STRAIN THEORY money success’ alongside a ‘weak commitment to
legitimate means’..
 was first developed by Robert Merton in the 1940s to
explain the rising crime rates experienced in the USA at
that time.
 Strain theory has become popular with Contemporary
sociologists.
 people feel strain when they are exposed to cultural
goals that they are unable to obtain because they do
not have access to culturally approved means of
achieving those goals.
Goals: acquisition of material possessions or money
Merton was proposing a typology of deviance based upon two
criteria:
(1) a person’s motivations or her adherence to cultural
goals;
(2) a person’s belief in how to attain his goals.
Five ways people adapt to cultural goal/Responses to strain
1. Conformity: pursing cultural goals through socially approved
means.
2. Innovation: using socially unapproved or unconventional
means to obtain culturally approved goals.
3. Ritualism: abandons society's goals but continues to conform
to approved means
4. Retreatism: to reject both the cultural goals and the means to
obtain it, then find a way to escape it.
5. Rebellion: to reject the cultural goals and means, then work to
replace them.
OPPORTUNITY THEORY: ACCESS TO ILLEGITIMATE OPPORTUNITIES
■ Cloward and Ohlin (1960), have suggested that for
deviance to occur people must have access to
illegitimate opportunity structures – circumstances that
provide an opportunity for people to acquire through
illegitimate activities what they cannot achieve
through legitimate channels.
DEVIANT SUBCULTURES
 Criminal Subculture
Illegal opportunities that fosters the development of
criminal subculture that provide people with knowledge and
skills and resources to succeed in unconventional means
 Conflict Subculture
Where violence is ignited by frustration and desire for
respect (such as armed street gangs)
 Retreatist Subculture
Those who fail to succeed even using criminal means
(deviants drop out and may abuse alcohol or other drugs)
Delinquent subcultures are characterized by: (Walter Miller, 1958)
Trouble
A need for excitement
Toughness
A belief in fate
Smartness
A desire for freedom
Continuing Relevance
■ Baumer and Gustafson (2007) analysed official data sets
in the USA and found that instrumental crime rates were
higher in areas where there was a ‘high commitment to
money success’ alongside a ‘weak commitment to
legitimate means’
■ Baumer and Gustafson (2007) analysed official data sets
in the USA and found that instrumental crime rates were
higher in areas where there was a ‘high commitment to
DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY
Edwin Sutherland
Considered as one of the most influential criminologists
of the 20th century. He was a sociologist of the symbolic
interactionist school of thought and is best known for defining
white-collar crime and differential association—a general theory
of crime and delinquency.
He coined the term differential association to indicate
this: from the different groups we associate with, we learn to
deviate from or conform to society’s norms. (Sutherland, 1924,
1927)
Differential Association Theory
 states that individuals have greater tendency to deviate
from societal norms when they frequently associate with
persons who are more favorable toward deviance than
conformity.
Principles of Differential Association Theory
1. Criminal behavior is learned
Meaning it is not ascribed or innate by the time you are
born (habitual, professional, organized and white-collar)
2. Criminal behavior is learned through interactions with others via
a process of communication.
Criminal behavior is acquired, gained becoz we hear it,
see it observe it and understand with our interaction with others.
Becoz of our personal participation in groups
3. Most learning about criminal behavior happens in intimate
personal groups and relationships.
We learn it primarily from our family, those in close ties.
Ex. Parents are drug pushers
4. The process of learning criminal behavior may include learning
about techniques to carry out the behavior as well as the motives
and rationalizations that would justify criminal activity and the
attitudes necessary to orient an individual towards such activity.
We also acquire the techniques how (carry out) to
actually commit a crime, motives is our reason of doing it
(tokhang, hin papatay na la kay pasarawayon ha society),
attitudes
We also learn to rationalize is to find a way to explain
that what you do (deviant behavior) is okay la adton para
maibanan it pasarawayon. U make it seem like it just okay.
Example. To rob the house of a politician.
5. The direction of motives and drives towards criminal behavior is
learned through the interpretation of legal codes in one’s
geographical area as favourable or unfavourable.
Your tendency to commit a criminal behavior could be
based on your interpretations of the laws imposed in your area as
to either it is contrary or favorable to you.
E.g. bureaucratic corruption, embezzlement of
government funds.. They know that it is punishable by law, but
they know better that they can only be punished if they’re caught
with presenting evidence.
6. When the number of favorable interpretations that support
violating the law outweigh the unfavorable interpretations that
don’t, an individual will choose to become a criminal.
In short pag mas greater an gains in violating the law, an
individual will choose to commit crime. Refer to previous
example; nagttkadamo lat corrupt officials kay diri man hira
napipriso
7. All differential associations aren’t equal, it varies.
DA is most likely to result to criminal activity when a
person has frequent and intense and long-lasting(duration)
interactions with others who violate the law.
 With frequent association with law violaters most
probably will lead you to engage in criminal activities.
The tendency to commit crime reflects the contacts an
individual has with a group that accepts or approves of such acts
8. The process of learning criminal behaviors through interactions
with others relies on the same mechanisms that are used in
learning about any other behavior.
Criminal and noncriminal behavior is learned in the
same process
e.g. non-criminal behavior: you learned it from your that
if you to have something such as a new phone you can have it if
you’ll save money, or perhaps you’ll do good at school they’ll buy
you that as a reward –
criminal behavior if you want that new phone it imo
choice is manga2wat ka, manrorob, or snatch ka with knowing
the skill which you learned from the same interactions with either
parents, family or friends.
9. Criminal behavior could be an expression of generalized needs
and values, but they don’t explain the behavior because non-
criminal behavior expresses the same needs and values.
Criminal and noncriminal behaviors are both expressions
of the needs and values of individuals or groups.
e.g. nangawat ka kay magutom, tungod kay magutom
nangawat ka kay waray ka trabaho.
e.g. kay na dire ka magutom magtatrabaho ka.
Magtatrabaho ka becoz it is the conventional means to sustain
for your needs.
So basically both behaviors are manifestations of our
needs and values it is just up to us to ascertain on which path to
take to fulfill these needs.
SOCIAL CONTROL THEORY
Types of sanctions play a role in social control:
 Positive sanctions
 Negative santions
 Formal sanctions
 Informal sanctions
Important agencies of social control
Family
Family is an important agency of social control. It is the
first place where an individual is socialized.
He learns various methods of living, behavior patterns,
convention etc. from the family.
He is taught to behave and respect social laws and
obey social controls.
Religion
Religion serves as an important agency of social control.
It is religion, which supports the folkways and modes of a
society by playing super natural sanctions behind them.
It adopts negative as well as positive means to regulate
the behavior of the individuals in society.
School
The school is a very powerful agency: of social control. It
exercises social control through education.
The child learns many things from the school, which he
cannot learn from other sources.
The child is taught to obey the discipline, which a student
learns at school lasts with him throughout his life
Law
Law is a powerful method of control. The state runs its
administration through the government.
It enforces law within its territory with the help of the
police, the army, the prison and the court; it enacts laws to
regulate the lives of the people.
The deviants or the violators of social rules are punished
as per law; the state carries out certain function by means of law.
E.A. Ross says that ‘law is the most specialized and highly furnished
engineof social control employed by society.
It is law, which prevents the people from indulging in
antisocial activities.
Administration
Administration is very powerful and the most effective
instrument of social control.
It forces the individual to obey social control. The
administrations punish the violators with the help of the police, the
army etc.
Force
Every state has its own armed forces or police force. It is
an effective weapon to prevent people from indulging in anti-
social activities.
It also makes people, obey social order.
The state carries out its functions by means of law, which
is ultimately backed by physical force.
As an important agency of social, control the state
exercises its force over its people through various means such as
the government law, administration, the armed forces, the police
and the like.
Public Opinion
Public opinion is very powerful in the democratic age. It
not only controls the behavior of people but also controls the
government.
People these days are more concerned with the opinion
held by the public.
Fear of public opinion in general makes people control
their conduct and behavior.
The state controls the behavior of the people through
public opinion and mould people in favor of its policies.
It forms public opinion through various media like the
newspaper, cinema, radio, television etc.
Social control as government and disciplinary social control.
