Policy-practice in social work and social work

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Policy-practice in social work and social work education in Israel John Gal & Idit Weiss Published online: 25 Aug 2010.

To cite this article: John Gal & Idit Weiss (2000) Policy-practice in social work and social work education in Israel, Social Work Education: The International Journal, 19:5, 485-499 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/026154700436002

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SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION, VOL . 19, NO. 5, 2000

Policy-practice in social work and social work education in Israel

Downloaded by [Hebrew University] at 07:43 18 August 2014

JOHN GAL & IDIT WEISS

Abstract Policy-practice is a form of social work intervention that is intended to influence social policy. It is linked to an understanding of the role of social workers which places the struggle for social justice at the forefront of social work activity. However, this form of social work intervention has remained on the sidelines of social work practice and education in most welfare states. This paper seeks to understand the role that policy-practice and social policy play, and have played, in social work and social work education in Israel. The findings indicate that, despite a growth in interest in the political role of social workers in Israel during the 1970s, policy-practice has remained a mode of practice adopted by a minority of members of the profession in Israel. An empirical study of the curriculums of the schools of social work in Israel indicates that this is the case for the study program in most of the schools. The reasons for this can be linked primarily to the overwhelming influence of American social work upon the development of the Israeli profession and to the process of liberalization and privatization of the Israeli welfare state in the last two decades.

The tension between the `social’ and the `personal’ aspects of social work is something that social workers and members of staff of schools of social work throughout the world are undoubtedly familiar with. The debate between those that emphasize the need for social workers to focus primarily upon the problems of the individual and to seek personal solutions to these problems, and those who stress the social causes of individual distress and the necessity of addressing the environmental sources of need, has been an integral part of the development of the profession. In Israel, as in other welfare states, this debate has had an impact upon both the emergence of the profession and on social work education. This paper seeks to examine the implications of this debate in Israel. We will begin by discussing different aspects of the link between the goals of social work as a profession, the place that intervention in the formulation of social policy plays, or should play, in the activities of social workers, and the role of social work education in this context. We will then focus our discussion on certain aspects of the Israeli welfare state. In particular, the evolution of social work in Israel will be described and the involvement of social workers in the formulation of social policy depicted. Following that, an examination of social work education, based upon a quantitative and qualitative analysis, will be presented. In this part, the emphasis will be upon the interplay between the `personal’ and the `social’ in the curriculums of the various schools of social work in Israel. Finally, we will conclude with a brief discussion of our conclusions from this analysis. Correspondence to: John Gal, Lecturer, Baerwald School of Social Work, Hebrew University, Mt Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. Idit Weiss, Lecturer, Shapell School of Social Work, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. ISSN 0261-5479 print; 1470-1227 online/00/050485± 15 Ó

2000 The Board of Social Work Education

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The link between social work, social policy and social work education Most social workers and social work educators would probably agree that the ultimate goal of any social work intervention is to meet the needs, and better the situation, of individuals, groups and communities. However, there is far less agreement as to the root causes of these needs, the best ways in which to deal with such situations, and the level upon which to act in order to alleviate distress. If the root causes of an individual’ s needs are perceived as deriving primarily from internal processes that undermine one’ s capability to deal with their immediate environment, clearly the most effective way in which to deal with these deficiencies is to focus upon the individual and to encourage personal change. This approach seeks to enhance the self-determination of the individual and typically employs different types of psychotherapy or casework in order to equip clients with the means to deal more adequately with their surroundings and to fulfill social roles (England, 1986). If, however, the roots of a person’ s distress and suffering are to be found in the environment and are mainly a result of external processes over which the individual has little control, then the answers to these questions will clearly be very different. In other words, if, as Jordan (1990, p. 77) has put it, `clients are not isolated individuals, nor are their problems theirs alone’ , then this type of reality requires an approach that does not focus solely upon the individual level. If the problems faced by individuals derive from the way in which society is structured, and the fact that they have been deprived of valuable social goods such as money, services, power or status, then social workers seeking to better an individual’ s situation must also focus their efforts upon social change (Reid & Billups, 1986). They must seek to improve the way in which society perceives the needs of individuals and the manner in which social goods are distributed (Specht & Courtney, 1994). If social workers are indeed concerned with the well being of their clients, they need to strive for equal access to social goods for all citizens. This approach to social work attempts to place `social justice’ at the focus of social work activity. It views distributional justice as the primary organizing value of the profession and seeks to encourage the adoption of modes of professional activity congruent with this view of society and social work (Wakefield, 1988). Those who have emphasized the more `social’ aspects of social work and the goal of social justice as a primary focus of social work activity, have quite naturally also tended to underscore the need to undertake methods of practice that will contribute to the achievement of more social justice. In particular, they have stressed the importance of the direct involvement of social workers in the formulation and modification of social policy (FigueiraMcDonough, 1993). Policy is seen as a major influence upon the work of social workers and the lives of their clients. Social policy determines the manner in which social goods, both material and symbolic, are distributed. It also defines the parameters within which social workers operate. As such, social workers must not only be able to understand the nature of policy and its impact, but must also be able to play a role in its formulation and implementation (Schorr, 1985; Pierce, 1984). In the United States, this aspect of social work practice has been termed `policy-practice’ and is defined as `the use of conceptual work, intervention, and value clarification to develop, enact, implement, and assess policies’ (Jansson, 1990, p. 24). Policy-practice is portrayed as an integral part of a social worker’ s tasks. It is perceived of as including legislation advocacy, reform through litigation, social action and social policy analysis (Figueira-McDonough, 1993). While the goal of social justice has generally been incorporated as one of the goals of the social work profession, policy-practice has, in fact, never been the major focus of the activity of most social workers (Banks, 1995, pp. 76± 77; 1998). True, following a long period in which most social workers sought to adopt psychological approaches to their work, during the


