Abstract
This article explores the gendered nature of social work and some of the consequences this has in academia, research, and professional practice in Spain. The authors examine the connections between social work and gender studies in academia in Spain, reflecting on the position these disciplines occupy in the current hierarchy of knowledge and the knowledge production system. The impact of the university reforms under the European Union’s (EU) Bologna plan is analyzed in the context of the commercialization of knowledge. The obstacles that prevent the value of these disciplines from being recognized are discussed, linking the academic dimension to the professional dimension and also illustrating how today’s situations of social exclusion require further research and specialized training in social work and gender.
This article examines the status of social work in academia, particularly in relation to the production of knowledge. We argue that the position of social work and also the academic and professional recognition granted to it are directly related to the type of research conducted in this discipline and to the transmission of research results. We believe that the current position of social work is closely connected to the history of social work and its feminization; women’s entry into the public arena was associated with the different forms of social care and assistance, activities that did not garner recognition and prestige, then or now.
We find social work’s relationship with gender studies especially interesting because, although they are both fertile areas with great potential for the production of theoretical knowledge and knowledge applied to social action, these disciplines continue to be relegated to a secondary position. This circumstance is accentuated by today’s context of the privatization of knowledge (García, 2010, p. 19). The neoliberal philosophy that organizes markets has also permeated the academic world; the concept of “profitability” in research means that preference is given to the topics that are “productive.” These do not include poverty, social inequalities, the new social questions, or gender issues, matters which are, among others, the essence of social work. For all of these reasons, this article aims to analyze the obstacles that hinder the academic recognition of social work in its interrelations with gender studies and feminism.
In social work, emphasis is placed on social inequalities, to studying them (in the case of the discipline) and to intervening in them (in the case of the profession), with the aim of bringing about social transformation. According to the global definition of social work approved by the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) in Melbourne on July 2014: Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work. Underpinned by theories of social work, social sciences, humanities and indigenous knowledge, social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing. (IFSW General Meeting and the IASSW General Assembly, 2014)
This article focuses on Spain where it is important to consider the current university education reforms that began with what is known as the “Bologna process” and the convergence of university programs within the European Higher Education Area. However, the ideas put forward in this article can also be applied to other European countries where training in social work has undergone a similar process, first, in the way social work studies were incorporated into the university and, second, in the way certain common aspects of the Bologna reform process have affected social work studies (Campanini, 2008). The fact that social work is now studied at universities and that doctoral programs can be accessed directly after completing an undergraduate degree (or first cycle degree as it is called in Bologna parlance) in social work has increased the legitimacy of the field inside and outside the academy. This is the case in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, and Estonia as well. The harmonization of educational content has been reinforced by the exchange programs Erasmus, Socrates, and Leonardo (for students and professors). The IASSW and the European Association of Schools of Social Work have facilitated feedback processes and adjustments within and between countries, to make social work training better adapted to the needs of a global society. Analyzing the Spanish context from a comparative international perspective reveals that the transformation/consolidation of social work was the result of the exchange of ideas and practices among professionals and academics (Pastor & Martínez, 2014). 2
The configuration of the new university degrees in Europe has been greatly influenced by “Bologna plan,” as the plan has affected the teaching–learning model and also the characteristic of undergraduate degrees because one of the reform’s intention is to connect academic formation to the demands of the market. In the new first cycle degrees, the training of future social work professionals includes few competencies in the area of gender. The study program seems to have sidestepped a thorough gender-based analysis of social inequalities, which are certainly important enough to warrant solid training in gender so as to enable more qualified professional intervention. For this reason, in an effort to understand the complexity of the interrelations among the social, professional, and academic dimensions, the last part of this article shows how, since this country’s economic crisis began, there are fields in urgent need of social intervention; situations of poverty and exclusion that affect women particularly and that need a greater investment in social work research, the results of which provide keys for professional practice.
This situation has been very much affected by the “second-class” rank assigned to social work scholars because the knowledge they produce is undervalued within the social sciences, precisely due to their topics of research. Social work knowledge and skills are not considered “profitable” fields of knowledge, either economically or scientifically. Additionally, the effect they have in the scientific field and in the market of knowledge is “minor” because they are not disseminated in “high-impact” journals. This situation is exacerbated by the position of inferiority of women in the academic sphere, who occupy fewer of the most consolidated and high-ranking teaching positions within the university hierarchy. For example, in the case of Spain, the most recent report on university professors by the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA) 3 underlines the unequal incorporation of women to university teaching staff, where there are more men in tenured positions and, within this group, in the top-ranking position of catedrático (approximately the equivalent of full professor), only 1 of the 10 is a woman (2015, p. 20). This report also stresses that, between 2008 and 2014, in applied social sciences, which are disciplines with a greater female presence, only 22% of the catedráticos are women. In European universities as a whole, 82% of full professors are men; only 13% of institutions of higher education are headed by women and just 9% of universities are led by a woman (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2011, pp. 2–3).
