Dataism versus relationshipism: a social work perspective

ABSTRACT

The term ‘dataism’ has been used to identify an emerging ideology, which posits that big data, incorporating new ways to collect, collate and analyse data about human activity, will make a substantial contribution to progress in all areas of human endeavour. As applied to the social work profession, dataism promises to improve decision-making, both in terms of targeting the most vulnerable or ‘in need’ citizens and matching the most efficacious services to service users. From the perspective of dataism, social work has been characterized as ‘relationshipism’ and, in many ways, as the antithesis of dataism. In this article, the key premises of both dataism and relationshipism are outlined to illustrate their very different approaches to understanding and intervening to address social problems. At a practical level, one aim of the article is to provide insights into dataism that will assist social workers to engage in participatory design approaches to develop and evaluate decision-making tools based on dataism. At a conceptual level, the aim is to advance the debate about the potential and the pitfalls of dataism in social work.

KEYWORDS:

• Digitalization
• dataism
• relationshipism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by the Special Research Funds of Ghent University, Belgium and by the award of a Future Fellowship to Dr. Gillingham by the Australian Research Council.