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1960s and early 1970s the notion of the involvement of social workers in some form of macro-practice, such as advocacy roles, became popular in many welfare states (Specht, 1988, pp. 24± 44). However, ever since, various factors have led to a clear-cut emphasis upon forms of social work practice that focus specifically upon individuals and not on society. Among others, the growth in New Right ideology and cuts in funding for social services, pressure towards privatizatio n and a tendency to adopt psychotherapeutic methods as part of the professionalization of social work, have undermined support among social workers for involvement in policy (Jones & Novak, 1994; Pine & Healy, 1994). Moreover, the fact that many social workers are still employed within the state social services system places very obvious limitations upon their ability to undertake activities critical of the existing system. Not surprisingly, these developments are reflected in the nature of the subjects taught in schools of social work and the preferences of students registering for social work studies (Neugeboren, 1986; Schwartz & Dattalo, 1990; Wolk et al., 1996). In reaction to this swing away from the more `social’ aspects of social work practice, in recent years there has been a concerted effort on the part of policy-practice advocates in the United States and elsewhere to reinforce the policy oriented elements of social work education (De Maria, 1992; Wyers, 1991). These calls for including social policy research and teaching within schools of social work represent a return to the position advocated in the past by, among others, Richard Titmuss (1968). However, it would appear that, of late, there has been a greater sense of urgency to these calls and a recognition that they must be backed up with concrete proposals regarding the didactic and programmatic aspects of these studies (Parsloe, 1990; Specht & Courtney, 1994, pp. 148± 151). In particular, there has been growing recognition that there is a need both to enhance social work students’ commitment to social change as part of the process of professional socialization, and to equip students with the analytic tools and practical methods necessary in order to undertake policy-practice (Cnaan & Bergman, 1990; Witherspoon & Kolko Phillips, 1987; Wyers, 1991). In the following sections of the paper, we will explore the way in which the debate between the `social’ and the `personal’ has been reflected in the development of social work and social work education in Israel. The evolution of social work in Israel While the growth of the welfare state and of the social work profession in Israel can be attributed to various influences and causes, there are very clear-cut differences between the models according to which the social services, on the one hand, and the profession, on the other, have been structured. Though the initial institutions, structure and goals of the Israeli welfare state can be clearly linked to the British Beveridge model, social work as a profession has been influenced primarily by developments in American social work. Decisionmakers, involved in the establishment of the social security and the personal social services systems in the formative years of the Israeli welfare state, were strongly influenced by developments in the British and other European welfare states. By contrast, most of the first generation of social workers and the staff of the schools of social work in Israel were either trained in the United States or, at the very least, regarded the United States social work model as that most relevant to the profession in Israel (Doron, 1994; Prager, 1987; Spiro et al., 1998). The foundations of the social work profession and the welfare state in Israel were laid during the British mandate in pre-state Palestine. Among the Jews a number of centralized, comprehensive and regulated social services were established. These services were provided by the Histadrut trade union federation, by various voluntary organizations, which provided