In this regard, insight into the Spanish case can be gleaned from the following quote, an example of how the economic crisis has particularly effected European countries on the periphery (such as Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Greece) and has had significant implications for social work, at both the professional level, in social services (budget cuts, privatization, and services provided by the voluntary sector) and the academic level: “The harmonizing reform facilitated an ideological shift concerning the purpose of science, seen increasingly as serving the needs of industry and capital and favoring ‘skills acquisition’ over the potentially more transformative power of critical thinking” (Lawrence & Lyons, 2013, p. 380).
We are aware of the extremely complex interrelations linking the current social situation, social policy, and research and academic training in social work and gender studies. To provide specific evidence of such connections would require a very extensive study that is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article. However, this project should be undertaken elsewhere because understanding the influence these areas have on each other would be very valuable.
Inextricable Links: Why Any Discussion of Social Work Has Gender Implications?
Any discussion of social work inevitably involves a reference to women because of the role they have played and continue to play as the driving force behind a clearly feminized profession and discipline (both inside and outside the university), where the majority of professionals, users, teachers, and students are women (around 85%). Talking about social work means talking about social inequality and the role assigned to women in different areas of society. It also means talking about women as the primary users of social work services. Since examining inequalities is a core part of the professions and its values, including gender in that discussion is both natural and appropriate.
If we trace the history of social work as a profession and academic discipline, we discover that gender has always played a central role, both in terms of (a) what has been gained (consolidation of its analytical theories, its questioning of how social problems are traditionally understood, its interdisciplinary approach to social action) and in terms of (b) what has been “lost,” that is, the obstacles that have prevented it from improving its status within social science, because of its low prestige and limited recognition, which derive from the fact that (i) most social workers and social work researchers were/are women, (ii) in the subjects studied by the discipline gender has been a central issue, (iii) it is undervalued and viewed as a “field for women” (Agrela Romero, 2012). The association between social work and gender studies has had both favorable and unfavorable consequences. While internally it has empowered and consolidated the disciplines in their production of knowledge and their academic and professional performance, externally, from other disciplines, the two fields have been questioned and even discredited for being “applied knowledge” (like social work) instead of “scientific knowledge” (e.g., sociology; Trattner, 1994), for being “economically unproductive,” and for being “done by women” (Miranda, 2004). These conceptualizations can still be seen today; the legacy of how the gender question was a central aspect of the intervention activity and in the discipline of social work being viewed as women’s field (Trattner, 1994).
The interconnections between gender issues, women, and the field of social work are numerous. To comprehend the maze of connections, it is necessary to go back in history and look at the role-played by the figures that turned “helping” into a profession. The fact that these individuals were women has been decisive in shaping the character of the field. Women are also of central importance in the profession’s present and will be perhaps even more important in its future. Indeed, this profession has a long, deep-rooted historical tradition and important projection into the future (Agrela Romero, 2012). Due to the historical context in which social work emerges, the aforementioned prevalence of women is indicative of how the profession tends to be associated with social care and the biologization and genderization thereof, which undoubtedly has implications in the areas of research, status within the university hierarchy, and the perceived value of the scientific literature it produces. The experience and the lessons learned by the first women in social work made important contributions to the profession and the academic discipline (Deegan, 1986; García Dauder, 2011; Munuera Gómez, 2011; or Miranda, 2004, among others). In the preprofessional stage, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, these early social workers did their work on a voluntary basis and often found it difficult to maintain a position of authority in the services they offered to those in need. In the Charity Organization Societies of both Great Britain and the United States, men occupied the executive positions (with more power and decision-making capacity and higher remuneration), while women performed the tasks of social intervention, acting as the friendly visitors of the poor (positions considered to be less valuable; Miranda, 2004). For many of these women, their activity barely provided them with a means of subsistence and very rarely did it represent an opportunity for a public role outside the home (Morales Villena & Vieitez Cerdeño, 2015).