Government rely on detailed continues training, control
and observation of individuals to improve their capabilities.
DETERRENCE PERSPECTIVE
Deterence
• A principle or objective of sentencing a person guilty of
a crime which ensures that the punishment is sufficient
to deter the guilty person, and others, from committing
the same crime.
• Deterrence in relation to criminal offending is the idea
or theory that the threat of punishment will deter
people from committing crime and reduce the
probability and/or level of offending in society.
Deterrence theory has two possible applications:
1. Punishments imposed on individual offenders will deter or
prevent that particular offender from committing further crimes;
2. Public knowledge that certain offences will be punished has a
generalised deterrent effect which prevents others from
committing crimes.
 Deterrence involves the threat of punishment via some
form of sanction.
  Deterrence is a way of achieving control through fear. If
motorists do not refrain from offending out of fear of
consequences they are, by definition, not deterred.
 Deterrence, in general, is the control of behaviour that is
effected because the potential offender does not
consider the behaviour worth risking for fear of its
consequences.
Punishment
is the practice of imposing something unpleasant on a
person as a response to some unwanted or immoral behavior or
disobedience that they have displayed
3 Principles:
Severe Punishment
any criminal penalty must be severe enough to
outweigh the benefits to be obtained by crime.
Our perceptions about the severity of punishment is, the more
people suffer, the greater they have ‘paid’ for their crime.
Swiftly Applied
the punishment must be administered swiftly. The time
between detection & punishment must be short enough for
offenders to ‘get the message’. For punishment to have an
educative effect in the public mind, it needs to be swift.
Certain Application
offenders & those contemplating crime must be
convinced that non-conforming behaviour will carry sure &
certain consequences.
Categories of punishment
Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation focuses on helping criminals and
prisoners overcome the barriers that led them to committing
criminal acts. This includes developing occupational skills, as well
as resolving psychological issues such as drug addiction and
aggression,
Restoration
A radically different approach to punishment, the goal
of restoration is for the offender to make direct amends to both
the victim and the community in which the crime was
committed.
Social Protection
Rendering an offender incapable of further offenses
temporarily through imprisonment or permanently executed
Deterrence
Persuade people to turn away from crime
Basic types of Deterrence
1. Specific (Individual)
Individual deterrence is the aim of punishment to
discourage the offender from criminal acts in the future.
The belief is that when punished, offenders recognise the
unpleasant consequences of their actions on themselves and will
change their behaviour accordingly.
2. General Deterrence
The intention to deter the general public from
committing crime by punishing those who do offend.
When an offender is punished by, for example, being
sent to prison, a clear message is sent to the rest of society that
behaviour of this sort will result in an unpleasant response from the
criminal justice system.
Most people do not want to end up in prison and so they
are deterred from committing crimes that might be punished that
way.
INTERACTIONIST/LABELING & ETHNOMETHODOLOGY
KEY TERMS:
Deviance
is behavior that violates the standards of conduct or
expectations of a group or society. (Schaefer, 2013)
Interactionist
Scholars that study how individuals act
within society and believe that meaning is produced through
interactions. (Oxford dictionary)
Labeling
assign to a category, especially inaccurately or
restrictively (Oxford Dictionary)
Stigma
a mark of disgrace associated with a particular
circumstance (Oxford Dictionary)
Retrospective
looking back on or dealing with past events or situations.
(Oxford Dictionary)
Projective
looking forward on or dealing with future events or
situations. (Oxford Dictionary)
Medicalization
process by which human conditions and problems
come to be defined and treated as medical conditions, and thus
become the subject of medical study, diagnosis, prevention, or
treatment. (Webster Dictionary)
INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE
focuses on the relationships among individuals within a
society.
It explains how people define deviance in everyday
situations. From this point of view, definitions of deviance and
conformity are surprisingly flexible.
The emphasis on everyday behavior that is the focus of
the interactionist perspective offers two explanations of crime:
cultural transmission and routine activities theory.
a. Cultural transmission
Which emphasizes that one learns criminal behavior by
interacting with others. The cultural transmission approach can
also be used to explain the behavior of those who habitually
abuse alcohol or drugs.
Differential association to describe the process through which
exposure to attitudes favorable to criminal acts leads to the
violation of rules
b. Routine activities theory
contends that criminal victimization increases when
motivated offenders and suitable targets converge.
derives its name from the fact that elements of a criminal
or deviant act come together in normal, legal and routine
activities.
LABELING THEORY
 the idea that deviance and conformity result not so
much from what people do as from how others respond
to those actions.
 also called the societal-reaction approach.
Primary and Secondary Deviance
 Edwin Lemert (1951, 1972) observed that some norm
violations—say, skipping school or underage drinking—
provoke slight reaction from others and have little effect
on a person’s self-concept. Lemert calls such passing
episodes PRIMARY DEVIANCE.
Primary deviance
refers to the initial act of deviance.
 After an audience has defined some action as primary
deviance, the individual may begin to change, taking
on a deviant identity by talking, acting, or dressing in a
different way, rejecting the people who are critical, and
repeatedly breaking the rules. Lemert (1951:77) calls this
change of self-concept SECONDARY DEVIANCE.
Secondary deviance
is when someone makes something out of that deviant
behavior, which creates a negative social label that changes a
person's self-concept and social identity.
is when deviant behavior is long lasting and becomes
part of one's reputation.
Stigma
• Secondary deviance marks the start of what Erving
Goffman (1963) calls a DEVIANT CAREER.
• As people develop a stronger commitment to deviant
behavior, they typically acquire a STIGMA, a powerfully
negative label that greatly changes a person’s self-
concept and social identity.
• A STIGMA operates as a master status overpowering
other aspects of social identity so that a person is
discredited in the minds of others and becomes socially
isolated.
• Sometimes, however, an entire community formally
stigmatizes an individual through what Harold Garfinkel
(1956) calls a DEGRADATION CEREMONY.
Retrospective and Projective Labeling
RETROSPECTIVE LABELING
• Interpreting someone’s past in light of some present
deviance (Scheff, 1984)
• It distorts a person’s biography by being highly selective,
typically deepens a deviant identity
PROJECTIVE LABELING
• using the person’s deviant identity to predict future
actions.
• The more people in someone’s social world think such
things, the more these definitions affect the individual’s
self-concept, increasing the chance that they will come
true.
Labeling Difference as Deviance
• Is a homeless man who refuses to allow police to take
him to a city shelter on a cold night simply trying to live
independently, or is he “crazy”?
• The psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (1961, 1970, 2003, 2004)
charges that people are too quick to apply the label of
mental illness to conditions that simply amount to a
difference we don’t like.
• First, people who are mentally ill are no more to blame
for their condition than people who suffer from cancer
or some other physical problem.
• Second, ordinary people without the medical
knowledge to diagnose mental illness should avoid using
such labels just to make people conform to their own
standards of behavior.
The Difference Labels Make:
 First, it affects who responds to deviance.
 A second issue is how people respond to deviance.
 Third, and most important, the two labels differ on the
personal competence of the deviant person.
Important Point:
“Becker maintains that what we count as crime and
deviance is based on subjective decisions made by ‘moral
entrepreneurs’ (agents of social control). Thus he argues that
deviance is simply forms of behavior that powerful agencies
of social control define or label as such. “
Becker said that:
“Deviant behavior is behavior that people so label.”
ETHNOMETHODOLOGY
 (EM for short) emerged in America in the 60’s, mainly
from the work of Harold Garfinkel (1967). Garfinkel’s
ideas stem from phenomenology. Like Schutz, Garfinkel
rejects the very idea of society as a real objective
structure ‘out there’
 Garfinkel takes the opposite view- social order is created
from the bottom-up.
 Order and meaning are not achieved because people
are ‘puppets’, as functionalists believe.
 Social order is an accomplishment- something that
members of society actively construct in everyday life
using their commonsense knowledge.
 EM attempts to discover how we do this by studying the
methods or rules that we use to produce meanings.
 Ethno – People
 Method – procedures/method
 Logos - Study
 Ethnomethodology literally means ‘people's methods’
but may be more fully translated as ‘the study of
people's methods for making sense of the world’.
Indexicality and reflexivity
Indexicality
 Like Schutz, EM sees meanings as always potentially
unclear- a characteristic Garfinkel calls indexicality.
 It means nothing has a fixed meaning: everything
depends on the context
