ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the setting and context in which social work takes place, contexts that have paradoxically become increasingly complex and standardized. The sociological ideas of Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu are introduced. Social work’s relatively recent inclusion of Bourdieu’s work is identified as providing an excellent framework to better understand and question the relationship of the social worker in her/his organisational setting and the subsequent identity created through the symbiosis of the social worker’s habitus within their field. Weber introduced a powerful and enduring metaphor for the rational/legal bureaucracy and how it worked on the human spirit. This research argues that risk ought to be recognised as socially embedded and should be understood through the ways in which the work is socially framed and reinforced through social norms and values. The chapter also explores some of the complexities involved in the organisational context and broader neo-liberal policy context within which social workers are placed.