One element of the relationship between feminism(s) and social work (Collins, 1986) and given that social work is largely performed by and for women (White, 2006) is the debate about whether social work is inherently feminist. It being a gendered profession does not necessarily mean there is a strong bond between feminisms and social work; 4 in fact, this has been (and continues to be) one of the central issues in the dialectics of curricular design and also in professional practice. Such a position is often much more related to personal ideological views and self-understandings of what social justice is and how it is linked to gender. There is certainly no consensus in this regard, although from an ethical point of view and based on the principles of social work, we do find a strong commitment to equality, a principle set out in national and international social policy and laws, such as the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which put the question of women on the agenda of governments across the world as a high priority for the 21st century. The platform committed states to taking strategic measures such as “the education and training of women,” “the participation of women in power and decision-making,” and “institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women.” These decisions tightened the bonds between the disciplines of social work and gender studies. Feminist social workers must bring our influence to bear on all aspects of life in which gender identity is constructed, the home, the market, social policies, the media, or the state. Applying feminist principals in social work requires taking into account that women’s rights are in fact human rights and working to enact reforms in management and educational (White, 2006). We must also act within the academic world because to a large extent, the training of future professionals, the type of work they do, and the status of social work today and in the future depend upon it.
In one way or another, both social work and gender studies are committed to changing the situation of women’s inequality and, like feminism, they have similar objectives of social change and transformation, guided by ethical values related to human rights and equality, and they use similar social intervention approaches and methodologies that enhance the democratization and participation of the subjects. The two disciplines are also based on theoretical approaches that question situations of inequality.
Activism and commitment to social work and gender equality must be demonstrated in both the public and private sectors and above all in the academic domain. The inclusion of gender as a category for analysis in the social sciences in general and in academic social work in particular is one of the great achievements secured by the protest movements of the 1970s during the second wave of feminism, in that many women teachers were trained in women’s studies and joined feminist movements. However, the links between social work and gender equality that are clearly visible in professional activity in the field have been slow in appearing in university syllabi. This is particularly true in countries like Spain in which social work was previously studied in a shorter 3-year course with no direct access to a doctorate (full degree courses in other fields lasted 4 or 5 years) and gender studies was not recognized as a field of study. The presence of these disciplines (especially when they are interlinked) in specific first cycle degrees, master’s degrees, or PhD programs is recent and still relatively rare. As a result, their influence in the classroom—via the teaching syllabus—is very limited because, in the new first cycle degrees (in effect since 2007), while 29 of the 34 universities that offer social work programs have acknowledged the importance of gender issues, they require only one course on “women” or gender.
In consequence, it would be interesting to explore how much of the knowledge emerging from the research conducted in social work and gender is passed on to students and also what factors may be limiting it. Given that undergraduate studies in Spain offer few classes in which to closely examine social work from the gender perspective, we wonder if the transfer of research findings to teach is equally scant. It seems a gap has formed between the theoretical knowledge acquired in social work research and the practical skills taught to students in university classrooms to prepare them for professional practice later on. However, considerable interest is shown by other disciplines which make use of social work research and recognize the value of the empirical data generated by social workers. This tends to occur in disciplines such as anthropology and sociology, either because social work students choose to do doctoral programs in these areas (because there are so few in social work itself) or because the researchers in these areas often turn to the social services and social workers to gather data in studies about praxis and social problems. This situation is improving in countries like Spain, in which the research produced within the field of social work is increasingly respected, even though its institutional and financial recognition is encountering numerous obstacles as a result of the current restructuring of the university system.
The Current Academic Panorama in Spain in the Context of the Bologna Process
To explain the position of social work in Spanish academia today, some basic references must be made to how the Bologna Declaration (1999) and the creation of the European Higher Education Area are affecting the way social work training is conceived and managed. Especially worthwhile is reviewing the basic principles on which this academic field is shaped and the value assigned to this discipline as a producer of knowledge.
The Bologna process began with an agreement between the ministers of education of the EU (and a few other countries like Russia and Turkey) to work toward the convergence of educational systems, so as to facilitate the exchange of university students and the mutual recognition of academic qualifications among EU countries. To this end, the university syllabi have been adapted, with two essential goals in mind (1) to adapt university education to the demands of society and the market and (2) to establish a learning/teaching system based on student autonomy and on European Credit Transfer System credits. 5 This has brought considerable changes to the role of members of the academia who are no longer teachers of master’s classes but rather scholars who guide students through contents that they are expected to acquire by themselves.
This was the beginning of a tumultuous process involving the creation of the European Higher Education Area, which has led to a complex set of reforms that have affected the whole educational structure, bringing about the most far-reaching changes to have occurred in years. Among other reasons, this is because a large number of stakeholders, spheres of power, and decision-making levels (academic, market, ideological, pedagogical, etc.) are involved in the framework that determines the position of each discipline now and in the future.
