ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to gain knowledge about how social work students, with a focus on critical reflection, understand and interpret the concept of social rights and assess elderly people's needs. The neoliberal reorganisation of the welfare state has not only influenced practices in social work but also the organisation and context of social work education. Education in social work is highly influenced by an increasing efficiency demand on social workers. As an ideological construct, neoliberalism has resulted in the promotion of political beliefs, values and practices that promote individual rather than collective responsibility for social problems. The social rights and needs of the elderly in Sweden have increasingly been regulated and presented in municipal and local guidelines. Inequalities around aging are best understood by considering the interplay between age and the structural power relationships based on gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and life phase.