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health, education and welfare services, and by the Va’ ad Haleumi, the official representative body of the Jewish community. It was under the auspices of this body that the first social work department was established in 1931 under Henrietta Szold, one of the leaders of a large Jewish women’ s organization in the United States (Loewenberg, 1993). The new department established local public welfare offices in the Jewish towns and cities. While the first professional social workers employed by the department were Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany (Deutsch, 1970), very early on the professional principles of the department replicated those dominant in American social work. Accordingly, welfare services were to be provided by trained professionals, the welfare of the needy was regarded as the responsibility of the local authorities, and the family was regarded as the target unit of assistance and intervention. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, a mass influx of destitute immigrants to the newly established State of Israel, together with the welfare needs of the population during a period of economic instability, unemployment and crisis, created a very severe demand for social services. The nature of the state’ s response to these needs was influenced by both an acute lack of resources and a very minimal social service infrastructure left by the British authorities, and by the pre-state welfare service structures that continued to function after the establishment of the state. A first step towards the establishment of the Israeli welfare state along the lines of the Beveridge Report was taken in 1953 with the creation of the National Insurance Institute (Doron, 1998). However, government interest in the development of social welfare services was, at best, small and readiness to devote resources to this field of activity very limited. Moreover, any progress was hindered by bitter political struggles between the Government and the Histadrut over control of the institutions providing these services and by the political weakness of the Ministry of Welfare, which was traditionally in the hands of junior coalition partnersÐ the religious parties (Doron & Kramer, 1991). Most welfare benefits were not adequate enough to provide an acceptable basic living standard and various needs, primarily in the fields of housing, health and social security, were still not dealt with. During this period, most of the small numbers of accredited social workers were employed in the local welfare offices of the Ministry of Welfare, which provided financial and material assistance to the needy, as well as social support and care. The social workers were occupied primarily with either the discretionary provision of income maintenance and material assistance or the administering of emergency services (Spiro et al., 1998). Social policy formulation, by contrast, remained the sole domain of the political and bureaucratic echelons of the Ministry of Welfare and of the Finance Ministry. From the late 1950s onwards, the social service system in Israel underwent a slow process of institutionalization and formalization. The scope of the social security system was widened partially to include additional population groups, such as families with children and the destitute elderly. In 1958 legislation formalizing the operation of the local welfare offices was finally adopted, thereby providing an initial legal basis for the working of the offices first established by the Va’ ad Leumi in Mandatory Palestine and now run by the municipalities. However, neither the structure of the social services, nor the role of the social workers within them changed significantly. Social workers remained within the bureaucratic framework of the local welfare offices and were occupied with the distribution of financial provision and casework for the most deprived segments of the population (Neipris, 1981). A minority of social workers were employed in other services, such as psychiatric hospitals, schools, the probation system, special services for immigrants and community work (Auslander & BenShahar, 1998; Itzhaky & York, 1998). The involvement of social workers in social policy formulation or social change was still very limited during this period. Some social workers were co-opted into the decision-making process within the Ministry of Welfare. One example



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of this was a committee, headed by the then Dean of the Hebrew University School of Social Work, Dr Yisrael Katz, to investigate the required level of social assistance established in 1963 (Blum & Milo, 1967). There were also sporadic occasions on which social work professionals, and in particular those within the School of Social Work at the Hebrew University, sought to raise public awareness to issues of poverty and social gaps or to influence policy in the social welfare field.1 However, as was the case in the United States during this period, social change was not perceived as part of the professional domain of social work. Moreover, in all the instances in which social workers sought to become involved in social change, the actual impact of these efforts upon policy was very limited, much due to the reluctance of the policy-makers to adopt the recommendations submitted to them by social workers. During the 1970s the Israeli welfare state came of age. This period, particularly the first half of this decade, saw rapid development of the welfare state, the introduction of new programs, the universalization of others and growing expenditure on welfare and social services. The reasons for this sea change in policy can be linked to a number of developments. The 1967 Six-Day War brought in its wake economic growth, a rapidly rising living standard and an influx of new immigrants from the West and from the Soviet Union. Following the military victory, it was generally accepted that the perceived physical threat to Israel’ s existence no longer existed and that peace was imminent. Concurrently, the mass unemployment that preceded the outbreak of war, official recognition of the high levels of poverty and social gaps, and an outbreak of civil unrest by disadvantaged slum residents in Jerusalem, convinced policy-makers and the general population that immediate steps needed to be taken on the social front. Social workers played a significant role in this process. Many of the new generation of Israeli social workers and social work educators were influenced by trends in the United States at the time. As was the case in the profession in the United States, social justice became recognized as a legitimate focus of activity and efforts were made by social workers in the field and in the schools of social work to have an impact upon the nature of social policy. Some sought to publicize the inherent problems of the existing social service system (Jaffe, 1969), in particular its limited and very selective scope, while others played a more direct role in policy change. Thus, community workers were instrumental in organizing the struggle by slum residents for redistribution of the wealth and an increase in social spending (Lappin, 1980). In November 1971, social workers in Jerusalem went on strike in the demand that the municipality finance income-maintenance for destitute clients after state funding was exhausted (Bar-Gal, 1972). Finally, social workers played a major role in drawing up the recommendations of the Prime Minister’ s Committee on Children and Youth in Need, which influenced social welfare policy and legislation during the next decade. As a result of these developments, during the 1970s new social welfare programs were introduced and expenditure on welfare grew by 17% per annum during the first half of the decade (Cnaan, 1987). In the personal social service, a major change was the reorganization of the local welfare offices, according to which the income maintenance and material provision functions were separated from the social treatment function (Cnaan et al., 1992). This reform was explicitly intended to follow the lines of the Seebohm reform in Britain. Initially, financial and material assistance was provided by eligibility officers working within the local welfare offices and, after the adoption of the 1980 Income Support Law, this task was transferred entirely from the welfare services to the National Insurance Institute. The reform was intended to free social workers from income maintenance tasks, so as to enable them to engage primarily in the provision of generic social treatment to wider segments of the population. It did indeed enable social workers to concentrate their activities upon social treatment and it led to an increase in the provision of service to additional population groups,