One of the objectives of this new model is to harmonize the different university systems, equate academic qualifications, establish a student-centered learning system, and encourage practical teaching that demonstrates that the contents being taught can be applied. The reform initiated within the Bologna process signals the emergence of the knowledge-based economy; higher education institutions must reassess their current practice in light of the new demands made by the knowledge-based economy and the market. Preparing graduates for the European job market is regarded one of the three most prominent driving forces of the Bologna process (Berlin Communiqué, 2003).
The implementation of these objectives, which in principle are positive steps and are easily assumed within the framework of new forms of accessing knowledge and information (Castells, 1996), has nevertheless encountered numerous objections relating to the philosophy on which they are based and the negative effects of the progressive commercialization of knowledge that lies behind it. It is not merely a question of a neutral change in the names given the subjects, of an increase or reduction in the number of years a particular course of study lasts or changes in the teaching strategies deployed in the classroom; we are talking instead about ways of organizing and valuing the knowledge that underpins a discipline and a profession on the basis of its economic profitability. A particular qualification will be enhanced or degraded (as will the structure of its curriculum contents) in accordance with the demands of the current labor market. For this reason, the job placement rate among university graduates, a growing concern, is being studied in annual reports prepared by governments; in the case of Spain, it is especially noteworthy that in the first year on the job market, the rate of hiring of graduates from private universities is 10 points higher than the rate of hiring of graduates from public universities (52.9% as compared to 42.1%). While the most in demand are degrees in social sciences, social work among them, their job placement rate is below average (ANECA, 2015). This indicator is important because when the time comes to reassess the degrees (first cycle or third cycle), it is a criterion for legitimizing some disciplines and for ensuring (or not) their continuity (thus showing the university–market connection).
There is a real risk that the academic world will succumb to the dictatorship of the market, which will impose on the academia a particular profile of future professionals based on the needs currently in vogue. This also contravenes the basic principle that should apply in all universities, namely, the need to train students in those subjects and skills considered essential for the exercise of their profession, regardless of whether or not these skills or knowledge appear in a specific job description currently demanded. The social value and the social benefits of the profession must be emphasized even if, as in the case of social work, they are intangible in the short term. The market should not play the leading role in shaping university education, but it is unfortunate education in Europe is increasingly oriented toward an exclusively commercial function. For example, the cuts in social benefits 6 have meant a reduction in public and private programs and services designed to attend to situations specifically affecting women, 7 which in turn is causing a drop in the supply of academic training in the area of gender and social work (because the market has less demand for it).
Another seemingly attractive proposal in this process of change is the transfer of knowledge, that is, the capacity of universities to transfer and apply the scientific research they produce to other sectors. This idea, which in principle appears very logical and sensible when applied in practice, refers basically to the performance of a particular type of research and the dissemination of the results or at least of those considered important on the basis of their market value and repercussions. The instruments used to measure and value this economic yield do not take the social dimension into account and thereby marginalize research performed on social exclusion, poverty, and inequality. This has a detrimental effect on subjects already suffering from the general lack of interest in social questions, from both the different levels of government and the market, and are no longer considered a priority in state and economic policies, as evidenced by the slashes in social spending. The most affected is social research, particularly social work, a field which is supposed to intervene in emergency situations and is not expected to theorize about the results of practical experience or the data it produces.
The application of neoliberal economic policies and cuts in social spending has led to lines of research and teaching (e.g., doctorate and postgraduate studies), which until recently were supported by public and private grants (such as those related to migration, dependent people, or women’s studies) being dismantled on the basis that they are unproductive and hence do not justify financial support. Evidence of this is that the European Commission is poised to stop specific research/action support in the area of gender equality (EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020; see https://www.change.org/p/european-commission-keep-funding-research-action-on-gender-equality-in-science-in-horizon-2020?recruiter=608126270&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink). This withdrawal of the funding that makes social work research possible undermines its status even further, in that research projects not sponsored by “prestigious” institutions and backed with financial resources in competitive national and international calls for proposals are not considered valuable because they do not meet “quality” criteria. These market-based principles feed off each other, seemingly placing more importance on the institution backing the research than on what is being studied, to say nothing of how and why it is being studied. In this closed loop, subjects that are not “top priority” and are funded by alternative means face numerous obstacles when trying to have their results published in high-impact journals (those regarded as prestigious by the knowledge market in which the publication criteria value certain aspects more than others). As a result, the academic market ends up “establishing a closed circuit which revolves around itself, in which the scientific and academic reasons put forward by intellectuals are often displaced by bureaucratic or institutional arguments” (Ortiz, 2010, p. 18).
