The Social Welfare Workers Movement: A Case Study of New Left Thought in Practice

Authors

Stanley Wenocur, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Abstract

During the upheavals of the 1960's many human service professions and academic disciplines (e.g. psychology, sociology, law, medicine, etc.) underwent severe criticisms of their goals and methodologies, generated both from within and without. In social work one such critique came from the Social Welfare Workers Movement (SWWM), born out of protest-oriented activities at the National Conference on Social Welfare in new York City, 1969. Although SWWM dissipated after about two years, interest in radical social work is still very much alive today. The intent of this paper, then, is to record and analyze the career of the Social Welfare Workers Movement through a case study of the Boston SWWM Chapter, so that others may profit from its successes and failures. The process of explication should also clarify the use of social action as a method of deliberate social change and the potential for a "radicals-inthe- professions" type of social movement. New Left theory will be used as the conceptual framework for analysis, the application of theory to practice as it were.

Recommended Citation

Wenocur, Stanley (1974) "The Social Welfare Workers Movement: A Case Study of New Left Thought in Practice," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 2.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15453/0191-5096.1106
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol3/iss1/2