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particularly the elderly, young couples and single-parent families, and not solely to chronically dependent families. However, in contrast to the planners’ intentions, it also led to an increase in the specialization of social work activity within the local departments and not towards a more generic practice. While community work did not grow significantly in the immediate wake of the reform, there was a major effort to reach clients with higher prospects of improvement, and in particular those from the middle-classes, and to offer them specialized types of treatment, such as family therapy, counseling and group work. The `golden age’ of the Israeli welfare state did not last for long. An economic crisis, enhanced by the costs of the 1973 Yom Kippur war and worldwide stagflation, growing unemployment and the influence of conservative political and economic thought upon policy-makers and the general public, undermined support for welfare state growth and readiness to deal with social problems through state activity. As a result, the 1980s were characterized by very severe cuts in welfare expenditure, the introduction of means testing into universal programs (such as child benefits) and stringent eligibility conditions in other programs, and a growing trend by government to encourage private provision of welfare, education and health services. These policies, coupled with extremely high levels of inflation and unemployment, led to a marked growth in poverty levels and in social gaps between the rich and poor. While recent years have certainly not seen a return to the heydays of the 1970s, they have been characterized by greater government readiness to increase welfare spending to the early 1980s levels, to provide for the needs of immigrants and to rectify certain policy decisions taken during the previous decade. However, the government still encourages private provision of social services in various fields, thereby seeking to absolve itself of responsibility for welfare, and has refrained from rescinding many of the more stringent eligibility conditions in various programs. During the last two decades, social work in Israel has been characterized by major growth, professionalization and diversification. In the late 1960s there were just over a thousand social workers in Israel, and nearly all were employed in the local welfare offices. By 1997 the number had grown ten-fold and only one in three was employed in a local social service office (Kurtz, 1968; Spiro et al., 1998). Many social workers are now employed in the health and mental health fields, in rehabilitation and correction, family counseling and community organization. Additional legislation relating to different spheres of social work activity has been adopted, more clearly defining the roles, functions and powers of social workers. The most recent of these has been the Social Work Law, passed in 1996. In addition, a Social Work Council was established in 1989, areas of expertise of social work practice officially recognized, and the code of ethics was revised in 1994. From the mid-1970s onwards, it is possible to discern two dominant trends in the profession. Ever since the separation of the income-maintenance and treatment functions within the local welfare offices, there has been a clear-cut tendency by most members of the profession to stress the `personal’ nature of distress and to seek to attend to individual needs either through various forms of psychotherapy or group therapy. This very prominent trend has led to greater specialization on the part of social workers with regards either to methods or population. In particular, there has been a tendency to try to avoid working with more stigmatic population groups, such as the aged, learning disabled and the poor, and to prefer families, children and couples. In addition, casework is consistently preferred to indirect methods of intervention, and fields of activity, such as marriage counseling and school social work services are regarded as more desirable than providing services to the aged or working in a housing community organization (Aviram & Katan, 1990). Alongside this tendency by social workers within the state system to focus on the individual rather than the environment and to avoid, as much as possible, work with more stigmatic



