Volume 52, Issue 2, March 2022

American Social Work was inspired by the social justice contained in Queen Elizabeth I’s Poor Laws. White American Social Work icon Jane Addams contradicted the Queen’s Poor Laws by acting out racism. She was a feminist of her day who espoused social justice contradicted in actions ignoring the lynching of black men falsely accused of crime. Addams went so far as to side with racists in stating that such men may have been guilty. African American social justice activist Ida B. Wells criticised Addams for ignoring the struggles of black citizens whilst committed to helping white immigrants arriving from Europe. Her racist disposition, which she denied, was typical of feminists then and now including all of Western society. Despite such organisations as the Women’s Ku Klux Klan (WKKK), modern day feminists deny being racist. Descriptive data collected from a contemporary class of white Social Work feminist students revealed similar racist disdain for critical black content. In fact, feminists as all are racist being the products of a racist Western environment. Their denial precipitates a defensive posture immune to resolution. By owning racism, feminists become amenable to resolution and hence prepared to assume a leadership role in its demise.

The emergence of social work organisations (SWOs) in Mainland China was only a recent phenomenon, but the number has grown exponentially. The first SWO was established in Shanghai in 2003. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of registered SWOs increased from 150 to 500; by 2020, the number has soared to more than 10,000. As the number of SWOs grows rapidly, who founded these SWOs? What kinds of background did they come from? What roles do they play? And what challenges do they face? Based on in-depth interviews with twenty-one founder-CEOs of SWOs in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in 2018, our research reveals that founder-CEOs coming from different professional backgrounds—academia, business and government—adopt different strategies in mobilising resources. Our research contributes to the existing literature by integrating three essential aspects of human service management—funding, human resources and government relations—in one analytical framework of strategic resource mobilisation. The findings provide valuable insights for SWO executives to better equip themselves and manage their organisations. The study also has implications for the government and the social work profession in Mainland China: both need to create a suitable environment for the sustainable development of SWOs.

In late 2020, Chris Maylea of RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, called for an end to social work. This was followed by a response article from Paul Michael Garrett of the National University of Ireland, Galway which rejected Maylea's call and put forward a vision of ‘dissenting social work’. This article engages with both these authors and extends the debate by calling for a reckoning and a redefinition of social work.