Ian Shaw
University of York, Social Policy and Social Work, Faculty Member
- Dr Ian Shaw is S R Nathan Professor of Social Work at the National University of Singapore and Professor Emeritus at ... moreDr Ian Shaw is S R Nathan Professor of Social Work at the National University of Singapore and Professor Emeritus at the University of York, England. He was the first chair of the European Social Work Research Association, and a founder editor of the journal Qualitative Social Work. He has authored almost 100 peer reviewed papers, just over 20 books, approximately 60 book chapters and various research reports. His most recent books are Research and the Social Work Picture (2018, Policy Press), Social Work Science (Columbia UP, 2016), Private Troubles or Public Issues? Challenges for Social Work Research (2017, Routledge. With Walter Lorenz) and with Kjeld Høgsbro Social Work and Research in Advanced Welfare States (2017, Routledge). He has written extensively in the journals on issues arising from the relationship between social work and sociology over the last century. His work has been translated into several languages including Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Welsh. He is pursuing a graduate programme in creative writing, which sits alongside his interests in gardening, his local church, volunteering in his village shop, playing badminton (badly), and Bob Dylan.edit
I seek to depict in a relatively grounded way the form and character of social work practice under a late colonial regime. The article draws from an archival study of the development of social welfare in Singapore as a British colony, in... more
I seek to depict in a relatively grounded way the form and character of social work practice under a late colonial regime. The article draws from an archival study of the development of social welfare in Singapore as a British colony, in the late colonial period from the end of Japanese occupation in 1945 through to final independence in 1965. In exploring social welfare in late colonial regimes, I take adoption as an illuminating example. I refer to the significance of private markets in adoption, the Chinese kinship system as it was at the time, and the cultural significance of mui tsai. I suggest that we should conclude that colonial governmental regimes were not monochrome, and that the tenor of late colonial welfare practices and policies should not be regarded as set on a unilinear course of modernisation. Taken as a whole, the historical material points to the need for a form of imperial social work research – and of imperial social work as such – that avoids the assumption, ...
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This article summarises the processes through which British social work postgraduate university training outlets applied to the Economic and Social Research Council for recognition in 2001–2002. The exercise raised issues of training... more
This article summarises the processes through which British social work postgraduate university training outlets applied to the Economic and Social Research Council for recognition in 2001–2002. The exercise raised issues of training diversity; inter-disciplinary vs. single discipline social work research training; the balance between training in methodology and in substantive topics; the relationship between training and research; and a number of questions about equity and due process.
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This article is premised on the belief that the social work community needs to recognise that collaborative research – nationally or internationally – will take diverse forms. Setting up a standard model for such collaboration is likely... more
This article is premised on the belief that the social work community needs to recognise that collaborative research – nationally or internationally – will take diverse forms. Setting up a standard model for such collaboration is likely to constrain too narrowly opportunities for good research. I begin by considering how ‘collaboration’ has been – and might be – understood within social work and research. I spend the main part teasing out the various senses in which I have sought, and encouraged others, to collaborate. These include developing homes for rigorous social work research, collaborative research and writing, crossing disciplinary boundaries, challenging national myopia, questioning conventional goods and ills, and doing the history of research.
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Client assessments of social work practice, and the organizational context in which it is located have become in recent years part of the accepted wisdom of how to improve the initiation and delivery of the personal social services.... more
Client assessments of social work practice, and the organizational context in which it is located have become in recent years part of the accepted wisdom of how to improve the initiation and delivery of the personal social services. Although there is room for doubt as to the policy impact of such assessment*, woe betide the commentator, of whatever ideological hue, who fails to offer due deference to the value of consumer research. The arrival of these studies has been consolidated in the attempts of some writers to collate, synthesise and extract practice lessons from these studies
Research Interests: Sociology and Social Work
The point of entry to social work training is the single most important filter shaping the constituency of social work, particularly in the current phase of professional retrenchment within social work, both in the United Kingdom and the... more
The point of entry to social work training is the single most important filter shaping the constituency of social work, particularly in the current phase of professional retrenchment within social work, both in the United Kingdom and the U.S.A. Yet knowledge of the recruitment process has suffered from the marked overall paucity of research into social work education in the U.K. This paper reports some evidence from a national questionnaire survey of a systematic sample of one in ten aspirant social workers in a given year and explores ways in which social work training is more or less open to various groups. Selection and filtering mechanisms were found to operate in favour of applicants able to use the recruitment process to their own advantage, graduates, middle class recruits, more radical candidates and, above all, those who had gained prior contacts within social work practice. But selection mechanisms did not operate in an even, consistent fashion between courses. Market cons...
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These poems were written during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘This' is a poetic paraphrase and development of a piece in The Guardian newspaper.
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In this paper I seek to delineate how the relationship between social work and sociology has been regarded in more recent years as represented by textbooks. In the light of such writing, I review the nature, themes and extent of... more
In this paper I seek to delineate how the relationship between social work and sociology has been regarded in more recent years as represented by textbooks. In the light of such writing, I review the nature, themes and extent of sociological interest in social work in the past and the present. I set out a partial and provisional agenda for interlacing disciplinary and professional work.