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social groups, there has also been a major upswing in the number of social workers employed in the market sector. Some are employed in organizations, both for profit and non-profit, which provide social welfare services in various quasi-market arrangements. This process has been accelerated both due to the privatization of the social welfare sector and more government out-sourcing of service provision, and by growing professional legitimacy for social work on a for-profit basis (Wozner, 1988). At the same time, many social workers have established private practices and, like psychologists, are offering treatment of different types outside the welfare state system. In doing so, these professionals are utilizing their specialized skills and offering psychotherapeutic treatment to paying middle-class clients in private clinics, while often continuing to provide similar services to lower-class clients in the less attractive setting of the local welfare offices (Kraus & Stern, 1993). This type of arrangement is popular not only because it provides an additional source of income to social workers but also grants them greater autonomy and self-fulfillment. A less dominant, and even contradictory, trend towards greater involvement in social change also emerged from the period of social work activism in the early 1970s. Evidence of this trend, which focuses upon the `social’ causes of distress, can be found in the more activist and critical role of the Israel Association of Social Workers, from the late 1970s onwards (Kadman, 1988). This change is also reflected in the changes that were instituted in the new code of ethics, adopted in 1994. While in the previous code of ethics there was a very vague and minimal reference to social change, in the revised version of the code of ethics social work’ s commitment to social justice is overt and prominently expressed. An entire chapter of the new code is devoted to the social role of social workers. The chapter emphasizes the task of social workers in overcoming all forms of discrimination and `the need to support policy and legislation that are aimed at improving social services and furthering social justice’ (Israel Association of Social Workers, 1995, p. 8). Concern with social justice and a readiness to work towards it can also be seen in the political involvement of individual social workers, and in the emergence of openly political organizations of social workers, such as Osim Shalom, which seeks Jewish± Palestinian dialogue. Interest in community work has grown and the number of social workers engaged in this type of activity is the highest ever (Itzhaky & York, 1998). More important, during the 1980s a number of advocacy groups have emerged. These groups, often formed or activated by social workers, have sought to uphold the rights of specific social groups and empower them. They have employed a variety of strategies in order to achieve these goals but all fall clearly within the category of policy-practice. The National Council for the Child and a number of groups working for the rights of minorities, either Arabs or immigrants, or for specific populations in need, such as the disabled, the mentally ill and youth in distress, are good examples of this. Financial, logistic and organizational support for many of these organizations have come from Shatil, a non-profit foundation established in Israel by American Jews interested in promoting civil and social rights in Israeli society. Thus, alongside the tendency of the majority of social workers in Israel to prefer to concentrate on the `personal’ aspects of distress and need, it is possible to find, among a minority of members of the profession, recognition of the necessity to emphasize the `social’ . It can be seen then that, in practice, social justice was not a primary goal of social workers in Israel until the late 1960s and that policy-practice was certainly not a part of the repertoire of professional activities of social workers during that period. By contrast, since the mid1970s, two contradicting trends can be discerned in Israeli social work. Alongside a dominant trend towards greater differentiation, professionalization and privatization, a minority of social workers have sought to promote social justice through involvement in the policy process, particularly through the vehicle of advocacy groups.

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The role of policy in social work education in Israel The initial impetus for the establishment of an infrastructure of professional education came from the emergence of social work, during the British Mandate in Palestine. The introduction of social services by the Jewish community created an urgent need for a sufficient number of trained social workers to operate these services. Thus, in 1934 the first school of social work was established under the auspices of the Va’ ad Haleumi. The school’ s curriculum included references to the social aspects of needs and subjects linked to social policy. Part of the program of studies focused upon the organization of social institutions and social welfare law, specific social problems and the functioning of social welfare institutions. In addition, general social science courses, such as sociology and political economy, were taught alongside various psychology courses (Deutsch, 1970). Nevertheless, issues of social justice and policy formulation were clearly not major goals of the studies. As was the case with other social welfare institutions affiliated to the Jewish community, the social work school continued to function after the establishment of the state. However, the program changed significantly in order to accommodate the dramatic developments that Israeli society underwent during those years. These included mass immigration, the social and economic hardships faced by the new arrivals, the marked social and cultural heterogeneity among immigrants, and the traumas that many of the immigrants had undergone prior to their arrival in Israel (Neipris, 1981). The revised curriculum sought to reflect this reality by emphasizing sociological and anthropological courses that examined the cultural and ethnic characteristics of the immigrant population, and psychology courses that focused upon the psychological structure of the individual. A significant source of influence upon the evolution of social work education during the post-state period was the integration into the school of US-educated social workers, who brought with them a marked preference for individual casework. Indeed, by the end of the 1950s, social casework of the type common in the United States was clearly the dominant theoretical approach in social work education in Israel. In 1958, a decade after the establishment of the state of Israel, the first university-based school of social work was established at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The school curriculum was planned from scratch by Eileen Blackey, an American professor of social work who served as the first dean. Blackey introduced a 3-year course of study based upon the then US model of social work education (Blackey, 1986). The study program included both practical and theoretical social work courses as well as various introductory social science courses and others that focused specifically upon Israeli society. As was common in the United States at the time, Blackey adopted a generic approach to social work and sought to provide the students with training not only in casework but in social group work and community organization as well. Moreover, she regarded social planning as an integral part of the professional activity of social workers and social justice as one of the goals of social work. However, the efforts to include community organization within the realm of social work and to include social justice as a goal of social work were stymied by the social workers who provided field training for the students and were committed to casework. In the years that followed, the study program at the Baerwald School of Social Work at the Hebrew University continued to include courses in its undergraduate and graduate curriculum that related to social policy and social justice. Nevertheless, there was a growing emphasis upon casework and the individual sources of distress (Cohen & Guttmann, 1998; Neipris, 1992). This trend was even more marked in the curriculums of the additional three schools of social work that were established at other Israeli universities during the 1960s. Indeed it would appear that ever since the 1970s, the clinical aspects of social work have gained clear dominance in Israeli social work education. This assessment has been confirmed



