Social work in China Guest editorial for the special issue

Transcription

1 International Social Work 48(4): Sage Publications: London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi DOI: / *i sw Social work in China Guest editorial for the special issue In the past, International Social Work (ISW) has not specifically focused on countries or regions. This is the first attempt to make a special issue on China. The decision was made by the Editor-in- Chief, since an increasing amount of contributions relating to China have been published in recent issues, including a relatively large number from Hong Kong, together with some relating to working with Chinese clients within or outside China. Some of these articles clearly challenge western assumptions about the values (such as individualism and self-determination) underpinning social work and are concerned with wider debates about human rights. Thus, it seems important and timely to publish these discussions in the context of a special issue. This editorial is about change in contemporary China and social work development in the past 20 years, with the aim to provide a contextualized overview for those who are not familiar with the socio-economic and political framework and particularities of social work and welfare organization in China. A description of the process of evolution of social work in Asia is presented to help understand how regional and international influences have been affecting social work development in China. Finally the editorial will also detail the challenges and opportunities that are facing social work in China. Change in contemporary China It is a commonplace to note that China has vastly changed over the last 25 years. Change has been a constant theme in the economic, political and social arenas of the People s Republic of China (PRC), and it has nearly always in some way affected the human condition in the country and shaped its involvement with other parts of the world (Preston, 2003). The dynamics underlying change, as well as

2 372 International Social Work volume 48(4) its nature and extent, have clearly been varied. Economically, China may in some sense still be a developing country, but its economy has dramatically expanded in size. Depending on the assumed growth figures, China s economy is set to overtake that of Japan in the medium to long term. Moreover, China has already joined the ranks of East Asia s newly industrializing economies. In contrast to the change inherent in the steps taken to legitimate the market and new forms of ownership, political change in China has been more modest. The members of the PRC Standing Committee and Politburo of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party continue to enjoy monopoly power. Bold calls in the 1980s for political reform aiming for a separation of functions of party and government have to date proved less than a full success. But legal reforms have in many ways outpaced political reforms. Particularly impressive has been the output of laws designed to foster economic development and to attract foreign capital. The National People s Congress has also adopted a series of administrative reform measures and legal processes that are intended to provide citizens with possibilities to appeal against decisions of the bureaucracy. However, legal reforms have not undermined state power (Potter, 1999). For instance, the new regulations and laws do not allow for the review of discretionary decisions nor do citizens have channels to appeal against party decisions. China still does not possess independent media or autonomous trade unions. Its civil society is still at an infantile stage, yet multiple models of state society relations are operating in China at the same time (Saich, 2000), that may involve state repression, co-operation and even state encouragement of the societal forces in question. Finally, the social changes that are accompanying economic reforms are enormous. To name a few major ones: 1. the realities of surplus labor and the demand for labor flexibility have abolished the household registration system in small cities and towns throughout China; 2. the new information technology adds new strands of pluralism to politics; 3. the income disparity between rural and urban areas, coastal and inland provinces and among the generations has grown and become more conspicuous; 4. many working practices of those employed in the private sector amount to outrageous forms of exploitation;

3 Editorial the huge floating population does not enjoy the same benefits as those who hold legal urban registration; 6. the increasing trend of commodification of women and exclusion of disadvantaged populations. At the same time, China has moved away from a welfare state model towards the neo-liberal welfare model, which is based mainly on economic efficiency. The current main social welfare objective is to provide basic benefits to maintain social stability. Significantly, China has seen the re-emergence of social inequality and class divisions (Preston, 2003). World Bank and official survey data show that China s Gini coefficient, measuring the gap between rich and poor, increased from 28.2 in 1981 to 38.8 in 1995 (Atinc and World Bank, 1997). Farmers in interior or rural regions, the elderly, youth and disabled people, unemployed, dislocated, women and children were badly affected or shut off from the benefits of economic reform (Leung and Nann, 1995). Overall, the economies, societies and polities of China have seen remarkable changes since the initiation of the reform process. Since the start of economic reforms in 1978, China has achieved undisputable economic growth, and yet has also experienced dramatic uneven development across different regions and populations. It is likely that change will continue to unfold as China integrates itself more deeply in the regionalized and internationalized global system. It is clear that the future will hold significant opportunities and major challenges for the government and people of China. The government will face the business of managing change. The citizens will have to deal with the uncertainties that accompany periods of pervasive change (Preston, 2003). Social work in China Social work has experienced three stages since its introduction to China in the 1920s: introduction, abolishment and reinstatement (Xia, 2002). Social work was first introduced to China in 1922 by missionaries. Various types of social services were developed by religious organizations for disadvantaged people such as the poor, sick and disabled. Only a few faith-based universities and colleges located mostly in the east-coast cities had teaching programs at that time to train a handful of social workers, for instance, the Ginling Women s College in Nanjing. Like many other universities, these colleges were forced to either close their programs or move to

