Annual of social work, Vol. 17 No. 2, 2010.
Review article
KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION IN SOCIAL WORK
Ana Miljenović
orcid.org/0000-0002-3486-0696
; Faculty of Law, Depatment of Social work, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Knowledge integration in social work is a process which is an integral part of the profession since its beginnings, as well as an important feature in developing educational programmes and profession’s scientific approaches. This paper aims to analyse the process of knowledge integration from scientific and non-scientific sources with social work as well as criteria which should be taken into account. Thus, integration of scientific, religious, spiritual, philosophic, artistic as well as individual ˝commonsense˝ reasoning in social work is presented. The following principles should be taken into account when introducing and using heteronym knowledge: principles of the profession, limitations in competencies towards other disciplines, awareness of the purpose of used knowledge, interests and characteristics of social workers and critical analysis. Due to the intensity of knowledge integration, criteria to distinguish the notions of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are proposed. Finally, knowledge integration is related to the social work process and the author concludes that its importance is greater in the phases of problem definition and analysis, while in the phases of method application and direct actions professional methods used depending on the competencies of social workers play a greater role.
Finally, certain questions are proposed for further reflexion on the issue in scientific, practical and educational aspects of the profession.
Keywords
knowledge integration; knowledge in social work; heteronym sources
Hrčak ID:
58881
URI
Publication date:
20.9.2010.
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