ABSTRACT
This essay on the moral and social presuppositions and implications of casework revolves around the contrast pointed in this quotation: between the concern of the social worker with the welfare of the individual and for the welfare of society. It will be argued that caseworkers, because they are involved in this dual concern, need to be very clear about the relationship between the individual and society. The discussion and description of this relationship is, however, far from easy, and some of the concepts involved are highly elusive. This dual concern of the caseworker finds expression in the current tendency to formulate the problems encountered in casework in terms of the concept of a social role which focuses attention upon the relationship between man and the society in which he lives. As Dahrendorf points out (1968): ‘At the point where individuals and society intersect stands Homo Sociologicus, man as the bearer of socially predetermined roles.’ The basic problem to be discussed in this book is whether casework theorists can offer a satisfactory account of this relationship in terms of the concepts which they use to work with the individual, with his own dignity, point of view, and attitudes on the one hand, and the moral, legal and cultural claims of society on the other. Such an account is vital to the conceptual coherence of casework, since it is precisely in this area that caseworkers operate. They are professionally concerned with the relationship between the individual and the society in which he lives.