4 374 International Social Work volume 48(4) western or southern villages during a series of wars, the Japanese invasion, the second world war and the civil war. After the Communist Party seized governmental control in 1949, both social work education and missionary activities were prohibited. Not until 40 years later, in 1988, was the first social work education meeting held in Beijing to prepare for establishing an association of social work education. Unfortunately, following the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, this was forced to be postponed. In 1994 the Chinese Association of Social Work Education was eventually established with only about 20 social work programs. Nowadays there are more than 150 registered programs teaching social work in various universities and colleges in China. On average, these programs train more than 3000 social work graduates per year. However, the majority of these graduates are not working in social service settings or with social service programs. Most of the social services in China are subsumed under different government organizations, such as the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Youth League, the Women s Federation, work units, street organizations and the Rehabilitative Federation. These organizations used to hire non-social work trained people, usually high-school or college graduates, to deliver the services to their clients. Some of these organizations have their own training institutes which provide both pre- and in-service training to their staff members. In the mid- 1970s the concept of social work and its practice were introduced to China from Hong Kong and other countries. Many of these training institutes began to develop social work programs for their cadres. China also has its own Federation of Social Workers which has not been able to attract many members partly due to the fact that it is not operating as an open membership system. Most of the members and executives are non-social work trained cadres working for the government or semi-government social service organizations. The main task of China s current social welfare policy is to provide a basic safety net that will avoid social unrest, while limiting the growth in social expenditure in order to allow China to become more competitive (Guan, 2003). In practice, the Chinese government has gradually adopted a different approach to delivering welfare services. Instead of being service providers, the government is now focusing more on policy, planning and management. This is encouraging civil society and non-profit organizations (NPOs) to take up the role of providing direct services. Besides the public welfare programs, the work units are also operating under the market economy which requires self sufficiency or profit-

5 Editorial 375 making in order to survive in the face of competition. Many of these work units, which used to provide comprehensive welfare services to their employees, are no longer taking up this responsibility. Therefore, more community organizations and NPOs are being developed in various parts of the country and they are now running different types of social services ranging from child welfare to long-term care for the aged. In a nutshell, social work in China has a tremendous market in the public, non-profit and private sectors and is expected to make great progress in the near future (Chi, 2005). But social work professional development in Chinese societies outside mainland China, such as Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Taiwan, has not been interrupted. Among these, Hong Kong probably has most connections and influences on social work development in China. This is evident as most of the articles published in English-language journals, including those submitted to ISW, come from authors in Hong Kong rather than mainland China and reflect issues associated with the colonial influence, including language and ideas about research and the role of academics, as well as about social work organization and methods. Hong Kong was a colony of the United Kingdom until July 1997, and its social work professional development by and large follows a British model. Five out of seven publicly funded universities and one private college are providing social work training at various levels, including diploma, bachelor s, master s and doctorate. Hong Kong s social work professional status is one of the highest in the region. However, in formulating welfare policies Hong Kong has adopted a very different ideology from the British. It is extremely ad-hoc and residual, that is, the government only provides the minimum support for the neediest as their last resort. Therefore, in spite of Hong Kong having been an affluent society for quite some time, it still has acute poverty problems, which have become even more severe in recent years. For instance, currently Hong Kong has the highest Gini coefficient among the developed countries in the world. The Hong Kong government typically seldom initiated any long-term welfare plans or solutions to deal with major social problems, unless the problems threatened the economy s survival. Nonetheless, Hong Kong has a long history of developing non-government organizations (NGOs). There are more than 250 NGOs receiving most of their funding support from the government and providing various kinds of social services ranging from child welfare to old-age care. Thus the Hong Kong government has been the major funding source supporting both social work training and social service programs.

6 376 International Social Work volume 48(4) Taiwan, Singapore and Macau have all adopted slightly different social work professional development paths from Hong Kong. The three-stage process of the evolution of social work in Asia and the Pacific Historically, the developing countries depended on western social work to provide them with the knowledge and technology for developing their own social work education and practice. There has already been much criticism about this one-way approach, implying that western social work has provided an inappropriate education and practice to address the demands of social work practice in the host countries (Billups, 1991; Midgley, 1981). However, in recent decades, global social work education has been transformed by two key processes: indigenization and reconceptualization. Their influence has greatly affected the formation of both social work education and practice as systematic responses to local social and economic development problems. Social work in developed countries has also been shaped to some extent by similar phases (Bernard, 1995; Midgley, 1981). Cox (1997) portrays the process through which social work practice and education have evolved throughout history in the Asia- Pacific region. Phase 1 was characterized by a traditional-sector welfare system which included the indigenous cultural practices and charitable acts as precursors to the introduction of social work to the region by western colonial powers. The arrival of western colonial powers and missionaries in Asia, together with the rapid industrialization and urbanization of countries throughout the region, marked the inception of the second phase, known as the industrial charity model. During this period, the western model of remedial and charitable social services was introduced to schools of social work and to social service agencies. The indigenization of western methods and practices followed, as countries in the region began to experiment with imported, individualized helping techniques in response to their respective local needs. Yet as industrialization and urbanization began to introduce unique social problems, many social workers discovered that the indigenized western model was incapable of meeting the needs of local societies and of addressing the emerging social problems encountered by the profession. The final phase is characterized as a period of contrast with respect to social workers attempts to create institutionalized responses to their local problems. Western-trained welfare personnel, convinced