 e.g. the different meanings of raising an arm
Reflexivity
 For Garfinkel, what enables us to behave as if
meanings are clear and obvious is REFLEXIVITY.
 This refers to the fact that we use commonsense
knowledge in everyday interactions to construct a
sense of meaning and order to stop indexicality from
occuring. This is similar to Schutz’s idea of typifications.
Typification - is the process of relying on general knowledge
as a way of constructing ideas about people and the social
world.
Retrospective Interpretation
 the meaning of behavior, in this case past behavior, and
the significance of past events, is continually being
reevaluated based on the exigencies of current
situations and typified understandings.
 The point here is that once we arrive at a particular
account (explanation) of a situation or person (decision
making based on typifications and commonsense
categories indexically tied to the context of the
situation) we reflexively reconstruct our understanding of
the process so that our decision or definition appears to
us as normal, natural, and "real.
 The power of these constructions when they are
couched in an assumption of deviant behavior can be
so overwhelming as to shape an actor’s identity and
lead to his or her immersion within a world of deviance.
 Erving Goffman (1963) discusses the process of
retrospective interpretation as part of the "moral career"
of those defined by deviance.
  A disabling event can become reinterpreted as an
opportunity to start on a new life path, or an inopportune
disclosure that leads to an arrest becomes a "call for
help."
 The individual may come to a new understanding of his
or her past which then serves to (re)confirm the present.
Out of the spiral of indexicality and reflexivity a sense of
structure emerges
Documentary Interpretation
 a special case representing the indexical-reflexive
structure of interpretational processes, refers to a
procedure through which immediately given
information (documents); appearance, police reports,
past records, and other typifications are used to infer
meaning and motive in the behavior of others.
 We selectively take bits and pieces of information, those
presented informally in interaction and those that are
part of the "official record," and construct a reasonable
account of the individual that then seems to confirm the
"reading" of the documents.
 The theories direct our attention to particular
documents, and as these contextual elements are taken
into account, they become meaningful.
 Rosenhahn (1973) displays the workings of this process
within the context of psychiatric evaluations.
Experiments in disrupting social order
 Garfinkel and his students wished to demonstrate the
nature of social order by a series of so-called ‘breaching
experiments’
 Example: The students acted as lodgers in their own
families- acting polite, avoiding personal interaction etc.
 The aim was to disrupt people’s sense of order and
challenge their reflexivity by undermining their
assumptions about a situation, e.g. parents of students
who behaved as lodgers became bewildered,
embarrased, anxious or angry.
 Garfinkel concludes that by challenging people’s taken-
for-granted assumptions, the orderliness of interaction is
not inevitable but it is actually an accomplishment of
those who take part.
Suicide and reflexivity
 In the case of suicide, coroners make sense of death by
selecting particular features from the infinite number of
possible ‘facts’ about the deceased- such as their
mental health, employment status etc.
Coroners – an official who investigates sudden death
 For Garfinkel, humans constantly strive to impose order
by seeking patterns, even though these patterns are just
social constructs. E.g. the seeming pattern that suicides
are generally mentally ill cases becomes part of a
coroner’s taken-for-granted knowledge about what
suicides are like.
 Garfinkel is critical of conventional sociology. He
accuses it of merely using the same methods as ordinary
society members to create order and meaning. If so,
then conventional sociology is little more than
commonsense, rather than true objective knowledge.
E.g. positivists such as Durkeim take it for granted that
official suicide statistics are social facts that tell us the
real rate of suicide. In fact, they are merely the decisions
made my coroners, using their commonsense
knowledge.
Critical – disapproved
Conventional sociology – what is generally perceived in
sociology
 Therefore, the supposed ‘laws’ positivists produce about
suicide are no more than an elaborate version of the
coroner’s commonsense understandings. Sociologists’
claims to know about suicide are thus no truer than those
of other members of society, such as coroners.
Evaluations of EM
 CRAIB argues that its findings are trivial (of little
importance). EMs seem to spend a lot of time
‘uncovering’ taken-for-granted rules that turn out to be
no surprise to anyone.
 EM argues that everyone creates order and meaning by
identifying patterns and producing explanations that
are essentially fictions. If so, this must apply to EM itself, so
there’s no reason to accept its views.
 EM denies the existence of wider society, seeing it a
merely shared fiction. Yet, by analysing how members
apply general rules or norms to specific contexts, it
assumes that the structure of norms really exists beyond
these contexts. From a functionalist perspective, such
norms are social facts, not fictions.
 EM ignores how wider society structures of power and
inequality affect the meanings that individuals
construct.
 E.g. Marxists argue that ‘commonsense knowledge’ is
really just ruling-class ideology, and the order it creates
serves to maintain capitalism
Ethnomethodology in Deviance
 The perspective of ethnomethodology suggests that
deviance and the deviant do not exist independently of
the social construction of meaning centered in the
situational context of everyday life.
 The qualities and attributes of a particular individual
become lost or distorted as she or he is located within
the context of a particular category of deviance. His or
her behavior, and identity, comes to represent the
category of deviance, and the category of deviance,
in turn, becomes an explanation for the behavior or
identity in question.
CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE AND CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
Key Terms:
Conflict
 To come into collision or disagreement; be
contradictory, at variance, or in opposition; clash.
(Dictionary.com)
 An active disagreement between people with opposing
opinions or principles. (Cambridge dictionary)
Capitalism
 Capitalism is an economic system where private entities
own the factors of production. The four factors are
entrepreneurship, capital goods, natural resources, and
labor. (Amadeo, 2020)
 An economic system in which the means of production
are held largely in private hands and the main incentive
for economic activity is the accumulation of profits (D.H.
Rosenberg, 1991).
Inequality
 Inequality is the result of differences in individual
endowments (Redefining Capitalism in Global
Economic Development, 2017)
Stratification
 Stratification is a system or formation of layers, classes, or
categories. (vocabulary.com)
 structured ranking of entire groups of people that
perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in
a society.
Functionalism
 Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is a
framework for building theory that sees society as a
complex system whose parts work together to promote
solidarity and stability (socialsci.libretexts.org, 2019)
 CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
 The conflict perspective assumes that social behavior is
best understood in terms of conflict or tension between
competing groups. (Schaefer,2006)
 Conflict theory sees society as a dynamic entity
constantly undergoing change as a result of
competition over scarce resources.
 According to the conflict perspective, society is made
up of individuals competing for limited resources (e.g.
money, leisure, sexual partners, etc).
 Wright Mills is known as the founder of modern conflict
theory.
 He believes social structures are created because of
conflict between differing interests.
 The widespread social unrest resulting from battles over
civil rights, bitter divisions over wars, the rise of the
feminist and gay liberation movements, political
scandal, urban riots, and confrontations at abortion
clinics have offered support for the conflict approach-
1. The Marxist View
 Expanding on Marx's work, sociologists and other social
scientists have come to see conflict not merely as a class
phenomenon bit as a part of everyday life in all societies.
 In studying any culture, organization, or social group,
sociologists want to know who benefits, who suffers, and
who dominates at the expenses of others.
“Critical Theory” in the narrow sense designates several
generations of German philosophers and social theorists
in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the
Frankfurt School
 Drawing particularly on the thought of Karl
Marx and Sigmund Freud, critical theorists maintain that
a primary goal of philosophy is to understand and to
help overcome the social structures through which
people are dominated and oppressed.
 According to these theorists, a “critical” theory may be
distinguished from a “traditional” theory according to a
specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the
extent that it seeks human “emancipation from slavery”,
acts as a “liberating … influence”, and works “to create
a world which satisfies the needs and powers” of human
beings (Horkheimer 1972, 246).
Frankfurt School
 Frankfurt School, group of researchers associated with
the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am
Main, Germany, who applied Marxism to a radical
interdisciplinary social theory.
 The members of the Frankfurt School tried to develop a
theory of society that was based on Marxism and
Hegelian philosophy but which also utilized the insights
of psychoanalysis, sociology, existential philosophy, and
other disciplines.