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Doing social science involves collaboration. Yet, there has been little attention to the character of collaboration between social scientists, or to if and in what ways research networks exist. This article reports aspects of a mixed... more
Doing social science involves collaboration. Yet, there has been little attention to the character of collaboration between social scientists, or to if and in what ways research networks exist. This article reports aspects of a mixed method, participatory case study of a small international social work research network. It sets out how someone becomes a member of—or leaves—the network, how roles appeared to form and be assigned or taken, how the network operates, and the perceived transitional status of the network. The nature of collaboration is central to this analysis. The article illumines forms of collaboration typically deemphasized in arguments for its desirability. It was not characterized by consensus, but required role friction and creative reflexivity, where uncertainty and ambiguity were endemic, sometimes productively so.
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From Foucault’s understanding of discursive forms, I suggest a hitherto little-recognized archival framework for understanding disparate but related objects, statements, and themes in social work research practices at Chicago in the third... more
From Foucault’s understanding of discursive forms, I suggest a hitherto little-recognized archival framework for understanding disparate but related objects, statements, and themes in social work research practices at Chicago in the third and fourth decades of the last century. Viewing these as surrounding and overhanging present practices, I detect from archival sources distinctions between methodology as professional model (research practices as taught), research practices as selective accountability and claims-making (reporting to funders), methodology as reported practice (monographs), and research practices in their relation to a vision for social service and reform. I suggest how the archive unsettles rhetorical ways of deploying visions for social work and applied research, and for the relationship between social work and sociology.
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This article reflects on journal practices in a study of The British Journal of Social Work conducted as a multiple method historical case study, focussing on the first 40 years of the journal. What constitutes a journal’s identity is... more
This article reflects on journal practices in a study of The British Journal of Social Work conducted as a multiple method historical case study, focussing on the first 40 years of the journal. What constitutes a journal’s identity is slippery. Broadly speaking, there are those practices that are located primarily within the immediate creation of volume upon volume, and there are practices through which the journal interacts with those worlds that touch on its boundaries. Editorial appointments, editors’ visions, the work of reviewers, and the infrastructure of technology are all located fairly close to the journal’s day-to-day practice. In this article, the focus is on these comparatively internal practices. This includes becoming a British Journal of Social Work editor; doing the job; reviewers and reviewing; editorial judgement; and technology. We gained a strong sense of continuity in terms, for example, of how those to whom we spoke understood the journal’s identity, and managi...
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Page 1. Br. J. Social Wk. (1985) 15, 261-280 A Closed Profession?— Recruitment to Social Work IAN F. SHAW Lecturer in Social Work, University College, Cardiff The point of entry to social work training is the single most important ...
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... Ian Shaw is Reader in Social Work in Cardiff University School of Social Sciences.He has written and edited various books and numerous articles on evaluation, social work practice, and research methods.His most recent book is I.Shaw... more
... Ian Shaw is Reader in Social Work in Cardiff University School of Social Sciences.He has written and edited various books and numerous articles on evaluation, social work practice, and research methods.His most recent book is I.Shaw and N.Gould, Qualitative Research in ...
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... I will suggest six criterial benchmarks. Correspondence to: Dr Ian Shaw, Professor of Social Work, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK. Email: ifs2@york.ac.uk Social Work Education Vol.... more
... I will suggest six criterial benchmarks. Correspondence to: Dr Ian Shaw, Professor of Social Work, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK. Email: ifs2@york.ac.uk Social Work Education Vol. 26, No. 7, October 2007, pp. 659669 ...
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By way of review of the first decade of this journal’s life, we consider, first, how far the journal Qualitative Social Work offers a case study of qualitative research in social work – its patterns, designs and developments. Second, and... more
By way of review of the first decade of this journal’s life, we consider, first, how far the journal Qualitative Social Work offers a case study of qualitative research in social work – its patterns, designs and developments. Second, and as a subsidiary intention, we develop the field-testing of a relatively full framework for understanding kinds, purposes and methods of social work research.
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The purpose of this paper is to illuminate important aspects of the policy implementation process in UK welfare organizations. We draw on two evaluations in which we were each involved—those of the Integrated Children's System and... more
The purpose of this paper is to illuminate important aspects of the policy implementation process in UK welfare organizations. We draw on two evaluations in which we were each involved—those of the Integrated Children's System and the Children's Fund. Our ...