When the type and topics of research, as well as the design and contents of the university degree, have such a deep dependency on what the market and the government dictate, the essence of a profession/discipline is risk of being lost. These processes have a direct impact on curriculum contents especially in social work because the lack of this type of research means that the university is not equipped to educate professionals using the theoretical and practical tools that would enable them to understand social exclusion from a critical perspective, offering them a scientific and humanist education. The danger lies in promoting a university system that provides students solely with the skills required by the market, seeks professional competitiveness according to the needs of employers, and focuses less on the realities of social exclusion.
The Position of Gender Studies and Social Work in the Hierarchy of Academic Disciplines and the Commercialization of Knowledge
The premise of this article is that the conditions in which research is conducted, the perceived value of certain subjects, transfers of knowledge, and the value accorded to the findings, have a direct impact on a discipline such as social work and on its position within the academic and professional ranking system. This section discusses how all of this is influenced by the lower position of professors of social work. Their position is generally inferior because in Spain social work as a discipline is still considered “second class” due to its applied approach and because the research it performs is not considered “scientific.” In consequence, it is less likely to be incorporated into master’s or doctoral degree programs or into competitive research. In parallel, gender studies as a discipline are losing the presence and strength it acquired a few years ago in the academic area (in first cycle degrees and in postgraduate studies) in detriment to the transversality “expected” of all research and academic training, which paradoxically is invisibilizing the critical approach of gender studies. However, the feminist approach underlines that, to attain the effective equality of women, specific processes and expertise are required. When the gender perspective is absorbed within another topic, and it is assumed that everyone understands the dynamics of gender, the objective ends up being sidelined and diluted. For example, in the Spanish context, since the year 2007 8 for a social research project to receive public funding, its justification statement must include a discussion of the gender perspective. However, this perspective is not always present in its results or conclusions, so the final reports do not question how gender inequalities and the unequal position of women are built/reinforced by existing power relations, social, economic, ideological, and political structures, among others, in an effort to improve/change their position in society (Dominelli, 2002).
We fully agree with Armstrong and Huber (2014) that women’s and gender studies programs are marginalized within academia. A clear example is found in Spain, where the secondary position of these programs can be explained by various factors besides the history of the disciplines and their subject matter. Their situation of subalternity responds to a complex process, not a single reason, but in this article, two central questions will be mentioned. Their questions feed off one another and condition the place these disciplines are allowed to occupy in academia, and they are affected by the Bologna process and the privatization of knowledge. First of all, there is the matter of how the economic crisis has affected research, which depends largely on public funds, and secondly, there is the question of how the system devised for “external recognition of quality” of what is studied/published prevents a better positioning in the academic hierarchy (the “sexennial” system described below). a. Research in women’s studies and social work in this country depends primarily on public Research + Development + Innovation (R + D + I) funding obtained through research calls made by the EU, Spain’s national government or one of the regional governments, which are awarded on a competitive basis, and also through agreements with the one of the government administrations. However, according to the most recent report on research and knowledge transfer in Spanish universities (Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities, 2014), the funds earmarked for research have fallen by more than half (51%) since the downward trend began in 2010. Private companies are funding research that focuses mainly on technology, where results are more “transferable” and “profitable” in terms of the market and patents.
Another factor complicating the situation is the oscillations in the themes specified in each research call, which either strengthen or invisibilize certain subjects. As an example, there is the subject of immigration, which has long been a topic of great interest in Europe and in places such as Andalusia, where the regional government funded many public and private social action projects and a great deal of university research. In 2012, the line of funding for such projects was cancelled. Another example is how, with the enactment of Spanish Law 39/2006 on the promotion of personal autonomy and care for dependent persons, the sphere of dependency and functional diversity became a high priority for funding in the area of social work, for both the hiring of professionals and for research and postgraduate courses. This boom lasted until 2012. A similar process occurred in the field of gender violence, following the 2004 enactment of Spanish Law 1/2004 on comprehensive protection measures against gender violence. It is easy to see that social policy priorities condition both the creation of jobs and the type and quality of research/training taking place in the fields of social work and gender studies. With the economic downturn, budget cuts have also affected the academic sphere and the analysis of research in these areas of knowledge cannot be decontextualized from the professional and training demands in these subjects. The private sector does not encourage research in non-“productive” social issues either, even though in the most recent public calls for proposals, the technical and financial collaboration of a nongovernmental body is required.
