these different kinds of capital (Swartz, 1997, p. 117). Fields in order to exist need capital. Moreover, there are as many different types of fields as there are forms of capital. Bourdieu (1986) identifies four main types of capital: economic, cultural, social and symbolic. Economic capital is the most easily understood capital, which is associated with material and financial assets, i.e. financial power. Cultural capital includes symbolic goods, titles and skills. There also exists, the social capital as in the relationships, especially institutionalised relationships, and resource contacts accrued by virtue of membership to a social group or class, such as the family. He also talks of symbolic capital, which is the power, prestige and reputation that the other capitals legitimately lead to. For example, the ‘legitimate’ heteronormative marriage has symbolic capital, out of proportion when compared to third sex or same sex marriages. Similarly, Right to Education Act (2009) addressed the economic capital and not the social, cultural and symbolic capital. Social work practice is at an advantage in understanding and addressing power hierarchies, inherent in the different capitals, as they engage with people at all levels of being and capital. For this, school social workers are in an advantageous position to use a comprehensive multidimensional perspective to enrol a child from a low-income, single-parent family and with learning disability, in an inclusive school, and ensure an enabling environment for the child. This is critical as the child and the family have a poor economic capital (low-income family); poor access to cultural capital (due to vulnerable and disadvantaged situations); weak social capital (single-parent, migrant family, with neighbours as the only support); and a powerless symbolic capital (single-parent family, with a disability). When the social worker uses the intersectional transformative framework to understand, plan, implement interventions and evaluate them, in essence they are addressing capital reserves and deficits to advance the child, family, neighbourhood and the society at large. Evidently, the social worker is thus in a pivotal position to engage with the individuals, structures, power dynamics and the policy with ease, by virtue of the professional training. Bourdieu’s capital resonates with the ideological premise of social work practice. It provides the context to ensure a policy embodies equality, equity, fairness and justice to empower an individual to exercise their agency for self-determination. It helps to understand why a policy, which aimed at equitable reach, actually becomes unfair or inequitable in its implementation. Furthermore, it visibilises why policies get transacted differently on the ground as the transformability of capital is different for different groups. When groups fail to get benefit of the policy, it leads to the creation of an idea that nothing can help the ‘othered’ or marginalised groups, and when this occurs over extended periods, it becomes a norm. To dislodge the norm, social work not only maps out what is not working, but also creates the pathway for altering the norms and systems that are presumed not to work and generate results. And this is bolstered by the universal values of equity, fairness and justice. Thus, social work negotiates with all forms of capital and the habitus, to co-create fields of practice to ensure that the policy enables the person to navigate the structured spaces to create a safety net that is conducive for growth and development. This interrelationship becomes the key to both negotiate, and co-create spaces and policies that maximise the potential of all human beings and therefore the planet. Habitus of social work: A professional discipline of field There have been various contestations about social work being a distinct professional discipline. Given that social workers work within the realm of the intersecting individual and social spaces/habitus, disciplinary boundaries cannot often be claimed exclusively by the profession. Thyer (2002) has listed difficulties in accessing literature that is uniquely specific to social work—as that which has been developed by social workers only that implicates policy and practice (p. 103). He has highlighted the multiple viewpoints regarding the boundaries of knowledge of the profession and has outlined the nine areas of limitation that blurs the professional boundaries of Social Work (pp. 103–8). He opines that it does not make sense to argue for a domain-specific discipline, but argues for developing ‘problem-specific knowledge’, that leads to specific psychosocial interventions that fall within the purview of the social work profession (pp. 109–10). Guzzetta (2014) posited that social workers use little rational thinking and choice than personal preference (p. 605). When theories are used rigidly, as purists would prefer, rather than ascertaining the suitability of concepts to suit the issue (often referred to as problem), contexts and solutions, it does not lend itself to the clarity of applicability. This means, respect for diversity of the above enables the social worker to discern what to use, when and use it in order to inform practice. Nevertheless, the definitions of an academic discipline continue to haunt the profession. Burr and Leigh (1983) purported seven criteria to qualify for being called a discipline. These criteria include: (i) a distinct subject matter; (ii) an expansive collection of theory and research; (iii) an emphasis on select, unique methodologies; (iv) supporting paraphernalia (i.e. professional associations, journals, academic departments, majors); (vi) apparent utility as evident in mature applications; (vi) the ability to teach or discipline a community of scholars; and (vii) a consensus among professionals that the