New Directions in the Qualitative Social Work Blog

After a discussion with 15 other social workers at a meeting we held at the 4th International Congress on Qualitative Research held in May 2008, I will now take prime responsibility for blogging on this blog. Whenever I have something to say to social workers and allied disciplines I will post it on this blog.

This is an open blog, meaning anyone can blog on it. I decided to talk to the group about changing how the blog is run because after one year, no one is using it. There are many discpline-related isses that we as social workers can discuss for the benefit of our consitutents, who are service users and persons affected by social and economic justice. We have various ways of doing our work--as educators, researchers, and advocates, among others--but the goal we share is social justice and a caring society.

Training for us as social workers who do or want to do qualitative research is scant. We have had to learn from scholars in other disciplines. Within social work there is now sufficient maturity for us to start talking about and working out discpline-specific issues related to qualitative research. This is what this blog will do. In particular, I am interested in the contributions that qualitative social work can make to ameliorate social conditions. For us to do this, we must have the vision of what we can do and how we can do it.

I will stop now but will be back soon.

Jane Gilgun
jgilgun@umn.edu