b. For the last two decades, social work in Spain has been considered an emerging area of knowledge, which has consolidated and improved its position in the academic world. The theoretical research being conducted and the increasing number of PhD theses and articles being published support this assertion. However, when it comes to including social work as an area of knowledge in master’s degrees and doctoral programs, numerous obstacles appear due to the lack of “official recognition” of the quality of the research and the manner in which results are disseminated. This paradoxical situation mirrors the fact that the Bologna philosophy promotes research based on practice and knowledge transfer but at the same time does not sufficiently value disciplines nourished by experience “in the field.” Almost the only way for Spanish academics to rise through the hierarchy is the “sexennial” system. Sexennials were initially conceived to be economic complements for researchers, but they are now considered merits and they give rise to academic, research, and teaching privileges. Sexennials are awarded to professors on the basis of their publications in high-impact journals over the previous 6 years, as judged by a national evaluation committee.
This begs the question of what it actually means to conduct research under the current market-based logic. Many social work researchers have to do their research without funding. They do so because, in addition to the aforementioned scarcity of public and private funding, the subject matter is highly localized, the data are gathered as the person is working in the field as a professional or there is no access to the limited resources available. Besides the obvious difficulties inherent in such a situation, research without funding is doubly penalized in that it is not regarded as competitive, quality research. It is classified as “another type of secondary research.” 9 A similar question must be posed about publishing. From the current perspective, anything published outside the established circuits of quality is not viewed as research or transfer of knowledge. The alleged quality of the journals often depends to a large extent on who has funded the research and on the subsequent market of journals that approve the results and publish them. Any research studies that are not officially backed by public or private institutions are excluded from these processes. This creates a closed circle that is difficult to break into, particularly in an area of knowledge like social work, with studies of inequality, poverty, and gender. Sometimes research subjects are accused of being overly specific and focused on microaspects of social intervention which cannot be generalized or exported to other, international contexts. Also, with regard to these subjects in Spain, there are fewer and fewer high-impact journals 10 in which to publish, because they do not receive the subsidies they need to be maintained. In addition, many social work journals are marginalized despite the fact that they have a large number of professional social workers among their readers (even being outside the market economy of publications). These are journals with “other” readers: professionals working in the field who seem to have “less value.” But in our opinion, articles are good or bad depending on how the topic has been addressed and the scientific process involved, regardless of where they are published and how many times they have been cited according the “established citation system.”
In consequence, research that is (well) funded leads to the generation of knowledge and reinforces the possibilities of producing results that in turn heighten the chances of being published in high-impact journals, which are the indicators for recognizing research achievements and being awarded sexennials. And these complements are what “measure” the quality of professors, enabling them to access higher and more stable positions in the university hierarchy. 11 Since 2012, the complements are what “legitimize” the topics investigated, the power of the areas of knowledge and their presence (or lack thereof) in postgraduate and doctoral courses. Professors cannot be the directors of doctoral theses if they have not been awarded sexennials. So what is supposed to be an “individual” merit ends up regulating how and what is researched and a vicious circle is formed. The more sexennials a professor has, the less teaching hours he or she is assigned. Those who do “no research” (according to this logic) are “penalized” by being given additional teaching hours and limiting their teaching activity to only first cycle degrees. The system thus creates a “new academic hierarchy on the basis of what, in the words of Pierre Bourdieu, could be called Sexennial Capital, i.e. the number of sexenios they have been awarded” (Rodríguez & Xambo, 2013, p. 1).
This “meritocratic discredit” in the area of research directly affects the position of professors in the academic hierarchy and the type of teaching they are allowed to do because of how closely linked these two facets are. University policy and the map of degrees are increasingly oriented around employability, and the field of social work, which is heavily affected by the reduced employment opportunities caused by the economic situation, is even further undervalued.
Urgent Fields of Action for Social Work in Spain Today
The place occupied by gender studies in academia also has an impact on the professional sphere, because the training received by future social workers in the area of gender and feminism provides more or less knowledge and skills for their professional practice later. But more specialized training in social work and gender in third cycle degrees cannot be achieved if at the same time the field does not receive the recognition and academic and research support it is due, in order to perform necessary research on situations of inequality (including gender inequality) in today’s world, as shown below. The social question in Spain today is challenging social policy and also social work, evidencing yet again the research-teaching-intervention connection. In real-life terms, the cutbacks in social services between 2011 and 2014, which amount to €5 billion, have affected women especially (Lima, 2014). For these reasons, this section focuses on some areas in need of close analysis from the gender perspective.