discipline exists. The methods of social work lend themselves to merit the status of a discipline. The practice wisdom and intervention models of working with individuals, groups, communities and policy, qualify for a distinct subject matter, even though they are individually related to multiple other disciplines. According to Thyer (2002, p. 111), ‘social work requires a greater integration with mainstream behavioural and social science’ and this guides practice and policy. This lends itself to application in problem solving or finding multiple right answers to complex problems that require redressal. The emphasis laid on evidence-based research over merely controlled trials, has reiterated the contribution of the profession to an academic discipline through appropriate methodologies and precise technologies with regard to the models of intervention. The fluidity of the profession to adapt itself to changing contexts and identify ways of demystifying the complexities of the system to generate a result has enabled the professional discipline to emerge as established and much required. The growth of international, regional, national and local associations of social work professionals and educators has bolstered the profession. There is a tendency among social workers to seemingly operate from the heart and head, sometimes using an approach that seems like common sense. What one fails to understand is that, even though the social worker does not seemingly articulate the use theory actively to support action, the study of theoretical perspectives is imbibed enough to sharpen intuition. This intuition informs action which is guided by the values of the profession as well the personal values of the social worker. According to Glicken (2013), ‘[s]ocial work sees people from a total perspective and works to resolve both internal and external problems. But we use common sense. If people are chronically hungry, social workers try to eliminate their hunger, while at the same time resolving the reasons for their hunger’ (p. 4). Thus, according to Bourdieu’s understanding a good Food Security Policy would not be the one that provides food only. It should provide culturally appropriate food along with structural opportunities to resolve the reason for hunger. Glicken further says that social work is able to provide ‘a uniquely encompassing service to people’ by ‘working with internal and external aspects’ (p. 11). The claim that social workers are weak in theoretical rigour is due to the fact that its manifestations are diverse and therefore often not as visible as it is in other disciplines. Given that interdisciplinary frameworks lend themselves best to understanding social problems, which are the key areas of social work intervention, there is a tendency for ambiguity, a sense of borrowing and traversing territorial boundaries. Chambon (2012) says that the disciplinary borders of social work are not static, but dynamic, in response to the context. She says, ‘[t]he discipline was positioned, and actively positioned itself, by attempting to create disciplinary alliances with strong disciplines established academically, and with fields of knowledge at the vanguard of social questioning. Such boundary activity enhanced the social reach of social work’ (Chambon, 2012). Practice, as postulated by Power (1999), is the ‘result of the relationship between an individual’s habitus, different forms of capital and the field of action’ (p. 48). Drawing on Bourdieu’s assertion, social workers gain an impetus for practice. This can be understood using the following example. For field work the students were placed in a remote village, where there was no electricity. The students went to the village with the mandate of working on health of children as it was understood as an area of concern by the authorities. Through a series of meetings with the women in the village, they ignited the agency of the women to identify pressing issues of their village, prioritise them and take action against them. The women were initially uncomfortable; they had identified lack of electricity as an urgent problem, but without consulting their menfolk. The women were encouraged to identify the various types of resources (capital) they had, such as information, social collectives (women/some supportive husbands, etc.), state mechanisms (a supportive Block Development Officer who furthered their cause, and a responsive and open district Collector, who actually addressed their issue and instantly passed orders for electrification of the village). The older children joined the cause, as it would provide them better opportunities to study, egged the school teachers to join their cause too and thus, activated governance systems and other stakeholders. This process and outcome was possible only because the agency of an oppressed group, women in this case, was fostered, by co-creating space for self-expression and action. While habitus shapes the agenda and prioritises as per people’s need, agency propels action and in the process capital (social, symbolic and economic in this case) is collectivised. The capital that similar groups may have need not necessarily be operationalised in their respective contexts in the same manner. Practice thus requires an intersectional perspective of approach and application. Praxis in social work methods Methods of social work are the unique selling proposition (USP) of the profession. However, the tensions of creating hierarchies amongst the methods, creates dichotomies of advantage and disadvantage. Such binaries may be theoretically apparent as an intellectual exercise, but when translated on the field, the methods of social work, along the continuum of intervention, are integral to generate action, and sustainable and equitable results. These results challenge unworkable systems that perpetuate stagnation. A