What are the experiences of former unaccompanied minors in Greece in the process of transitioning to adulthood, what rights are infringed in the process, and how do their voices resist silence and exclusion? Drawing on qualitative research conducted in 2024 with ten young refugees aged 18–22 years, based on semi-structured interviews analysed through thematic analysis, the article focuses on experiences of rights and social services from the perspective of radical social work. Findings demonstrate that the process of becoming an adult is frequently followed by the loss of basic services, which results in dangerous living conditions and the infringement of rights to housing, healthcare, education and legal assistance. The participants’ reflections on the policies in place show regret and gratitude for low levels of assistance, highlighting logics of deserving and undeserving care.
Neoliberal policy has contributed to the decline of social justice approaches in social work globally. Using the UK as a case study, this article explores efforts to counter this trend through Contextual Safeguarding, a framework that extends child protection beyond individuals and families, addressing the extra-familial contexts where exploitation and harm occur. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s bivalent theory of social justice, we analyse data from a large multi-strand study into Contextual Safeguarding. Findings show how the approach enables both recognition of and redistribution in the lives of young people and their mothers. We demonstrate how social workers, operating within neoliberal systems and safeguarding partnerships, can still pursue social justice goals. Finally, we reflect on the potential of these avenues to open wider pathways towards embedding social justice within contemporary social work practice.
This article engages with the increasingly repressive context of social work in Sweden. Drawing on ten focus groups together comprising a total of 51 residents of Järva, one of the districts of Stockholm particularly affected by deadly shootings in the 2020s, the article explores how the interviewees reflect on an eviction reform introduced to create safer neighbourhoods. The measure extends landlords’ power to evict families because of crime committed by a child in the household. The article analyses how the policy expands criminal policy into the reproductive sphere, reshaping parenting, family relations and trust in welfare institutions. Theoretically, by bringing Loïc Wacquant’s concept of the Centaur state into dialogue with Dorothy Roberts’s understanding of the family policing system, the article situates the eviction reform within the framework of a broader remodelling of the Nordic welfare state. Residents’ accounts reveal how the threat of eviction operates as a form of reproductive racism, reinforcing authoritarian parenting, cultivating intra-family suspicion and undermining trust in social services. The article demonstrates how social work becomes entangled in a punitive turn intended to collapse any distinction between care and control while widening the securitisation net over communities already disproportionately targeted by state surveillance.
This critical systematic review analyses empirical social work research in Chile from 2017 to 2024. It aims to identify the addressed topics, epistemological debates, theoretical frameworks or models applied, and research methodologies. Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, the review draws on the Web of Science, Scopus and Scientific Electronic Library Online databases. A total of 25 articles met the inclusion criteria. Findings show a thematic concentration on health, childhood and public policy. There is limited epistemological debate and a lack of clarity in or an absence of the use of theoretical frameworks. Quantitative studies using questionnaires predominate, followed by qualitative approaches. The review concludes that a persistent disconnection remains between epistemology, theory and social intervention, hindering the consolidation of disciplinary knowledge. This weakens the critical articulation between research and practice. The review highlights the need to strengthen the theoretical–practical relationship in future social work research as a means of fostering epistemic resistance and enhancing the discipline’s transformative and critical potential.