The economic crisis has been used as an excuse for the dismemberment of the welfare state, opening numerous battlefronts both in social work research and in teaching. This is especially true for studies of gender inequality, which are considered “inessential” given the allegedly more scientific nature and commercial value of other subjects. However, statistics on the effects of social spending cutbacks and also observations made by professional associations of social workers indicate that a far-reaching analysis of the increase in poverty has become vital and that it is the only way to tackle the problems of inequality and social exclusion. Only with such an analysis will it be possible to design the strategies, methods, and practical policies of the social intervention required.
According to the latest survey on living conditions in Spain drawn up by the Spanish National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística [INE], 2015), up to 29% of the population is at risk of poverty and exclusion due to reduced household income and the drastic cutbacks in social welfare coverage by the different government administrations. The number of people at risk of poverty or exclusion is the main indicator used by Eurostat (European Statistics Office) to measure the presence of disadvantaged people in society. Another frequently used indicator is unemployment and it so happens that the five regions in Europe with the highest unemployment rates are Spanish (Andalusia, Canary Islands, Ceuta, Extremadura, and Castilla-La Mancha; Eurostat, 2015). In addition, according to Eurostat, in 2013, among the regions with a per capita gross domestic product below the European average, three of the poorest are Spanish (Extremadura, Andalusia, and Melilla). These figures point to an evident worsening of the current social situation both in terms of income levels and in living conditions in general and in the ways of coping with situations of need for which only very limited (treatment not cure) responses are available.
The Fourth Report on the State of Poverty in Spain (2015), produced by the Spanish office of the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN), illustrates how poverty rates have increased significantly in this country. Severe material deprivation has increased by 38% (from 4.5% to 6.2%), which means that many more people face serious difficulties in being able to eat properly. The lack of income in households, due to either unemployment (the unemployment rate is currently at 23.78% according to the Spanish INE [2015]) or cuts in social benefits, has resulted in many people falling behind on mortgage or rent payments for their housing. An increasing number of other families cannot afford to keep their home at a suitable temperature and suffer what is known as “energy poverty.” Data from Eurostat (2015) and the INE on living conditions indicate that 1 in 10 households, around 4 million Spaniards, must prioritize (i.e., switch off their heating) in order to satisfy their most basic needs and have no spare funds with which to cover unexpected expenses. It is hardly surprising then that default on mortgage and rent payments and evictions ordered by banks increased in 2014 by 7.4%, affecting 34,600 primary residences in that year alone (INE, 2015).
Living in these conditions has a direct impact on other aspects such as health, both physical and mental, an especially severe problem for elderly people with chronic illnesses and for children. The results are being noted in children’s performance at school and their emotional resilience. The alarm has been raised in particular about poverty in under 16s, which is now running at 26.7%, six percentage points higher than in the population as a whole (EAPN, 2015). Youth malnutrition is another clear symptom of the economic crisis in which the only daily meal for many children is school lunch (this has led many Spanish Parents Associations or nongovernmental organizations [NGOs] such as Save the Children to urge the government to keep school canteens open in the summer months). Access to canteens has been reduced by cuts in grants which in some regions have been as high as 50% and a tightening of access criteria (affecting foreign children in particular).
Although universal education in Spain is guaranteed, there are other indicators of the risk of social exclusion such as the school failure or dropout rate, problems that occur to a large extent as a result of vulnerability processes in families, and low public investment in programs that seek to address these situations. Here are just a few figures denounced by Save the Children: One of the three (35%) 15-year-old students have had to repeat a school year because of poor academic performance and the school failure and dropout rate is 23.5%, twice the European average (and a long way from the objectives set out in the Europe 2020 Strategy; Sastre, 2015).
Elderly people are another population group with whom social workers have regular contact and who are finding themselves in situations of risk or marginalization due to cuts in social spending. The Spanish population continues to age, leading to an increase in the health and social needs typically required by people of that age, which are no longer covered by the resources and social services needed to address them. Average pensions are around €800 and for about 300,000 families they are the household’s only income (Laparra & Pérez, 2012). Given the lack of social protection mechanisms, the family is often the only protective cushion and guarantee of survival and thus represents a differential factor when coping with these problems. As these authors indicate, only 6.4% of households affected by unemployment are made up of one person living by himself or herself; the economic crisis has forced families to reunite under the same roof, with 7.6% of households having all of their members unemployed. This demonstrates the limitations of a family-based care system supported in many cases by elderly people in whose homes three or four generations have congregated. Such a family-based system is clearly incapable of halting the increase in social inequality, poverty, and exclusion. The situation has alarming effects on dependent people, such as elderly persons with chronic illnesses, on individuals who have no income and no family support network and on families already in a situation of poverty or who live in rural areas with fewer social resources.