classroom exercise (permission to include this has been sought from the students of the class) conducted by the second author, while teaching social action and advocacy aimed at identifying how the methods of social work contribute to advocacy for policy and practice. The students were encouraged to critically examine the interrelationship of each of the methods and their synergies with advocacy. They concluded the session with the following summary. ‘It is critical to identify the entry point that one begins work with. One might start with an individual or a group or a community. When we begin with individuals with an aim to foster agency, actualise their rights and examine the consequences of macro contexts on the individual, the social worker can awaken individual agency and facilitate manifestation of leadership of the individual to co-create change. Similarly, a group of inspired individuals may connect and support each other towards a common goal, for common good, despite blurring boundaries. In this case, the group can negotiate and transact with individual(s), influence the community, collectivise and strengthen disempowered societies and diaspora for social action and leadership. While the individual and groups are informed, at the community level, people organise themselves for negotiation, mobilisation and problem solving. This informs the administration for inter-sectoral and inter-departmental linkages, through collaboration, planning, decision making and management. Research is the string that holds the beads of methods and keeps it informed and relevant. Hence, it is used throughout the processes of working with different stakeholders—individuals, groups and communities to make what is invisible, visible for action.’ This versatile description, when used to inform policy practice, exhorts us to respect every stakeholder group (whether individual or group or community or state); every method of social work (without denigrating any one method); and be able to acknowledge the importance and value of every method commensurate with the situation. The contribution of the methods of social work to be able to get to the bottom of social problems as an ‘issue within the society that makes it difficult for people to achieve their full potential’ (Glicken, 2013, p. 6) enables the social worker to not only choose what is best for the professional in keeping with one’s expertise, but also creates spaces for the worker to foster agency in the individual–group–community trio. Hence, to make policy relevant we must be able to exercise judicious choices in using the relevant methods of the profession. Thus, ‘building the boat while sailing’ is truly an adventure for the social worker to be able to contribute to policy and practice. Bourdieu’s theoretical framework discursively addresses the logic of fluid practice, which may not otherwise be readily apparent (Garrett, 2007). The preference that social work students have with a certain method has implications for the profession. Equipping social work students to develop social work practice infused with importance of all methods will contribute to the growth and development of the profession. Current social work training typically position some methods in subordinate and peripheral terms without factoring that the positivist origins of methods has changed with the growth in social work theory and contexts (Forde and Lynch, 2014; Shennan, 2020). This divisive methodological habitus of discipline and practice needs to be addressed to create a space where social work practitioners avoid the either/or binary. This requires emerging above the binaries of positivist–empiricist and non-positivist epistemological praxis as that is what makes the practice responsive to direct and policy-based social work practice. Therefore, it is imperative that the social work profession retains its uniqueness to address the situation and its various ramifications in multiple ways using plurality of strategies to retain the core values of individuality and reflexivity that underpin the profession. Policy habitus of policy makers or policy users? While policy is an important component of social work education and practice, and a powerful medium that can herald change, it has remained elusive in social work’s arena of practice. The chasm of utilising policy as an entry point and the commensurate skills obfuscates the impact of social work. The methods of social work enable us to keep the different and diverse habitus of all as the central focus, and yet allows one to traverse between various entry points and stakeholders to ensure empowerment and agency is not blocked or overlooked. Policy formulations emerge from the habitus of the policy maker to impact and change the life of the policy users. Unfortunately, the two groups do not share common values, needs and desires with each other as their perception of the field differs. The policy makers see something deficient in the habitus, which is akin to a ‘deviant subculture’, or underclass with particular values and practices that separate them from everyone else but the policy users do not see themselves as being deficient. Instead, they perceive themselves as simply deficient in capital, which the powerful have appropriated over time. In such contexts, the policy fails to bridge the material and the symbolic aspects of the ‘othered’ population. It fails to acknowledge the logic of that practice as having its own ‘rationality’. This rationality is derived from the interaction of habitus and field, and the use and accumulation of various types of capital. The policy user’s habitus helps to understand how there is differential access to different forms of capital. It explicates which capital they use or spend and which capital they seek to enhance or accumulate for themselves. How the policy addresses this