Introduction: Social Work in a Changing World

In this chapter, we offer a brief and selective account of some of the major historical changes impacting social work since its origins in the late nineteenth century. These include the Enlightenment, the scientific revolutions making industrialisation possible and the social consequences of these disruptions on human lives. The influence of positivist philosophy on sociology and research and the significant advances in engineering and medicine are noted, as is the appearance of the Information Age and the major changes in communications, trade, travel and the inter-connecting economically, financially and culturally that is globalisation. For social work as a profession and a discipline, intentionally locating itself within context and society with an avowed commitment to human rights and social change, this has seen the emergence of ways to conceptualise social and material reality by adopting the concepts of person-in-environment and the biopsychosocial model. We argue that the changes and advances in the twenty-first century require the more nuanced explanatory theory offered by complexity theory. In combination with pragmatism, the chapter sets the scene in which social workers are encouraged to ‘think complexity’ and ‘act pragmatically’, drawing on the understanding and experiences described and analysed in this book.