Implications and challenges for social work education in Greece in the time of austerity

ABSTRACT

Following a discussion of the implications of one of the largest fiscal adjustments in modern times the paper identifies current challenges to social work practice and social work education in Greece and discusses the future of social work with radicalism as one of the central themes emerging during the crisis. It is argued that while at the moment radical social work has barely found any support from Greek social work practitioners, the implications of the socioeconomic crisis have given a significant boost to radical and critical social work on the educational front. It is further argued that in order to enhance these developments future efforts should concentrate on providing an effective guide for everyday practices that acknowledge the particularities of the specific context and will also include humane and holistic value-based approaches as well as the promotion of emancipatory values such as authenticity. In a progressively depoliticized public sphere that fosters the spread of individualism the above elements might be a critical step toward a more politically engaged social work education.

KEYWORDS:

• Greece
• neoliberalism
• austerity
• radical social work

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The closure of the Department of Social Work of the Technological Institute of Patras along with some of the other reforms introduced by the ‘Athena Plan’ were abolished recently from the Ministry of Education (ΦΕΚ B’ 1158/2017).

2. The Department of Social Administration was established in 1995 and had two pathways: the first one was the Social Policy and Administration Pathway and the second on was the Social Work Pathway.

3. This low level of political consciousness fits into the traditional features of Greek society, which is characterized by limited development of social movements and a weak civil society. According to Mouzelis’s analysis (Mouzelis, 1995) these are symptoms of the country’s imperfect modernization—‘early parliamentarism and late industrialization’—that led to the dominance of clientelism and patronage and to the vertical, rather than horizontal, incorporation of the social spectrum to politics. Additionally, the hegemony of political parties in civil society has transformed class struggles into conflicts among different interest groups over access to the state apparatus (Mouzelis & Pagoulatos, 2005; Petmesidou, 2006b).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vassilis Karagkounis

Dr. Vassilis Karagkounis is an Assistant Professor in Community Social Work at Dept of Social Administration and Political Science, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. He studied Social Work at the TEI of Crete and holds a post graduate degree (MSc) in Community Health from the University of Portsmouth, UK; he completed his doctoral studies at the Department of Social Administration of the Democritus University of Thrace. He has more than eleven years of practical experience working as a social worker in University General Hospital of Thessaloniki AXEPA. His research, primarily in the area of community work and health, with special focus on issues related to planning, implementing and evaluating interventions in deprived areas, vulnerable groups and minorities, has been published in Greek and English-language periodicals and books.