ABSTRACT
Social work has long been understood as being concerned with the person in the social environment. This chapter examines social development as a specific approach within social work. First, it looks at the idea of the social in social work. Second, it considers the common division of social work into micro and macro concerns, which are often seen in terms of a split between direct and indirect practices. To flesh out the issues raised by a 'person-in-environment' understanding of social work, the following example of social development practice is used to illustrate these concepts. In this perspective, social development is seen as concerning the issues, problems and needs that are addressed by social work at the level of the social environment. The critique offered by Olson, Solas and Reisch and Andrews and is that in pursuing professionalism macro orientations have been either downplayed or abandoned and, consequently, social work has lost its original commitment to the goal of social justice.