2. Comparing Major Theoretical Perspectives

Conflict Theory and Crimes

 Conflict theorists believe that the broad division of

people into two categories (Elite and Working Class) is
inherently unequal. They cite the criminal justice system
to support their claim. The capitalist class passes laws
designed to benefit themselves.

 In addition, the elite can often afford expensive lawyers

and are sometimes on a first-name basis with the
individuals in charge of making and enforcing laws.
Members of the working class generally do not have
these advantages.

Deviance and Power

 Conflict theorist Alexander Liazos points out that the

people we commonly label as deviant are also relatively
powerless. According to Liazos, a homeless person living
in the street is more likely to be labeled deviant than an
executive who embezzles funds from the company he
or she runs.

 According to the conflict view of deviance, when rich

and powerful people are accused of wrongdoing, they
have the means to hire lawyers, accountants, and other
people who can help them avoid being labeled as
deviant

Conflict Theory and Change

 While functionalism emphasizes stability, conflict theory

emphasizes change.

 According to the conflict perspective, society is

constantly in conflict over resources, and that conflict
drives social change.

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE

 In the 1930s and 1940s, German philosophers, known as

the Frankfurt School, developed critical theory as an
elaboration on Marxist principles.

 A critical theory attempts to address structural issues

causing inequality; it must explain what’s wrong in
current social reality, identify the people who can make
changes, and provide practical goals for social
transformation (Horkeimer 1982)..

 Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in

philosophy and in the history of the social sciences.
  To sociologist what makes a group is not just the similarity
and traits among individuals, but rather the fact that
SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE WITH GROUPS people interact.

Key Terms: According to Lewin

Method “A group is best defined as a dynamic whole based on
interdependence rather than similarity”
 A way of doing something, especially a systematic
way; implies an orderly logical arrangement (usually in  a set of people engage in frequent interactions
steps) - WordWeb Dictionary
 They are identified by others as a group
 “…an orderly, systematic, planned way of working with
people in groups”  They share belief, values, and norms about areas of
common interest
Process
 They define themselves as group
 A particular course of action intended to achieve a
result - WordWeb Dictionary  They come together to work on common tasks and for
agreed purposes
 A series of actions that produce something or that lead
to a particular result - Merriam-Webster Dictionary Types of Groups

Recreation PRIMARY GROUPS

 An activity that diverts, amuses or stimulates - WordWeb
Dictionary
 Something people do to relax or have fun - Merriam-
Webster Dictionary
 Introduced by Charles H. Cooley (1957)
 small in size and characterized by personal, intimate,
and nonspecialized relationships between their
members

Dynamic  “Nursery of relations”

 Characterized by action, forcefulness or force of  Characterized by intimate face-to-face relationships

personality - WordWeb Dictionary and close association and cooperation

 Always active or changing - Merriam-Webster SECONDARY GROUPS

Dictionary
 Groups in which relationships are impersonal and widely
Interaction separate.

 A mutual or reciprocal action - WordWeb Dictionary  Characterized by much less intimacy among all
members
 Mutual or reciprocal action or influence - Merriam-
Webster Dictionary  They usually have specific goals and are formally
organized
Concepts of Groups
Comparative relationships in these two types of groups
Thelma Lee- Mendoza (2015 according to Fichter
at least two people, but usually more, gathered with 1. Physical Conditions
common purposes or like interests in a cognitive, affective, and
social interchange in single or repeated encounter.” PRIMARY GROUP SECONDARY GROUP

- a simple collection of people is not a group Small number Big number

(Homans 1950, Stark 1998, and Kendall 2000) Long duration Short duration

it consists of two or more persons who are in social 2. Social Characteristics

interaction, who are guided by similar norms, values, and
expectations, and who maintain a stable pattern of relations over PRIMARY GROUP SECONDARY GROUP
time
 Intrinsic valuation of Extrinsic valuation of the
Sociology
the relation relation
is composed of two or more persons interacting with
each other, guided by a set of norms.”  Inclusive knowledge of Specialized and limited

- Sociologists point out that social interaction or other persons knowledge of other persons
interpersonal behavior of group members are the
 Feeling of freedom and Feeling of external
most important criteria in the concept of group
spontaneity constraints

3. Sample relationships
 A group is a specified number of individuals where each
recognizes members as distinct from non-members; PRIMARY GROUP SECONDARY GROUP
each has a sense of what others do and think as well as
what purpose of the association or grouping is.  Friend --- Friend Clerk --- Customer

This definition emphasizes three elements  Husband ---- Wife Announcer --- Listener

