Ma(r)king Differences in Dutch Social Work : Professional Discourse and Ways of Relating to Clients in Context

Abstract

This study investigates the ways social workers in the Netherlands deal with a diversity of clients, particularly focussing on allochtonous clients. The study is motivated by the current hegemonic tendency to problematise allochtonous Dutch, often explained along the lines of culture. It was assumed that within such a social atmosphere concerning the multicultural society cultural diversity could be expected to have an impact on both the professional discourse of social workers and their everyday practices with clients. Making use of an ethnographic-oriented and a discourse-analytical approach, the empirical data in this study derive from a fieldwork study in a Dutch social work department and a literature study on the historical context in which social work developed as a discipline. The fieldwork study, including among others 15 interviews with social workers and 26 observations of meetings with (allochtonous and autochthonous) clients, demonstrates that in spite of the professional repertoire of client-centredness, which indicates the importance of linking up with where the client stands, and despite the fact that the policy of the studied social work organisation towards clients is based on an integral approach that does not differentiate between clients and takes each client as an individual, social workers often make use of categories to make sense of their clients. This is true even while the two conditions mentioned above would be assumed to allow room for an individualised approach. In the case of dealing with allochtonous clients, this use of categories appears to be even more explicit. The study found that social workers often are inclined to: first, categorise these clients as being different from autochtonous clients; and second as being difficult, because they are perceived to deviate from the desirable client identity; and third, to explain the deviance in terms of culture. That is, allochtonous clients in this study are often homogeneously characterised as 'others' that appear to deviate from social worker's expectations about clients. The literature study shows the impact of the development of social work as a result of being closely related to the Dutch welfare state. The shifting aim of social work, from moral uplift or 'the fight against the unsocialness' to emancipation nowadays, could indicate that social workers have left behind their explicit way of disciplining those defined as deviating from hegemonic standards. Nevertheless, this study argues that an emphasis on empowerment and the socio-political demands of being fully-fledged members of society may also relate to an ideology of adjustment and that the allochtonous clients are targeted as well. The social workers from the fieldwork study frame their clients very much via the script of a modern, responsible and autonomous individual - which is a current cultural framework in the Netherlands itself. As a social work practice, however, this emphasis on empowerment as the preferred route of change can be interpreted as constraining the space for diversity. Moreover, social workers here do not very often appear to recognise that empowerment is also a hegemonic cultural framework that can be as deterministic as the 'culture' they perceive to be an obstacle in the counselling.