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in a number of detailed studies of social work education in Israel that have been undertaken in recent years (Savaya, unpublished; Spiro et al., 1992). In order to gain a more detailed picture of the role of social policy in the training of social workers in Israeli today, an empirical analysis of the curriculum of the BSW courses and the field practice placements of students in all five existing university-based schools of social work in Israel has been undertaken.2 As license to engage in social work is granted automatically upon graduation from the BSW program at the schools of social work, the impact of this program upon the professional values and tools of social workers in Israel is obviously very great. Initially, the content of the compulsory courses in the undergraduate program in the five schools of social work were examined and the proportion of compulsory courses devoted to either the theoretical or the practical aspects of social policy was calculated.3 Figure 1 presents these findings. While there is a certain degree of differentiation in the findings for the various schools, the overall trend is quite clear. Social policy plays a minor role in social work education at the schools of social work. On average, less than a tenth of all required courses at the undergraduate level in social work training in Israel deal with social policy. The social policy courses required by the schools typically cover topics such as: `Introduction to Social Welfare’ , `Social Welfare and the Law’ and `Social Security’ . The two outlying cases are those of Haifa and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While in Haifa, students of social work at the undergraduate level are required to participate in only three semester-long courses dealing with social policy; at the Jerusalem school the number of compulsory courses is more than doubleÐ seven in all. Moreover, the Jerusalem school of social work offers undergraduate students a specialization in community organization and administration, which includes additional courses devoted to social policy. Nevertheless, the findings regarding all the schools indicate that the norm in the case of social policy studies is much closer to that of the Haifa school than that in Jerusalem. Thus, most social work students in Israel are required to devote a very minimal part of their attention to issues of social policy during their undergraduate studies. The low profile of courses dealing with social policy within the compulsory component of the BSW program is even more marked when elective courses are taken into account. An analysis of the elective courses offered by the various schools indicates that the selection of courses dealing with either the analysis of social policy and its formulation, the impact of social policy or the nature of social action is very limited. For example, of the 19 electives offered by the school of social work in Haifa to third year students, only one course deals with social policy. At the Tel Aviv school, only two of the 34 elective courses offered to students focused on social policy issues. Similarly, of the 35 elective courses offered to social work students by the Beer Sheva school, only two dealt with social policy. The second stage of the analysis sought to determine the nature of policy studies in the schools of social work in Israel. In particular, the goal was to identify the degree to which either the theoretical or the practical aspects of social policy were dealt with in the study program. In order to do so, an analysis of the specific programs in the courses dealing with social policy was undertaken. The findings indicate that most of the courses dealing with the various aspects of social policy within the undergraduate program are primarily of a theoretical nature. In other words, the courses tend to focus on ideological or analytical aspects of social policy but do not seek to equip students with the tools for implementation of policy-practice in the field. A small number of courses offered at the various schools of social work do deal specifically with practical aspects of social policy and seek to provide social workers with the tools with which to influence social policy and play advocacy roles.

FIG . 1. Proportion of compulsory courses on social policy in BSW programs at Israeli schools of social work, 1997± 98 (%).