1. Common association  Parent ---- Child Performer --- Spectator

2. Awareness of others  Teacher ---- Pupil Officer --- Subordinate

3. Socially shared goals

4. Sample Groups

 the elements of a group are individuals; the members of PRIMARY GROUP SECONDARY GROUP
a group is a set of people
 Play group Nation
 it is not true that any arbitrary collection of people
constitute a group  Family Church hierarchy
  Village Professional association
 Work team Corporation
IN-GROUPS & OUT-GROUPS
 Coined by William Graham Summer, to distinguish
between groups that generate quite different feelings
 Kind of perspective relationship that exists in the mind as
an individual learns the use of “we” and “they”
 Threats from out-group can increase loyalty among in-
group members
In-group
 The group that we feel positively toward and identify
with, and that produces a sense of loyalty or “we”
feeling
 “WE” group or “OUR GROUP”
Out-group
 Are those to which we do not belong and that we view
in neutral or possibly hostile fashion
 “THEY” group
 Viewed as outsiders of in-group
REFERENCE GROUP
 A group that people use as a standard in evaluating
their attitudes and their behaviors
 They serve a normative function by setting and
enforcing standards of conduct and belief
 Can be very powerful and pervasive elements in our
lives
Characteristics of Group
According to Joseph Fichter
1. A group must be identifiable by its members and by outside
observer
2. A group has a social unit
Each member, or a person, has a position related to
other positions
3. There are individual roles in a group
4. Reciprocal relations are essential to the group
There must be contact and communication among the
members of the group
5. Every group has norms of behavior
6. Members of the group have certain common interests and
values
7. Group activities must be directed towards some social goals or
goals
8. A group must have relative permanence
Identified from Trecker’s definition of group work
“Social Group Work is a method through which individuals in
groups and in agency settings are helped by a worker who guides
their interaction in programme activities so that they may relate
themselves to others and experience growth opportunities in
accordance with their needs and capacities to the end of the
individual, group and community development” (H.B.Trecker -
1955)
1. Social Group work is a method
2. Individuals helped through groups in social agency settings
3. The role of worker is to guide interaction process
4. The purpose of group work is to provide experience, growth
opportunities for development
The small group as the development of practice
SMALL GROUP
 a group small enough for members to interact
simultaneously- that is, to talk with one another or at least
be well acquainted
Small group as an instrument for social development
 the group is more than the sum of its members
 The group has its own structure, its own goals, and its own
relation to other groups
 the social climate in which a child lives is for the child as
important as the air it breathes. The group to which a
child lives belongs to the ground in which he stands. –
Lewin
 the group the person is part of, and the culture in which
he lives, determine to a very high degree of his behavior
and his character
 Group has a tremendous power to influence the
personality development of its members
Small Group as defined by Berelson and Steiner
 an aggregate of people, from 2 up to unspecified but
not too large number, who associate together in a face-
to-face relations over an extended period of time, who
differentiate themselves in some regard from others
around them, who are mutually aware of their
membership in the group
 All members must be able to engage in direct personal
relations at one time
 An upper limit of around 15 to 20
1. The Autonomous Group
e.g. A circle of friends built on free choice and voluntary
association
2. The Institutionalized Group
e.g. FAMILY
3. The small group within a large organization
e.g. a group of soldiers “buddies” in the army
Essential elements in the definition are:
 Small size
 Personal relations
 Some duration
 Identification of the members with group
 Solidarity
 Genuine goals
 Differentiation from others
Major contributions of small group to the individual and his/her
behavior
1. Small group provides the person with the opportunity to
develop his skills as a participating member of the society
 The small group is a situation where a person can try out
his strengths, perceive his weaknesses, see progress and
regression, and evaluate what is effective and
ineffective in social intercourse
2. The way in which individuals learn, the speed of their learning,
the retention of learned material, and the way they solve
problems are definitely influenced by small groups
3. The small group influences the individual’s formation of attitudes
and tend to be decisive in the development of norms of responses
to situations
 The small group strongly influences the behavior of its
members by setting and/or enforcing certain standards
(norms) for proper behavior by its members
4. Small group experience operates to change an individual’s
values, level of aspiration and striving
  Individual goal setting is highly dependent upon group
standards.
5. Small group experience operates to modify the individual’s
habits of living, working hard, and otherwise carrying on life’s
pursuits
6. Small group experience has a powerful influence upon the
individual’s perception of himself and his role in a given situation
7. Small group tends to provide psychological support for
individuals and help them to express themselves
8. Small groups always tend to influence choices that individuals
make when they are in situations where alternatives are
presented
9. Small groups affect an individual’s speed, accuracy and
productivity in the work situation
10. Small groups have a strong effect upon an individual’s
susceptibility to fear, frustration, and his recovery from them is
hastened because of the security-giving function of the small
group
11. Small groups tend to place limits on the individual’s drive for
power and his need to be controlling
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL GROUP WORK
PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL WORK VALUES
Values of the profession are the foundation upon which
the service are developed and made available to persons who
need them.
Central to this : belief in the dignity and worth of all
people and their right to participate in making decisions.
PRINCIPLE OF HUMAN NEEDS
Human needs – the basis for the provision of services and
programs.
Worker will seek always to understand the conditions out
of which needs arise.
( The worker will study the community to discover points
of stress and he will anticipate emerging needs to be better
prepared to meet them. )
PRINCIPLE OF CULTURAL SETTING
In social group work the culture of the community must
be understood inasmuch as it influence the way needs are
expressed, services are created and utilized by the people who
need them.
The group worker must have an ever-increasing
knowledge of the community.
PRINCIPLE OF PLANNED GROUP FORMATION
The agency and workers responsible for the formation of
groups or the acceptance into the agency of already-formed
groups must be aware of the factors inherent in the group
situation that make the given group a positive potential for
individual growth and for meeting recognizable needs.
Conscious design and plan for the group which must
contain the potential growth of members.
PRINCIPLE OF SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
Specific objectives of individual and group
development must be consciously formulated by the worker in
harmony with group wishes and capacities and in keeping with
agency function.
The group worker who recognizes the need for
consciously formulated specific objectives for individuals and
groups becomes a purposeful, rather than an unfocused worker.
PRINCIPLE OF PURPOSEFUL WORKER-GROUP RELATIONSHIP
A consciously purposeful relationship must be
established between the worker and the group members based
on the worker’s acceptance of the group members as they are
and upon the group’s willingness to accept help from the worker
because of the confidence the members have in him and in the
agency.
PRINCIPLE OF CONTINOUS INDIVIDUALIZATION
Recognizes that groups are different and that the
individuals utilize group experience in a variety of ways to meet
their differing needs; consequently, a continuous individualization
must be practiced by the worker.
Groups and the individuals in the groups must be
understood as developing and changing.
Individualization is continuous on the part of the group
worker who accepts the certainty of change
PRINCIPLE OF GUIDED GROUP INTERACTION
The primary source of energy which propels the group
and influences the individual to is INTERACTION.
The social group work process implies harnessing,
direction, and conscious utilization of the natural social processes
of interaction.
Role of the worker: influence actively the type and
degree of interaction, converts the social process in to the social
group work process.
PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRATIC GROUP SELF-DETERMINATION
The group must be helped to make its own decisions and
determine its own activities, taking the maximum amount of
responsibility in line with its capacity and ability.
The primary source control over the group is the group
itself.
PRINCIPLE OF FLEXIBLE FUNCTIONAL ORGANIZATION
Formal organization should be flexible and should be
encouraged only as it meets a felt need, is understood by the
