Nature and Development of Social Work Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The institutions were the settlement houses ('Settement Houses' in the paper).

The settlement movement began with Toynbee Hall in London's East End in 1884 and spread to the United States, most famously with Jane Addams's Hull House in Chicago (1889). Educated volunteers lived among the urban poor and immigrants and ran classes, clubs, kindergartens and advice services that helped people learn the skills needed for city life. The movement is one root of social group work and community organisation.

Poor houses were institutions for confining paupers, beggar homes are custodial institutions, and half-way homes help people move from institutions back into the community; none was a teaching centre of this kind.

Answer: A

Both statements are true and the Reason correctly explains the Assertion.

The pair follows Paulo Freire's argument in Pedagogy of the Oppressed: dehumanization is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust social order, and that order breeds violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed. (The paper's 'endanger' stands for 'engender'.)

In this account the violence the unjust order produces in the oppressors is precisely how it dehumanizes people, so the Reason explains the Assertion. That rules out the option saying it does not, and both options declaring one statement false.

Answer: A

Both statements are true and the Reason correctly explains the Assertion.

Gandhi took the word sarvodaya, 'the welfare of all', as the title of his Gujarati version of John Ruskin's Unto This Last. The first lesson he drew from Ruskin was that the good of the individual is contained in the good of all. Sarvodaya therefore rests on truth, non-violence and a belief in the basic goodness of every person, whose welfare cannot be separated from that of others.

Because the idea that individual good lies in the good of all is the foundation of the philosophy the Assertion describes, the key takes R as its explanation, ruling out the other three options.

Answer: D

The option that is not a goal of field work is to evaluate the functioning of social work setting.

Field work is the practice component of social work education. Its goals concern the student: integrating classroom theory with practice, developing and demonstrating professional skills, and building commitment to the profession and its values, under the guidance of supervisors in an agency or community.

Evaluating how the agency itself functions is not the purpose of a student's placement; the student learns within the setting rather than assessing it. The other three options are all standard goals of field work.

Answer: D

Political and religious affinity is not a core value of social work.

The core values of the profession, as in the NASW Code of Ethics and the Indian declarations of ethics, include service, social justice, the dignity and worth of every person, the importance of human relationships, integrity and competence. Advocacy for the oppressed and voiceless follows from the commitment to social justice.

Social work must serve people regardless of their politics or religion; affinity to a political party or religion would conflict with the profession's non-discriminatory ethics.

Answer: A

Integrated social work refers to a holistic approach in the practice of social work.

The integrated (or generalist) approach treats the client system as a whole, the person in the environment, and draws freely on casework, group work and community organisation according to need, rather than keeping each method in a separate compartment.

It is not a mechanical 'combination of all the techniques', nor the use of any two of them; the point is a unified view of the problem, not a count of methods. Psychoanalysis is one theory used in casework, not the integrated approach.

Answer: C

Social welfare means an organized system of social services.

Walter Friedlander's classic definition calls social welfare 'the organised system of social services and institutions, designed to aid individuals and groups to attain satisfying standards of life and health'. The emphasis is on an organised network of services and institutions.

'Welfare of all' and 'welfare of society' describe a goal, not the system that pursues it. 'Organized system of social work' confuses the two terms: social work is a profession and method working within the wider system of social welfare.

Answer: D

Professional social work is based on assumptive knowledge, hypothetical knowledge and tested knowledge.

The classic description of social work's knowledge base distinguishes three kinds: tested knowledge, verified by research; hypothetical knowledge, propositions still being tested; and assumptive knowledge, the practice wisdom of experienced workers. All three inform professional practice, because research has not yet answered every question a worker faces.

The other options each leave out one or more of the three kinds, and the words 'only' make them incomplete accounts of the knowledge base.

Answer: B

Unto This Last was written by John Ruskin.

Ruskin's four essays on political economy appeared in 1860 and as a book in 1862. They attack the idea that economic life should be ruled by self-interest alone and argue for the dignity of all labour and fair wages.

Mahatma Gandhi read the book in 1904 and said it changed his life; he paraphrased it in Gujarati as Sarvodaya, which is why his name is a tempting distractor. Vinoba Bhave later led the Sarvodaya and Bhoodan movements, and 'John Goldstin' is not the author.

Answer: D

The nature of social work is best defined as problem solving by using unique knowledge, skills and attitude.

Social work is a helping profession that helps individuals, groups and communities solve problems in social functioning, drawing on a distinctive body of knowledge, practice skills and professional values, as in Helen Harris Perlman's problem-solving model.

Social propaganda is persuasion, not help. Psychological testing belongs to psychology, and enforcing legislation is the work of the police and courts; social workers may use laws but do not enforce them.