Social Work: Lectures on Curriculum and Pedagogy (India)

250 Pages·2019·3.049 MB·English

by  bodhi s.r

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Lectures
on
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urriculum and edagogy

by
bodhi s.r
Dedicated
to
Dalit & Tribal Students
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EBook edition 2019: ISBN 978-81-942059-2-0
Published in India by Insight Multipurpose Society,
Wardha, Maharashtra
IMS website: nalanda-academy.org
© 2019, bodhi s.r
The moral rights of the author has been asserted
Forthcoming
Mangesh Dahiwale
THINKING THE NAVAYANA WAY

John F.Kharshiing and bodhi s.r
THE FEDERATION OF KHASI STATES
HISTORY, EPISTEMOLOGY AND POLITICS

bodhi s.r and raile.r.ziipao (Ed)
LAND, WORDS AND RESILIENT CULTURES
THE ONTOLOGICAL BASIS OF TRIBAL IDENTITY
Foreword

Over the years, I have often held the view that social work
needs to be more real both in theory and practice. Being an
applied social science, it must arrive at its knowledge after
deep study of social reality with perspectives and concerns
for the most marginalized groups. Unfortunately this is
something that I have not observed taking place.
Having taught the Master’s programme in Tata Institute of
Social Sciences and been party to the restructuring process
of the social work programmes that took place in the TISS
in the year 2004 onwards, there is still something amiss
when it comes to social work facing this truth. The
problematics of social work is that its educators seem
fearful to identify what ails Indian society, are hesitant to
diagnose it properly and shy away from formulating
intervention models that would correctly treat the same.
In 1996, TISS organized a major conference to celebrate its
60th year as an Institute. A special volume on ‘Towards a
People Centered Development’ was brought out. I had
contributed an article titled ‘The Plight of Dalits: A
Challenge to Social Work Profession’ to this volume. There
I made few arguments with regards to the engagement of
social work profession and professionals in addressing the
‘caste question’. My claims in the article may be
summarized as follows: Although the social work
profession world over is rooted in the ideal of social justice,
and accordingly emphasizes the need of making the
excluded, exploited and the vulnerable understand how
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they are exploited, who exploits them, and how the
exploited can at least mitigate, if not prevent, such
exploitation, using the legally recognized and humane
means, the social work profession in India is primarily
rooted in the religious doctrines. Some of these doctrines
grounded around the ideas of caste, while preaching that
the rich and the dominant communities and individuals
should be sympathetic towards the poor and vulnerable
ones, and undertake all possible measures to ameliorate
their pitiable and pilloried condition, yet they still hold on
to their beliefs of one caste being more superior to another.
Such a theological position goes against the basic tenets of
social work profession. Yet the professional social workers
in India never questioned this unethical and immoral
position of such doctrines.
I also argued that socialized in such beliefs, the social
workers themselves are caste biased and therefore incapable
of recognizing the problems faced by many fellow citizens
who belong especially to the caste below in the hierarchy.
Therefore, before resorting to deal with the issues of caste
discrimination and brutalities that the Dalits face even
today, it is imperative to first conscientize the Indian
professional social workers to come out of their caste
prejudices and embed themselves in a different state of
civility.
Another assertion I made in the article is that the existing
social work methods such as case work, group work, community
organization and social action are applied only to deal with
other issues such as health, education, issues of the
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physically and mentally challenged, orphans and destitute,
prisoners, youth and children, and of late issues of women’s
empowerment. Not so surprisingly, these methods are
hardly used to deal with issues of caste-based prejudices,
discriminations and violence. Therefore, I argued not only
for an alternative conception of social work methods
suitable for dealing with caste related issues, but also for
our willingness as professional social workers to evolve
efficacious social work methods and apply them to address
caste related problems effectively.
From these minor interventions in the 1990s to the current
programme in the TISS, social work education has come a
long way. There is a greater degree of acceptance of the
complexity of the Indian conditions and an attempt to
engage with the same. Some of the issues that were
invisibilised from social work education since its inception
have now come to occupy central space in both teaching
and intervention. This is definitely a paradigm shift for
social work and something that I personally appreciate.
This book which attempts to capture these shifts in social
work education and in its curriculum is a wonderful read
and is on the same line as my own thought process. It is
both insightful and full of information about how these
twist and turns of conscientization took place through the
years within the discipline. It touches upon various themes
in curriculum formation beginning with social work history,
basic social work concepts, pedagogy, methods and the
new emerging ideas in social work education.
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I personally have not seen nor laid my hands on a book in
social work that engages so deeply with curriculum and
pedagogy. While social work educators are, in my opinion,
one of the most creative among teachers in the social
sciences, and the social work discipline being the most
innovative, having to engage with both a field of inquiry
and field of practice together, there is however very less
writings on the subject of curriculum formulations and
pedagogical strategies.
I am so happy to see the production of this text at this
moment, a text that is born out of the Indian experience
and has deep organic roots. These are good signs for social
work education in India because in many ways such efforts
can also be read as attempts to come out of the shell of
western theory and its dominance on social work thinking
and practice in our country.
One only hopes that as social work searches for deeper
knowledge and deeper truths about the Indian conditions,
the social work profession gains strength and confidence to
face the Indian reality more truthfully and intervene in ways
that include all its peoples, empowers the excluded groups,
bring civil culture and civility among the Indian masses and
make India a nation in which every single individual takes
pride in being its citizens.
A.Ramaiah
TISS, Mumbai

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Preface
As an educator in social work, one is exposed not only to
field realities and interventions but to very engaging and
committed young minds. Minds that are grounded in
visions of realizing an egalitarian society, on upholding and
practicing democracy, on seeking and defending justice, on
informed citizenship and evolved civility, and minds that
seek to transform self and society through education and
knowledge. Over the years, this opportunity to engage with
peoples was not restricted only to students. I have also met
peoples with deep insights about reality and genuine
commitment to social transformation from across the
length and breadth of South Asia.
Also being a faculty in one of the earliest social work
institutes in the country, I have also had the opportunity to
be part of a massive restructuring process of the Tata
Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and its social work
curriculum. In 2005 it re-imagined its academic and
administrative structure and made fundamental changes to
its social work programmes in line with its vision and
mission.
Initially I taught in the Masters of Arts in Social Welfare
Administration. Later in 2007, post restructuring of the
TISS, I was part of a group that offered a Concentration on
Dalits and Tribes: Social Justice, Equity and Governance.
Then in 2012 when another minor restructuring of the
social work programmes took place, I was one of the
members who formulated a new field of practice - the
Masters of Arts in Social Work with Dalit and Tribal
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