members and can function accordingly.
The formal organization of the group should be adaptive
and should change as the group changes.
PRINCIPLE OF PROGRESSIVE PROGRAM EXPERIENCES
The program experiences in which the groups engage
should begin at the level of member interest, need, experience,
and competence and should progress in relation to the
developing capacity of the group.
PRINCIPLE OF RESOURCE UTILIZATION
The total environment of agency and community
possesses resources which should be utilized to enrich the content
of the group experience for individuals and for the group as a
whole.
The worker may serve as the group’s liaison to the
community where they can tap needed resources.
PRINCIPLE OF EVALUATION
Continuous evaluation of process and programs in terms
of outcomes is essential. Worker, group and agency share in this
procedure as a means of guaranteeing the greatest possible self-
fulfillment for all.
SOCIAL GROUP WORK
Definitions of Social Group Work
Social Group Work as a Method
• An orderly, systematic, planned way of working with
people in groups
• A conscious procedure, a designed means of achieving
a goal
• In its outer aspects, a method is a way of doing
something
• Underneath the doing we always discover an integrated
arrangement of knowledge, understanding, and
principles
Social Group Work as One Way of Carrying Out All or Functions of
Many Agencies
  As indicated by Vinter, specialized use of group
procedures is now to be found across a broad range of
health, welfare and educational agencies
 Anti- poverty organizations
Child Guidance Clinics
School Social Services
Juvenile Courts
Delinquency Control Programs, etc.
 A mode of serving individuals within and through small
face-to-face groups in order to induce desired changes
among the client participants
 Cannot adequately be distinguished from other helping
processes, particularly those in the profession of social
work, by reference types of clientele served to the
organizational contexts of service, or to the general
service goals set for clients.
 “The essential difference lies in the primary-but not
exclusive- reliance on the multi-person group
session rather than on the interview as the basic
form of intervention.”
Social Group Work as a Way of Working with People Who May
Engage in Different Activities
Lippit says:
My use of the term “group work” is a generic rather than
specialized one. I refer to all contexts in which professional
practitioners use their professional values and skills to help a group
develop and function for such diverse purposes as the social-
emotional growth of group members, the development of task
competence of group members, facilitation of the individual
productivity of group members, and the growth of the group as a
group such objectives as competence in collective achievement
or facilitation of group productivity, committee decision-making
and so on.
Social Group Work
 In the 1950’s Grace Coyle said:
Social group work, like casework, community
organization, administration, and research, is now recognized as
a basic aspect of social work practice. Its distinct characteristics
lie in the fact that group work is used in social relationships within
group experiences as means to individual growth and
development, and that the group worker is concerned in
developing social responsibility and active citizenship for the
improvement of democratic society.
 Gertrude Wilson and Gladys Ryland elaborated on this
theme when they said:
In the enabling method, the members are helped to
learn new ideas, develop new skills, change attitudes and
deepen their personalities through participation in a social
process wherein they make decisions and take the social action
necessary to accomplish the purposes of the group.
 Konopka puts it this way:
Social group work is a method of social work which helps
individuals to enhance their social functioning through purposeful
group experiences and to cope more effectively with their
personal, group, or community problems.
 In the Encyclopedia of Social Work Vinter states:
Group work is a way of serving individuals within and
through small face-to-face groups in order to bring about
changes among the client participant.
This method of practice recognizes the potency of social
forces that are generated within small groups and seeks to
marshal them in the interest of client change.
The composition, development, and processes of the
groups are deliberately guided by the practitioner toward
achieving his services goals for the clients.
Intervention in the experience of the group is the primary
means for effecting change, although practitioners engage in
many other activities with or on behalf of their clients in addition
to conducting group sessions.
The group is viewed as a small social system whose
influence can be managed to develop client abilities. To modify
self-images and perspectives, to resolve conflicts, and to
inculcate new patterns of behavior.
 Northern observes:
“Social work practice uses the small group as both the
context and means through which its members support and
modify their attitudes, interpersonal relationships, and abilities to
cope effectively with their environment.”
 Esterson makes a real contribution when he distinguishes
between social group work and recreation. He writes:
It is generally believed that recreation, group activity
and group experience all contribute to the satisfaction of some
psychological needs. Recreation and group activity provide
opportunity for self-expression, recognition and belonging.
Similarly, the hunger for cooperation and competition
may be satisfied through team or group games. The recreation
leader who does not employ the group work method is mainly
concerned with providing recreational activities and programs
without conscious and direct concern for the social adjustment or
growth of the individual. Whatever adjustment or growth occurs is
spontaneous.
• In contrast to recreation, group work is a method by
which the group worker enables various types of groups
to function in such a way that group interaction and
program activities contribute to the growth of the
individual, and the achievement of desirable social
goals.
Factors involved in social group work:
• Agencies
• Groups
• Workers
• Programs
• Underlying purposes
Social group work in operational terms:
Is a method in social work through which individuals in
many groups in a variety of community agency settings are
helped by a worker who guides their interaction in program
activities so that they may relate themselves to others and
experience growth opportunities in accordance with their needs
and capacities to the end of individual, group, and community
development
In 1959 the Curriculum Study of the Council on Social Work
Education summarized generalizations on social group work
method, process, and goals, on which a substantial degree of
acceptance was evident:
1. Social group work is a method of rendering service to
persons, through providing experience in groups.
2. Social group work is a generic method which can be
used in different settings.
3. The method includes conscious use of work-member
relationships, relationships among members, and of group
activity.
4. Social group work is often used in conjunction with
other social work service methods, and with other disciplines.
5. Goal selection, decision-making, program
development, acceptance of and internalization of appropriate
controls, creative utilization of conflicts, are recognized as some
of the components of social group work process.
 Group work has the tripartite purpose of individual
growth, group growth, and community change.
  In group work the group itself is a major tool for individual
development
 The worker is viewed as a “helping person”
 The use of the word “help” in referring to the role of
group worker is deliberate.
 The worker is a “helping person” or an “enabler” rather
than a “group leader.”
 What kind of help does the worker give to the group?
How does he give it?
 Social group work is not only a matter of what the worker
does but also a matter of how he does it that way.
 the key to social group work is the worker
The Need for, and Importance of Social Group Work Today
Major and basic problems
1. The lack of opportunity for persons in large cities and
overcrowded suburbs to interact with each other in meaningful
ways
2. Find means of bringing people into more intimate personal
contact
3. Reducing the general emotional impoverishment of people
and of meeting the particular social and psychological needs of
certain individuals
4. Many kinds of groups- educational, avocational, recreational,
and therapeutic have been sponsored by social agencies, clinics,
hospitals, churches, and schools
5. Discover one another and learn to live together if they are to
avoid certain obliteration
6. The problems of the modern community must be solved by
group and intergroup effort
7. A group worker is providing opportunities that are not
individually important but basic to the preparation of people who
must learn how to assume responsibilities in a world that will grow
more, rather than less, complex.
 The group worker is a key figure in the enrichment of
the social environment.
René Jules Dubos puts it:
Each person has a wide range of innate potentialities
that remain untapped. Whether physical or mental, these
potentialities can become expressed only to the extent that
circumstances are favorable to their existential manifestation.
The National Commission for Social Work Careers
The social worker who works with groups whether in a
program of prevention or one of rehabilitation, is in a unique
