A definition of social work: A thesis in sociology

								

Investigation of the Condition of Women and Child Wage Earners, p. 137,
N.Y. Child Labor Committee, p. 144.
[27] Proceedings of National Conference of Social Work, 1920, p. 171.
[28] Ibid., 1919, p. 613.
[29] Charities and the Commons, April, 1907, p. 577.
[30] American Year Book, 1919, p. 402.
[31] Roscoe Pound, at National Conference, 1919, p. 105.

CHAPTER IV
THE TESTIMONY OF THE CONFERENCE

We have now propounded a tentative definition of social work based upon
an interpretation of its development and present practices. We will not
be sure of the correctness of that interpretation until we have tested
the applicability of the result to the whole range of social work. Nor
can we do this fairly by making our own presentation of social work.
For such a test we must find some ready-made presentation which will
marshal social work in all its diversity. The reports of the national
conference do this and, indirectly, the courses offered by the school
for training social workers. This chapter will test and, if possible,
expand the definition by the testimony of the conference and the
succeeding chapter by the testimony of the schools.
The conference is divided into ten sections:


1. Children.
2. Delinquents.
3. Health.
4. Public agencies and institutions.
5. The family.
6. Industrial and economic problems.
7. The local community.
8. Mental hygiene.
9. Organization of social forces.
10. Uniting of native and foreign-born.
At the annual convention each of these ten sections holds its own group
meetings at which papers are presented and discussions conducted on the
subjects appropriate to the section. It will be seen that the division
into sections is on a basis of administrative fields rather than
technique or function. The fields however are not mutually exclusive
but overlapping. Children although giving their name to the whole first
section appear among “delinquents” in the second, candidates for health
in the third and so on. Indeed, all of the ten section names might
serve as subheads under most or all of the other topics.
More significant in the search for a definition is the fact that
these several fields are not exclusively possessed by social workers.
“Children” are also the special concern of elementary teachers,
“delinquency” is primarily referred to the courts, “health” is the
conceded bailiwick of the medical profession and so forth. Even at
the conference many papers are presented by persons other than social
workers.[32]
These two types of overlapping make the masses of material with which
we have to deal both indeterminate and confusing. But representing as
they do the mutual interpenetration of social work and other callings,
they give a fresh opportunity to distinguish the nature of social
work. We may inquire what is the special interest of social work in
“children,” in “delinquents,” in “health,” and in what ways does it