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However, these courses are typically electives and, as such, students are not required to take part in them. One can also learn about the role of policy-practice in the social work education process from the place that this form of social work intervention has in the field training provided by the schools of social work. This training is an integral and vital part of the education of social workers at the undergraduate level and is an important component in the curriculum of the Israeli schools of social work throughout the entire 3-year study program. In order to assess the role of policy-practice in field training, staff members in the various schools responsible for field training were interviewed and data on the placements reviewed. The examination of the various training placements offered to students by the schools of social work indicates that there is a significant degree of differentiation between the various schools in this regard. While some of the schools, such as that at Tel Aviv University, fail to offer any placements that provide training in policy-practice, there are others that enable students to engage in social actions, advocacy and other forms of social change. Thus, some of the schools, and in particular that in Jerusalem, offer students the possibility to undertake their field training in the political arena (on the staff of the parliamentary Social Welfare and Labour Committee, for example), as part of national or community-based advocacy organizations, and within policy units in local government. Nevertheless, the number of placements of this type is small. Indeed, none of the schools actually require students to undertake part of their field training in organizations that specialize in policy-practice and, as a result, the number of social work students that actually partake in this type of intervention activity as part of their studies is very limited. Thus, most social work students in Israel will graduate without ever having been involved in field training that focuses upon policy-practice. In order to complete the analysis, the graduate program in the schools of social work was also examined. A number of trends emerged. Unlike the undergraduate program, much of the MSW program at all the schools takes the form of specialization by fields or types of practice. There are universities that do not offer any opportunity to specialize in policy formulation, social action or advocacy. Thus, for example, while one of the six different specialization tracks offered by the Tel Aviv school of social work focuses upon supervision and administration of social services, none of the courses offered within this specialization relate specifically to social policy. Other schools offer specialization tracks or fields of study that focus upon the administrative, planning and organizational aspects of social work and social services. Social policy analysis and policy-practice often comprise a part of these studies. The Haifa school offers graduate students six fields of specialization, one of which is `Organization and Administration’ . It includes courses dealing with social policy and the planning of social services. The Jerusalem school has three specialization tracks, one of which is `Policy and Administration of Social Services’ and which even offers students the option of a social policy study track. However, while issues of social policy are covered in courses offered in these specializations, the primary emphasis in them is upon the administrative or community aspects of social service provision and not upon policy formulation and its impact. Moreover, the number of social workers that chose these tracks represents a minority of all students in the graduate programs. This review of the development of social work education in Israel and the empirical analysis of contemporary study programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels at the schools of social work in Israel, indicates that there is a certain degree of divergence between the different schools regarding social policy studies. Yet, on the whole, it is clear that social policy and social justice issues have generally remained on the sidelines in social work education in Israel. Just as policy-practice has played a relatively peripheral role in professional practice, so has theoretical investigation and training towards intervention in social policy formulation

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remained a minor component of social work education. Indeed, it would appear that, while it is possible to identify movement towards a greater emphasis upon policy-practice within the social work profession in Israel over the last two decades, this change has found little corresponding development within social work education. Despite the criticism leveled by some of the leading members of staff of social work schools at the overly clinical emphasis in social work and in social work education in particular (Aviram & Katan, 1989; Doron, 1989; Jaffe, 1969), the readiness shown by some (albeit a minority of) social workers in the field to adopt policy-practice has found little resonance within social work education.


Discussion and conclusion The findings of our analysis clearly indicate that social justice and policy-practice do not play major roles as either the goals or forms of intervention in social work in Israel and that this finding would appear to be even more marked in social work education in this country. A number of explanations for the tendency of social work professionals and educators to prefer to focus upon individual causes of distress, to engage in clinical interventions and to seek employment within the market sector, can be identified. As is amply obvious in the above discussion of the development of social work and social work education in Israel, a major influence upon these processes has been that of the American social work model. While the nature of social services in Israel reflects the unique characteristics of Israeli society and the legacy of the influence of the British welfare state model, the impact of developments in social work in the United States is very evident in the evolution of the profession in Israel (Aviram & Katan, 1989; Blackey, 1986; Doron, 1989; Neipris, 1986; Prager, 1987; Jaffe, 1969; Spiro et al., 1998). From the very first days of social work in pre-state Palestine, American social workers have played a major role in the development of social work and social work education in Israel. The founder of the first national department of social services in the Jewish community in Palestine was an American social worker and the dean of the first university-based school of social work was an American professor of social work. Many of the non-governmental organizations that played a role in the establishment of social services after the establishment of the state originated in the United States. Moreover, many members of the staffs of the schools of social work in Israel were, and still are, graduates of American schools of social work. While this was even more evident in the past, due to the fact that Israeli schools did not include doctoral programs, it is still very apparent today as well. It is hardly surprising then that Israeli social work has been so clearly influenced by developments in social work in the United States. While this influence also includes the more policy-oriented direction taken by parts of American social work in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it consists primarily of the clinical emphasis of the profession in the United States with its focus upon the individual, and the preference by social work professionals to seek employment within the market, rather than the state sector. The individualistic influence of American social work upon the Israeli profession has been strengthened in the last two decades by the direction that the Israeli welfare state has taken. The 1980s and, to a certain extent, the 1990s have been characterized by a significant trend towards privatizatio n and commodification. After a brief period during the 1970s, when there was significant growth in the welfare state and clear-cut movement towards greater universalization and social responsibility, the tide turned dramatically in the 1980s. Government liberalization of the economy and privatization of various industries and services has gone hand in hand with cuts in social expenditure, the introduction of greater selectivity in social security programs and a marked process of privatizatio n in social services. These developments did not only reflect a severe economic crisis but also a changed public attitude towards