position to help people meet their individual and collective
needs.
The Purposes of Social Group Work
Smalley puts it:
1. The underlying purpose of all social work effort is to release
human power in individuals for personal fulfillment and social
good, and to release social power for the creation of the kinds of
society, social institutions, and social policy which make self-
realization most possible for all men.
2. Two values which are primary in such a purpose are respect for
the worth and dignity of every individual and concern that he
have the opportunity to realize his potential as an individually
fulfilled, socially contributive person.
Community agencies, however, do have specialized
objectives, and workers must have some notion of the
purposes they wish to accomplish with their groups
Group workers are interested in furthering the social
adjustment of the individual and in developing the
social consciousness of the group. They believe that
personality development and growth come from
mutually satisfying experiences had by people.
Steiner declared:
The group strongly influences the behavior of its
members by providing them with support, reinforcement, security,
encouragement, protection, rationale, rationalization, etc…
When an individual is genuinely attached to a group, and in close
and continuous contact with it, his group-anchored behaviors
and beliefs are extremely resistant to change: and in such
circumstances the group can exercise firm “control” over him.
 seek to provide opportunities for planned group
experiences that are needed by all people
 to help individuals develop their capacity to participate
intelligently in the groups and communities of which they
are a part.
 believe that it is important that individuals be given a
chance to belong to gain acceptance from other
persons, and to feel secure in relation to others
 functions in another way: It provides experiences that
are relaxing and that give individuals a chance to
create, to share, and to express themselves
In 1962, the Practicum Commission of the Group Work Section of
the National Association of Social Workers stated:
Social group work is that part of social work in which the
primary medium of practice is the group, served for the purpose
of effecting the social functioning of its members. To this end the
social group worker focuses simultaneously on the functioning of
individual members and the development of the groups a s an
entity within the social situation
Somers offers a four-part statement of purpose when she writes:
1. Assist in implementing the normal growth and continuing
development of individuals within our society
2. Assist in supplementing lacks and deprivations in social
experience and functioning of individuals and groups
3. Assist in modifying, correcting, and preventing individual and
social breakdown and deterioration
4. Assist in aiding individuals and groups to fulfill their motivations
and capacities for contributing to their society
Allissi observes that “… group experiences can be used to
achieve the following purposes:
1.) Corrective
to provide restorative or remedial experiences in
instances where there has been social or personal dysfunction or
breakdown of individuals or within social situations
2.) Preventive to prevent personal and social breakdown where
there is danger or deterioration
3.) Normal Growth and Development
to facilitate the normal growth and development
processes of individual members particularly during certain
stressful periods in the life cycle
4.) Personal Enhancement
to achieve a greater measure of self-fulfillment and
personal enhancement through meaningful and stimulating
interpersonal relations
5.) Citizen Responsibility and Participation
to inculcate democratic values among group members
as they are helped to become responsibly involved as individuals
and members of groups, as active participants in society
Social Work and Social Group Work
Social group work is thus one part of the social work
whole with a distinct way of helping individuals in groups based
upon and growing out of the knowledge, understanding and skill
that is generic to all social work practice.
 Social work is based upon certain assumptions and
convictions regarding people. These convictions become basic
values which underlie every action taken by the worker.
For example: in social work the worth and dignity of
every human being is central and all pervasive.
It is assumed that people can and do change in their
behavior when they are given the right help at the right time and
in the correct amount.
It is known that people who need help will respond
better when help is given early before needs and problems
become too great.
Basic to all of social work is the principle of study and diagnosis.
This means that the social worker must study the
individual, the group, or the community and understand the
behavior and motivations present in the situation.
• The principle of individualization means that each
person, group, or community is different and each
situation is different.
• The principle of participation means that the social
worker and the individual, group, or community must
become engaged, involved, or seen as working
together.
Social group work is thus one part of a methodological whole
that is called social work.
Social group work is based upon the values and principles of
social work practice. At the same time it is a separate and distinct
way of helping individuals in groups to attain satisfying
relationships. It makes a contribution to the whole of social work;
yet it stands alone as well. It cannot be said that social casework,
social group work, community organization work, or
administration are any more or less important in the social work
whole. All are needed and all are related
Social Work and Social Group Work
What does the community get from social group work?
• Social work programs are always determined by social
need, by community understanding and acceptance
of the need and by community support and sanction
• Enriches community life when individuals learn how to
take responsibility for their own behavior and how to
become participating members of the society
• Persons who have had satisfying group relationships
become socially mature and learn how to respond to
the demands of cooperative working relationships so
paramount in modern-day living.
Social Group Work Based on the Fact of Group Life
The need for group experience is basic and universal.
Thompson and Kahn put it this way:
We know that we cannot carry on life in isolation from
our fellows, and that it is the quality of the relationships we make
with other people that so much of our happiness and success
depends on.
No matter what philosophy of human needs one may
tend to develop and follow, it is a central concept of social group
work that all people need a variety of group experiences.
Social group workers know that individuals can be
helped to grow and change in personality and attitudes through
experiences with other people in the setting of community
agencies
• Like all other social work, social group work has roots in
the democratic value system.
• The only way that individuals can develop habits of
cooperation is through the conscious practice of the
democratic process.
The method called social group work is operating to its fullest
extent when it makes possible the release of individual capacities
and the growth of healthy personalities.
• It has been well stated that social group work is primarily
a means to an end, and that end is the development of
persons.
Community Agency Settings
• Social group work is practiced in a variety of community
agencies.
“Group services are found in neighborhood centers, hospitals:
agencies and institutions working with children, adolescents or the
aging: in public welfare programs, and in other community
service agencies.”
• Both voluntary and governmental agencies make use of
social group work method and techniques to carry out
their functions.
• Many of the agencies are national and international in
scope
Primary settings
Some would classify the agency settings into “primary”
or “traditional” and “secondary” or “host”.
Include the neighborhood and the community centers,
the youth serving agencies, recreational centers, senior centers,
churches, and the like.
Primary settings, where social group work is the major
method used, include the neighborhood and the community
centers, the youth serving agencies, recreational centers, senior
centers, churches, and the like.
Secondary settings
include public schools, hospitals, clinics, welfare
departments, both public assistance and child welfare, probation
departments and correctional institutions, mental health centers,
family service agencies, antipoverty agencies, homes for the
aged and so on
Secondary settings, where social group work is
practiced but not necessarily as the major method used, include
public schools, hospitals, clinics, welfare departments, both public
assistance and child welfare, probation departments and
correctional institutions, mental health centers, family service
agencies, antipoverty agencies, homes for the aged and so on.
The Social Group Work Whole
• To sum it up, it can be said that social group work calls
for unified working together of individuals in groups in
community agencies committed to defined objectives
and helped toward attainment of these objectives by a
worker who works in a certain way.
• The kind of agency, the kind of group, the kind of worker,
and especially the relatedness of the three make up the
group work whole.
• The group worker is, of course, of tremendous
importance in social group work. He should bring his