will ensure the maximum reach and outcome of the policy. So, for example, the task of making education accessible to all, as already highlighted, is a complex interaction among habitus, capitals and fields, the ‘rules’ and ‘profits’ of which are mostly intuitively known, without conscious reflection. What gets understood as education depends on the policy user’s notion of a culturally appropriate education, the social capital’s preferences, what is the quality available in proposed education and the social standards of education, all of which are constructed by similar social structures and forces in the user’s social reality. Social logic and symbolic logic may not necessarily fit the logic of the policy makers. By spending more on English education, the user ensures the symbolic capital of their child, which means they will compromise their family’s expenditure in other areas, and this, in turn, may compromise the access of girls and women to, say, food and education. These sacrifices promote the symbolic capital of the child’s education, preserving the child’s social capital and increasing the social capital, and accumulating cultural capital, for the child’s future. It is thus clear that a policy is created in a context; however, rarely does it alter the context, even though that may be its mandate. This is because the issues are not only complex, but also multiple and closely interlinked. In order to understand the nuances of these issues, it is imperative to contextualise them. For example, a policy to address disability-related accessibility needs to not only draw from theories related to disability and accessibility, but also examine the context and the actors within that context. Given that disability is not a homogeneous construct, the policy will have to cater to nuances of the types of disability, the age groups and locality in which the persons with disability live. Conclusion The authors discuss the assumed historical contradiction in social work practice using Bourdieu. His frame helps to locate traditional habitus of social work in the evolutionary base of philanthropy, salvation and charity. The conventional, reformist origin of social work, is today overwhelmingly seen as structural–functionalist, as it failed to address society being oppressive. This led social workers to work towards helping people adapt to existing structures and not modify structures to suit the needs of the people. Thus, the habitus of people was seen as problematic and not the cultural and social capital which ‘othered’ people. This led to the perspective, which sees the inequality in society as the core of the problem, which if not addressed, will not lead to social change. For example, designing and delivering rural education with an urban tilt or emphasis means that the rural contexts are not taken into account and such an education is bound to be limited and partial in its outcome. Similarly, merely providing skills for the sake of skilling and employment without taking into consideration the realities of the living and working environments or the social and cultural capital will perpetuate the inequity. Using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, it is argued that social work as a discipline, with its attention to theories and perspectives, and as a profession, with emphasis on practice and skills, can holistically elucidate and address this inequity—social, cultural, symbolic and economic. This in turn will inform policy formulation and ensure its maximum reach. The theoretical frames enable the social worker to fluidly locate particularities to the glocal to ensure plural reach. It is here that the authors discuss the imperative need to use all social work methods. It is emphatically stated that the view of practice embedded in certain ‘methods of social work’ is limited and a prisoner of historical practice realms. They elucidate that these myopic understanding of methods overlooks the core of social work, and that is the non-negotiable agency of the person/client/community/. This created a contradiction of habitus of social work has prevented the discipline/profession from evolving a broad definition of its role, scope and function. All methods of social work provide the base to traverse the micro–macro linkages and ensure policy focus on individuals, structure, systems, cultural norms and its consequent impact. Praxis of the methods is imperative to make policies relevant. To conclude, the authors argue that policy practice does not exist in isolation; it exists within a habitus that is interdisciplinary and intersectional. Social work practice calls for praxis in the use of diverse methods of the profession, along with the acknowledgement that, unitising the discipline or the method is inadequate to explain nuances that hinder maximisation of human potential (which leads to or causes a social problem). While policy does not always address the habitus, even though it purports to, the issues related are complex and dynamic. Therefore, in policy praxis it is imperative to source the values of the profession to change unworkable systems and norms so that outcomes are impactful and sustainable. References Bourdieu P. ( 1986 ) ‘The Forms of capital’, in Richardson J. (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education , Westport, CT , Greenwood , pp. 241 – 58 . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC Bowels S. , Gintis H. ( 1976 ) Schooling in Capitalist America , New York, NY , Basic Books . 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TI - Social work praxis in policy: Reflections from India
JF - The British Journal of Social Work
DO - 10.1093/bjsw/bcaa189
DA - 2021-01-25
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/social-work-praxis-in-policy-reflections-from-india-kHCcy3KFmK
SP - 2319
EP - 2334
VL - 50
IS - 8
DP - DeepDyve
ER -