Sociology of Social Work
by
M. Akram Mehar
MSc Sociology
mehar_skp@yahoo.com

Social work has its roots in the struggle of society to deal with poverty and the resultant problems. Therefore, Social work is intricately linked with the idea of charity work, but must be understood in broader terms. The concept of charity goes back to ancient times. In our society, the concept of social worker is very poor and people called them with bad names such as thieves. As a result, the social worker feels the sense of inferiority. But in the developed countries, the situation is its reciprocal, i.e. its concept is very high and enables the people to withstand.
Sociology: “It is the sociological study of human behaviors and their interactions with the members of group within the society”. Simply, it is the study of human groups with their structures and functions.
Social Work: It focuses on needy/un-empowered segment of the population and converted them in the empowered form. We can say that it focuses always on poor people and create ego among them to improve their life standard. Moreover, social work means to help and assistance rendered to poor people/person due to religious inspiration i.e. religious values contributes a lot in social work activities.
Marvin D. Fiet said that, “Social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment, and liberation of people to enhance well beings.” Here empowerment means to empower females in traditional societies and liberation means the liberty of thoughts and expression.
William Harley said that; “Social work is an art that helps people to solve personal, group and community problems and to attain satisfying persona, group and community relationships through social work practice”.
Social work focuses on those individuals/societies that are looking at others for help to fulfill their needs and basic necessities of life. Social work helps those who are unable to fulfill their needs and are living in miserable conditions. It contributes to uplift the standard of life of needy people. For example NGOs provide sewing machines to widows so that they can earn money to run their life, Rotary Club International engaged in this task.

Social work is an art; it requires great skill to understand people and to help them to help themselves.

Overall, it focuses on needy people. This is the help of poor to make them able to stand on their own feet. Simply we can say that; it is the discipline of Sociology. We can say that; the main focus of social work is upon helping people to improve their social functioning.

Assumptions of Social Work

Social work is based upon certain following assumptions;
o Social work has problem solving functions,
o Social work practice is an art with a scientific and value foundation,
o Social work is a profession continues to develop,
o The knowledge needed for social work is determined by its goals and functions and the problems it seeks to solve,
o Professional skill is expressed in the activities of social worker.


Basic Functions of Social Work

Social work has a number of functions within the society to uplift the society, but these functions are considered to be basic;
(1)- Restoration, (2)- Provision of Resources, (3)- Prevention of Social Dysfunction.


Distinguishing Characteristics of Social Work

o There are the following distinguishing characteristics of social work;
o It focus on the totality of the persons,
o It emphasize on the importance of the family in moldy and influencing behavior,
o It utilizes the community resources in helping people to solve the problems,
o It has unique educational program including class work,
o The relationship is the key in the social work process,
o It place considerable stress upon understanding people,
o Most social workers are employed in agency settings.

Traditional Forms of Social Work

Social work is not a recent phenomenon. It was started with the establishment of civilized society. So, there are the following traditional forms of social work;
o Charity/Zakaat: It is the oldest form of social work. Its main objective is to assist the needy, poor, orphan, widows in the society. One good thing with this is that the people receiving charity/zakaat do not feel any inferiority complex. People also give charity for religious satisfaction by considering it as a religious duty.
o Mutual Aid: In natural calamities which are also trials for human beings e.g. earth quacks, wind storms, floods, etc, people help each other for rehabilitations. That is the mutual aid. Through mutual aid, people can rehabilitate their livelihood more easily. It decreases the burden of the government and also divides its responsibility.
o Social Supports Network: These come into existence to organize the potentials of the poor people and then to use it effectively. For example NRSP, PRSP, AKRSP, etc. Through these networks philanthropists establish schools, hospitals, and other social welfare institutions for the needy/poor people. They establish them for the promotion of life standard of needy persons.
o State Assistance: State/Government also performs the activities of social work. It launches different types of programs for this purpose. For example Benazir Income Support Program in Pakistan. Social work requires the effectiveness of such programs/schemes.
o Religious Institution: Its main objective is to meet the basic daily expenditures and needs of its students. For example religious institutions have to manage food and residence for their learners. These are the major elements in social work, particularly in the traditional and religious societies. They receive funds if any disaster occurs. In this way; religious institutions also do a lot for social work.

Relationship/Role/Comparison of Sociology and Social Work

Sometimes, there remains a confusion that both are the same having same objectives. But the reality is that they are two different disciplines. Sociology is a vast phenomenon and social work is it’s under having limited objectives and targets.

Sociology:
o It is the scientific analysis of society and its problems.
o Sociologists gather the community on common plate form in order to improve their livelihood.
o It focuses on every sphere of life, e.g. economic, social, political development, etc. Integration of these developments makes the society more prosperous.
o Sociologist use participatory approaches to make CBO (Community Based Organization) for the solution of the problems of society.
o Sociology is a vast phenomenon. Sociologist focuses on all spheres of life, for example; education, culture, interactions, dressings, etc.

Social Work:
o It uses the scientific methods to solve the problems of society. (Here the questions arose that; how social worker use the scientific method to solve the problems? The answer is that; He motivates adductors to leave addiction, He introduces different games, He suggests different companies to distribute free syringes, and many more.)
o Social workers inspire the community to adjust itself to face the situations. It focuses upon accommodations e.g. he acts as mediator in conflicts.
o It focuses on needy persons, persons who are in miserable conditions, to solve their problems. For example; mentally retorted people. And also focuses on those welfare institutions which deliver their service for such needy people, e.g. SOS Village.
o Social workers try to apply basic assumptions to solve the problems of the society. Social workers give awareness among the members of CBO that how they can use their potential to utilize their skills, how they can apply their rules in practical form. For example; social workers promote positive thinking among the addicts. They try to abstain to adductors from its past.
o Social work is the part/sub-discipline of sociology.

We can conclude that; sociology and social work share much in common but are also different in many ways because the social work profession is emphasizing the generalist perspective to deal with complexities of modern society.

Paradigms of Sociology

In the mid-1970’s, when the paradigm concept was at the height of its influence, sociology was characterized by three basic paradigms;
(1)- Social Fact Paradigm, (2)- Social Definition Paradigm, and (3)- Social Behavior Paradigm. These differed fundamentally in their image of the subject matter of sociology.

• Social Facts Paradigm focusing on large-scale social structures and institution,
• Social Definition Paradigm focusing on the way people constructs their social worlds and
act and interact on the basis of those construction, and
• Social Behavior Paradigm focusing on behavior that is less dependent on social
constructions.

Adherents of each paradigm have different exemplars. To the social factist, it is the work of Emile Durkheim (who created the term social fact), to the social definitionist, it is that of Max Weber on social action, and to the social behaviorist it is the work of the preeminent psychological behaviorist, B.F. Skinner. Based on these differences in image of the subject matter and exemplar, those within each paradigm tend to develop and use different methods and theories that fit best with that image of what is to be studied and with the basic orientation of the exemplar. Thus, sociology tended to be characterized by three distinct paradigms each with its own set of images, exemplars, theories and methods. These paradigms tended to be deeply at odds with one another, questioning each other’s focus and most basic assumptions.