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social justice. The adoption of Thatcherist social and economic policies by the government appears to have reflected a growing willingness by the Israeli public to place responsibility for welfare upon the individual and to regard the market as the primary arena in which personal needs should be met. The burgeoning middle classes in Israeli society sought individual solutions to their needs and often preferred market-based services, which were better and more select than those offered by the state. Members of these classes have succeeded in gaining cuts in direct taxes and a diminishing role for government in many domains, such as pensions, education and health, that were previously dominated by the state and quasigovernmental institutions. While the 1990s have seen a trend towards growing social expenditure and enhanced social protection for some groups in society, deregulation and privatization continue to dominate economic and social thinking. Not surprisingly, these trends have spilled over into the personal social services and social work. The emphasis upon individual responsibility for personal welfare has provided enhanced legitimization for the type of casework interventions that are based upon psychotherapeutic approaches to needs. Privatization of services and cuts in social expenditure have led to the proliferation of market-based social services, many of which are operated by social workers. These services replace or augment state services that are increasingly utilized by the poor only. Social legitimization of psychotherapy has led to a growing readiness on the part of the middle classes to utilize services offered by social workers operating private practices. While the growing professionalization and individualization of social work has been accompanied by an undercurrent that seeks to emphasize social justice and policy-practice, this trend is clearly a minority trend. The determination by many Israeli social workers to adopt pyschotherapeutic approaches to treatment also reflects the problematic professional status of social work in Israel (Kraus, 1981; Kraus & Hartman, 1994). The professional status of social work has apparently improved in recent years due to the legislation of the Social Work Law, the monopoly that the profession enjoys by law in various fields of welfare activity and significant wage increases that have been achieved. Nevertheless, it would appear that many social workers embrace theoretical perspectives that focus upon the individual and employ psychotherapeutic methods of intervention as part of their attempts to enhance their professional standing and gain equal footing with other helping professions, most notably psychology. The marked trend towards clinical social work and the emphasis upon the personal, rather than the social, in social work education reflect these influences. Studies undertaken in Israel in recent years have found that, at the onset of their academic studies, students of social work have a clear preference for clinical interventions and for private practice (Spiro et al., 1992; Neipris, 1992). Thus, above and beyond the personal professional preferences of the staff of the schools of social work, the very limited offering of courses dealing with social policy and field placements that employ policy-practice can be seen as a response by the schools to the interests of the students and the demands of the job market. As a result of these forces, the goal of social justice and the use of policy-practice have remained on the sidelines of social work and social work education in Israel. Social justice is adhered to as a formal goal of social work practice but it has taken second place to the treatment of individual needs. Social policy is taught in all the social work schools; however, it remains a peripheral issue in most of them. Policy-practice is employed by some social workers in Israel yet they remain a minority in the profession. Training in policy-practice exists in some schools of social work but it is neither compulsory nor popular. Given the continued dominating influence of American social work and the continuing trend towards economic liberalizatio n and privatization in Israeli society and the Israeli welfare state, it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that this situation is unlikely to change in the near future.

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Notes


1

See, for example, a letter written by five lecturers at the Hebrew University School of Social Work and published in the Haaretz newspaper on 22 April 1965, in which they criticized the Minister of Welfare’ s policy on income maintenance. 2 According to data published by Cohen and Guttmann (1998, p. 311), in 1997 there were 3552 social work students in Israel. Of these, 2410 were undergraduate students and 1056 graduate students. The students studied at the five university-based schools of social work. Three-quarters of the students were female and the vast majority of the undergraduate students were in their early twenties. Among the graduate students were many mature students who were experienced social workers. The percentage of Arab students among the student population was approximately the same as their proportion in the general population of Israel. The BSW program comprises of a 3-year program at all the universities. The analysis here is based upon a study of the curriculums published by the schools and by additional data generously provided to the authors by the schools themselves. 3 A number of the schools of social work in Israel also offer students the opportunity to specialize in community work or to participate in special streams of study that focus upon the organizational and community aspects of social work activity. In addition, all the schools offer both compulsory and elective courses of community work to undergraduate students. However, these courses have not been included in the analysis because they do not necessarily deal with aspects of social justice or social policy.

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