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• Summary: The article approaches questions of research ethics with three emphases: first, the process of research; second, ethical questions raised by qualitative research; and third, precedent and stimulation from the work of writers... more
• Summary: The article approaches questions of research ethics with three emphases: first, the process of research; second, ethical questions raised by qualitative research; and third, precedent and stimulation from the work of writers outside the usual boundaries of social work. • Findings: The ethics of qualitative research design pose distinctive demands on principles of informed consent, confidentiality and privacy, social justice, and practitioner research. Fieldwork ethics raise special considerations regarding power, reciprocity and contextual relevance. Ethical issues raised by the analysis and dissemination of qualitative enquiry emphasize questions concerning narrative research, outcomes and justice, and the utilization of research. • Applications: Social work needs a culture of ethical awareness, a review of ethical approval, an awareness of the ethical issues posed by practitioners' involvement in evaluative research, and an understanding of the ethical dimensions of different parts of the research process.
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... I will suggest six criterial benchmarks. Correspondence to: Dr Ian Shaw, Professor of Social Work, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK. Email: ifs2@york.ac.uk Social Work Education Vol.... more
... I will suggest six criterial benchmarks. Correspondence to: Dr Ian Shaw, Professor of Social Work, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK. Email: ifs2@york.ac.uk Social Work Education Vol. 26, No. 7, October 2007, pp. 659669 ...
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• Summary: The article approaches questions of research ethics with three emphases: first, the process of research; second, ethical questions raised by qualitative research; and third, precedent and stimulation from the work of writers... more
• Summary: The article approaches questions of research ethics with three emphases: first, the process of research; second, ethical questions raised by qualitative research; and third, precedent and stimulation from the work of writers outside the usual boundaries of social work. • Findings: The ethics of qualitative research design pose distinctive demands on principles of informed consent, confidentiality and privacy, social justice, and practitioner research. Fieldwork ethics raise special considerations regarding power, reciprocity and contextual relevance. Ethical issues raised by the analysis and dissemination of qualitative enquiry emphasize questions concerning narrative research, outcomes and justice, and the utilization of research. • Applications: Social work needs a culture of ethical awareness, a review of ethical approval, an awareness of the ethical issues posed by practitioners' involvement in evaluative research, and an understanding of the ethical dimensions of different parts of the research process.
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... IAN F. SHAW Ian Shaw i» Lecturer in Social Work at University College, Cardiff ... Please address correspondence to Ian Shaw, School of Social Work, University College, Cardiff CF1 1XL. 0045-3102/84/030277+08 $03.00/0 © 1984 The... more
... IAN F. SHAW Ian Shaw i» Lecturer in Social Work at University College, Cardiff ... Please address correspondence to Ian Shaw, School of Social Work, University College, Cardiff CF1 1XL. 0045-3102/84/030277+08 $03.00/0 © 1984 The Britiih Anociation of SocUl Worken Page 2. ...
Research Interests: Sociology and Social Work
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Ian Shaw is Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Social and Administrative Studies, University of Wales Cardiff. His recent books include Evaluating in Practice (1996, Ashgate) and A Case of Neglect? (with Ian Butler, 1996,... more
Ian Shaw is Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Social and Administrative Studies, University of Wales Cardiff. His recent books include Evaluating in Practice (1996, Ashgate) and A Case of Neglect? (with Ian Butler, 1996, Avebury). He researches on homelessness, ...
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This is a refreshing book from so many angles. I find it engaging as well as sophisticated in its coverage of ideas and issues crucial to the average practitioner. It introduces a broad spread of theories and perspectives in an accessible... more
This is a refreshing book from so many angles. I find it engaging as well as sophisticated in its coverage of ideas and issues crucial to the average practitioner. It introduces a broad spread of theories and perspectives in an accessible and meaningful way.'Jan Fook Royal ...
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ABSTRACT We set out how we see the agenda arising from developing good practitioner research. We begin by identifying what we mean by practitioner research. We then review what we know about the nature and practice of practitioner... more
ABSTRACT We set out how we see the agenda arising from developing good practitioner research. We begin by identifying what we mean by practitioner research. We then review what we know about the nature and practice of practitioner research in the UK. We consider how practitioner research is related to the wider category of practice research. We then identify what the experience of doing practitioner research is like for those involved. The findings are heavily influenced by a recent review of practitioner research in the field of social work and social care with adults, and a separate study of social workers working with children and families. We conclude with some questions that may help steer how good practitioner research can be taken forward. The article is linked to a comment on the adequacy and implications of the paper as a basis for development work in China and Hong Kong.
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Causal accounts are a relatively neglected aspect of occupational discourse. Using the example of social work, it is argued that the metaphor of narrative drama may have led to a framework in which the inspection of causal texture is not... more
Causal accounts are a relatively neglected aspect of occupational discourse. Using the example of social work, it is argued that the metaphor of narrative drama may have led to a framework in which the inspection of causal texture is not central to the analytic task. Starting from the literature on accounts, we argue that a promisingly fruitful way of exploring issues of social work talk and causality is through ethnography. Preliminary directions are outlined towards an ethnography of causal accounting within professional discourse in social work, and we identify incidents and events that may be investigated as possible `triggers' for such accounting. Causal accounts are viewed in part as occupational `survival kits'. We speculate on possible implications of such an ethnography for thinking about social work practice and management.