In all these situations of vulnerability (caused by unemployment, the lack of public support mechanisms, illness, or defaults on mortgage or rental payments), the foreign immigrant population suffers much higher poverty rates, which are exacerbated by the greater difficulties they experience in entering the job market, their limited qualifications (or foreign qualifications that have not been recognized), the absence of a family cushion to fall back on when faced with obstacles in accessing, social services provided by the public sector and/or NGOs, or the outright elimination of such services. Survival strategies against these desperate situations include selective family return (some members of the family return home), the prolongation of situations in which families are forced to lead a transnational life with members of the same family living in different countries, the maintenance of emigrants in their destination countries via money sent from their countries of origin, migration to other countries, or whole families living in single rooms in shared accommodation (Pedone, Agrela, & Gil, 2012).
Finally, to offer a brief sketch of the most urgent areas in which social workers are active in Spain today, in each of the poverty situations referred to above the rate of inequality and social risk rises dramatically when analyzed in relation to gender. These exclusion processes are even more serious in the case of women who have higher percentages of structural unemployment, dependence, family obligations, lack of income, or limited access to social welfare systems. Spain’s high rates of gender violence require special mention. According to figures from the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality (2015), between 2007 and 2014, there were a total of 1,052,177 reports of gender violence and 774 deaths (between January 2003 and March 2015). Clearly, this area of social intervention (both direct and indirect) requires greater investment in research, and obviously, it must be a type of research that does not reduce women, and human beings in general, to a purely economic dimension, abandoning them in favor of more profitable topics.
Conclusions: The Strengths of Social Work in Its Alliance With Gender Studies
The social problems experienced by the Spanish population as a result of the current economic crisis have highlighted the need for research on the impact that social inequalities are having on people’s daily lives and on social work’s responses to them. In its alliance with gender studies, social work as an academic discipline and as a profession practiced in the context of the welfare state is a field especially well indicated for analyzing how knowledge is produced, how to intervene in cases of social inequality (especially those affecting women), how the academic-market-society cycle is perpetuated, and how certain disciplines and topics are valued for study and intervention, in contrast with others that seem to be considered less worthy of attention. As pointed out above, certain fields of action are in need of a closer analytical review and a better management framework, one based on feminism and the gender perspective, so as to make the diagnoses, indicators, and actions aimed at achieving women’s equality more effective. The dialectic between research activity and professional practice is fundamental. Social work education often fails to incorporate gender as an analytical category, even though most of the people who use social work services are women, the majority of social workers are women, and women have had throughout history a significant role in the establishment of social work as a profession. Thus, social work education cannot neglect the issue of gender. Nevertheless, women are not sufficiently present in the collective memory of the profession. A superficial yet general conclusion is that they are omitted from history because they did not contribute to it, or at least not sufficiently to be recorded in historical memory (Leskošek, 2009, p. 9).
Until the topic of social equality (particularly gender inequality) is truly perceived as a vital factor in economic and social progress, there is a risk that the programs intended to fight social inequalities will be targeted by regressive economic cutbacks and will be effected by the reduction of the sphere in which professional social work takes place (increasingly performed by people in precarious employment conditions or volunteers). We have seen that under the current hierarchical structure of university education, social work occupies an inferior position which it has inherited from its status as an applied social science due to its historical condition as an applied discipline, more associated with the transmission of technical know-how, instead of research-based knowledge, the results of which are disseminated in “low-impact” journals. Something similar has occurred in the area of professional practice, which is associated with social workers’ administrative and assistance role instead of with the array of complex and highly skilled tasks performed. The lack of research and reduced emphasis on gender studies in academia affects not only professors but also women in the field (practitioners and clients). The fact that social workers and users of social work services are mainly women, that the themes of their work and research are often related to gender, and that social work at the academic level is also clearly feminized and its positions lower ranked are all indicative of social work’s scant recognition. This position of subalternity derives from its condition as an applied social science but also one in which the gender dimension is present, a reflection of the value accorded to both of these questions in today’s societies. This article puts forward a few keys to understanding the current situation, to draw attention to the fact that the academy, professional practice, and the market (in its role in job placement and in the promotion of research) are inextricably linked. To gain a feminist understanding of social work, the real position of women must be reviewed, comprehending their private situations as public issues (Dominelli, 2002). To combat today situation, it would be useful to apply the revindication and collective action inherent in feminism to social work; another suggestion would be the creation of interprofessional networks and work methods involving the university and private and public companies, as a means to bring about knowledge transfer. Also important would be a new framework which frees the theory and practice of social work from the constraints imposed by the commercialization of knowledge and which questions the androcentrism that also exists in social work.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
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