7 Editorial 377 of the effectiveness of their imported approaches, continued to apply American and British social work models at home. Conversely, locally trained personnel, dissatisfied with this approach, reacted against modernization and dependency on the West and began to generate authentized local models of social work education and practice, based on principles of social development (Ferguson, 2005). Challenges and opportunities The China Association of Social Work Education (CASWE) celebrated its 10th anniversary in December While there have been a lot of achievements in the past decade that CASWE could celebrate, several challenges facing current social work training in China were outlined and discussed in the anniversary meeting. Although the rapidly growing number of social work programs in higher education is impressive, there is still a severe shortage of qualified educators in most of the programs and this is especially true for those who can teach practice courses, supervise fieldwork placement and conduct policy and practice research. Another challenge is related to the current recruitment practice from the major social service organizations in China, as they have not committed to hire social work trained personnel. In other words, social work has not yet been recognized as a profession. While it is anticipated that there will be a continuing trend of developing more social work programs in China, the most urgent need for these programs lies in improving the quality of training, which will lead to social work professionalization. Therefore, social work in China is now at a critical juncture to consolidate past achievements and to further develop the new discipline and profession. Whether China will follow the process of the evolution of social work like other countries in Asia, it is still too early to tell. Nonetheless, based on the values of egalitarianism, democracy, multiculturalism and respect for diversity, a new model should be proposed that all countries be viewed as both donors and recipients of technology and ideas (Ferguson, 2005). In essence, it is only through the collaboration of all countries, as co-participants, in circulating successful adaptations of existing methods, as well as in transmitting new local technology and ideas, that international social work education and the profession at large can become the global response to the economic development, environmental, health and social welfare problems

8 378 International Social Work volume 48(4) that have become progressively more international in scope (Hokenstad et al., 1992). Since social work in China has tremendous needs and a market in the public, non-profit and private sectors, it is anticipated that the overall development will proceed very fast in the near future. Although the profession is facing many challenges, it also has advantages. China could learn from the experiences of developing social work in the developed countries and at the same time take the initiative to develop social work that is more appropriate for the developing countries. China has no real burden of historical established social work structure, so it can take any direction it likes to develop its own social work theories and practices to meet the needs of its society. This opportunity would not only benefit China itself but also contribute to global social work development. References Atinc, T.M. and World Bank (1997) Sharing Rising Incomes : Disparities in China. Washington, DC: World Bank. Bernard, L.D. (1995) United States, in T. Watts, D. Elliott and N. Mayadas (eds) International Handbook on Social Work Education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Billups, J.J.M. (1991) The Fourth World in the USA: Need for Convergent Generalist, Feminist and Social Development Approaches, International Journal of Social Work 34(4): Chi, I. (2005) Social Work Practice with Older Adults in China, in B. Berkman and S. D Ambruso (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Social Work in Aging. New York: Oxford University Press. Cox, D. (1997) Asia and the Pacific, in N. Mayadas, T. Watts and D. Elliott (eds) International Handbook on Social Work Theory and Practice, pp Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Ferguson, K. (2005) Beyond Indigenization and Reconceptualization: Towards a Global, Multidirectional Model of Technology Transfer, International Social Work 48(5). Guan, X.P. (2003) Social Welfare Reform in China, in P.W. Preston and J. Haacke (eds) Contemporary China: The Dynamics of Change at the Start of the New Millennium. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Hokenstad, M., S. Khinduka and J. Midgley, eds (1992) Profiles in International Social Work. Washington, DC: NASW Press. Leung, C.B. and R.C. Nann (1995) Authority and Benevolence : Social Welfare in China. Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. Midgley, J. (1981) Professional Imperialism: Social Work in the Third World. London: Heinemann Educational Books. Potter, P. (1999) The Chinese Legal System: Continuing Commitment to the Primacy of State Power, China Quarterly 159: Preston, P.W. and J. Haacke (2003) Change in Contemporary China, in P.W. Preston and J. Haacke (eds) Contemporary China: The Dynamics of Change at the Start of the New Millennium. London: RoutledgeCurzon.

9 Editorial 379 Saich, T. (2000) Negotiating the State: The Development of Social Organizations in China, China Quarterly 161: Xia, X. and J. Guo (2002) Historical Development and Characteristics of Social Work in Today s China, International Journal of Social Welfare 11: Iris Chi Chair Professor for Chinese Elders and Director of the Chinese Program in the School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA