Digital Intervention, COVID-19, and Critical Realism: Toward a Science of Digital Social Work

Authors

Antonio López Peláez, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain
Chaime Marcuello Servós, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain

Keywords

Digital social work, e-social work, critical realism, digital Intervention, COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up the pace of the digital transition process in which we have been immersed. In a context of generalized lockdown, our organizations have been forced to go digital and many of the activities social workers perform must now be done remotely. As a result, e-social work, or digital social work, has gone from being an emerging specialization to a critical specialty across organizations and activities. In this article, we examine some basic scientific and methodological foundations to develop a science of social work from the perspective of critical realism, with special attention to digitalization. Establishing the scientific foundations of digital social work is a preliminary step for its development as a field of specialization.

Recommended Citation

López Peláez, Antonio and Marcuello Servós, Chaime (2021) "Digital Intervention, COVID-19, and Critical Realism: Toward a Science of Digital Social Work," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 48: Iss. 3, Article 3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15453/0191-5096.4552
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol48/iss3/3