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will introduce you to the range of legislation that surrounds the task of social
work
However, in this book, i emphasise the importance of understanding questions
about the nature of spciety, since social work performs a mediatory role between
the individual and society and therefore, explanations about the nature society
influence our view or understanding about the rolr and purpose of social work .
these represent socialogical explanations about the nature of society and be can
be futher described as formal theories which emphasise a social explanation
to help us make sense, unsurprisingly there are different explantions have led
two main competing political views about the role of state of the walfare . one
view involves the belief that individuals should take primary responsibility for
their walfare, independent of goverment involvement, while the alternative view
argues that goverment has a responsibility to support its citizens, particularly
those who are socially and materially disadvantaged. These two opposing views
can be characterised as representing a discourse around right and
responsibilies and will be discussed later on in this chapter. To begin with,
however , we wiil look at the different explanations about the nature of sociiety
and how these views have influenced detabas about the nature of social work
There are theree main theories which seek to explain questions about the nature
of society. The first two are knowns as structuralist approaches , since they see
society as largely shaping social life. However , they provide competing
explanations based on a structural analysis of society and lead to contrasting
views about the role of social work. In contrast, the third explanation is known as
an interpretivist approach and draw on principles of social contructionism and is
know as a social action theory . this approach is concerned more with
explanations about action and meaning and is concerned with how individuals
contruct meaning about their social life . the unit of analysis is the individual and
social life is seen as principally contructed through meaning
Consensus theory
The first structuralist approach to be examined is functionalist or consensus
perspective on the nature of society. The consensus perspective advocates the
importance of a common shared belief system which is learnt through a process
of socialisation, begun initially though the family and continued with in the
education system and reinforced though our socialisation and the mass media,
thuss we are all socialised into a common belief system , a kind of common
culture with expectations about appropriate way