work a background of knowledge and experience and
a mature personality.
 • He works as a helping person to enable the members of
the group to make choices and to carry out their own
decisions.
• The group worker wants the group to become as self-
directing and self-governing as possible, and wants the
control of the group to rest primarily in the hands of the
members.
• He works with them to this end, and thus it is necessary
that he give direction and guidance to the thinking and
feeling and the other kinds of interaction that are taking
place.
• The group worker is also interested in helping the group
to participate with other groups as a part of the total
agency and the larger community. The ultimate product
of the group work experience will be the development
of individuals and groups able to take an increasingly
active part in the important affairs of community living.
Konopka has outlined the essential parts of social group method
as follows:
1. The function of the social group worker is a helping or
enabling function: This means that his goal is to help the
members of the group and the group as a whole to
move toward greater independence and capacity for
self-help.
2. In determining his way of helping, the group worker uses
the scientific method: fact-finding (observation),
analyzing, diagnosis in relation to the individual, the
group, and the social environment.
3. The group work method includes the worker forming
purposeful relationships to group members and the
group.
4. 4. One of the main tools in achieving such a relationship
is the conscious use of self.
5. There should be acceptance of people without
accepting all their behavior.
6. Starting where the group is: The capacity to let groups
develop from their own point of departure, of capacity,
without immediately imposing outside demands
7. The constructive use of limitations:
8. Individualization: It is one of the specifics of the group
work method that the individual is not lost in the whole,
but that he is helped to feel as a unique person who can
contribute to the whole.
9. Us of interacting process.
10. The understanding and the conscious use of non-verbal
as well as verbal material.
SYSTEMS THEORY
Focus of this theory
on the development and transformation of systems and
the interaction and relationships between them.
Purpose
To assist the social worker in maintaining a focus on the
dynamic interplay of the many biological and social systems that
affect client behavior and functioning.
Systems
a set of elements that are orderly and interrelated to
make a functional whole. - Kirst-Ashman and Hull (2002)
Subsystems
is one part or element of a larger system, but the
subsystem can act as a smaller system on its own. - Kirst-Ashman
and Hull (2002)
BASIC ASSUMPTIONS:
1. The whole system is greater that the sum of its parts.
2. The parts of a system are interconnected and
interdependent.
3. A system is either directly or indirectly affected by other
systems.
4. All systems have boundaries.
5. All systems need to maintain homeostasis and a state of
equilibrium.
SYSTEMS THEORY
- describes human behavior in terms of complex systems.
- helps us see the elements and dynamics of relationships
between people and group.
- According to this theory, families, couples and
organization members are directly involved in resolving
a problem even if it is an individual issue.
- Concerned with the structure of complex system, with a
special emphasis about how parts relate to each other
and to the whole system.
APPLICATION OF SYSTEMS THEORY
• Generally, they want to identify how a system functions
and what aspects of that system have a negative
impact on people.
• Social workers applying this theory look to fix or improve
the parts of the individual’s system that don’t work.
• When people come together for any purpose for a
period of time, a psychological boundary develops
around them and separates them from other people.
APPLICATION to GROUP WORK
• When people form a relationship or join a group, they
gradually become more dependent on each other and
must move, interact and change together because
their outcomes become connected.
• People are routinely changed by relationships, and
often act differently depending on the group milieu
around them.
• To monitor and understand our relationships and groups,
we need to shift our awareness to see beyond our own
needs to be able to see relational and/or group needs,
because this give us information about relationship or
group health.
• Systems theory also believes in the complementarity of
a system’s members
ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Focus of this theory
on the growth, development and potentialities of
human beings with the properties of their environments that
support or fail to support the expression of human potential -
Gitterman and Germain, 2008
Purpose
To maintain the social worker’s focus on the person-in-
environment context of a practice situation.
ECOLOGY
Focuses on the relationship between organisms and their
biological and physical environment.
ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Used to explain the way sociologists and social workers
should study the interactions of people and groups within social
and cultural environments.
the environment in which we must function is constantly
changing and that individuals, communities and whole societies
must adapt to these changes.
BASIC PRINCIPLES
1. Interdependence of networks.
 2. Individual strive for a good person: environment fit.
3. Cynical nature of ecological processes.
4. Non-linear
IMPORTANCE to SOCIAL WORK
• The ecological perspective suggests that problems of
clients are not a result of individual pathology, but rather
a product of a malfunctioning ecosystem.
Germain and Gitterman (1987)
• “People’s needs and predicaments are viewed as
outcomes of people-environment exchanges, not as
the products of personality alone.”
Gitterman and Germain (2008)
• describe how the ecological perspective goes away
from simple cause-and-effect
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
Purpose
To improve the social functioning of individuals by
helping them to understand better their inner thoughts and
conflicting feelings.
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
The psychodynamic explanations of behavior and its
approaches to change are based on the concept of
unconscious motivation and the belief that all behavior serves
some underlying and often hidden psychological purpose.
Recognizes the fundamental needs and drives, the difficulty
of controlling primitive drives, and the inner conflicts that arise in
meeting basic needs in a socially acceptable manner.
It postulates the operation of mental process – ego defense
mechanisms
EGO
Problem-solving and reality oriented part of personality
EGO SUPPORTIVE TREATMENT
interventions that maintain and enhance problem
solving and adjustment.
OBJECT RELATIONS
how current patterns of thinking, feeling and behavior
reflect, at an unconscious level.
APPLICATION TO SOCIAL WORK
• Within social work, the theoretical orientations known as
psychosocial therapy (Turner, 1978) and the problem-
solving approach (Perlman, 1957) have adapted
psychodynamic concepts to agency-based practice
and to the social work profession’s emphasis on viewing
the client within a situational and environmental context
• Clients who are highly motivated, verbal, and willing and
able to participate actively in a series of regularly
scheduled sessions
APPLICATION TO GROUP WORK
• learning how to cope with relationships while learning
about all the dysfunctional ways in which one has until
the present time
• Group leader: the therapist who sheds light on what is
happening to the group or to an individual members.
• Leader of the group is not the only therapist present.
Each member of the group can and does take on the
role of mental health healer.
a. nonconscious emotional processes shape interpersonal
behavior in groups
b. the lack of awareness of these processes inhibits
effective work in the group;
c. bringing such processes to members’ awareness will
help remove this inhibition
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
- explains human behavior in terms of continuous
reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral,
and environmental determinants and influences.
- Modeling, Imitation and Observation
- “Most human behavior is learned observationally
through modeling: from observing others, one forms an
idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later
occasions this coded information serves as a guide for
action.”
BACKGROUND of SLT
motivational factors and self-regulatory mechanisms which
contribute towards a individuals behavior, rather just
environmental factors.
 Several studies involving television commercials and
videos containing violent scenes have supported this
theory of modelling
GENERAL PRINCIPLES of SLT
1. Learning is not purely behavioral; rather it is a cognitive
process that takes place in a social context.
2. Learning can occur by observing a behavior and by
observing the consequences of the behavior (vicarious
reinforcement)
3. Learning involves observation, extraction of information
from these observations, and making decisions about
the performance of the behavior.
4. Reinforcement plays a role in learning but is not entirely
responsible for learning.
5. The learner is not a passive recipient of information.
Cognition, environment, and behavior all mutually
influence each other (reciprocal determinism)
PROCESS of SLT
• Motivation
People must be motivated to imitate or produce the
observed behavior.
APPLICATION TO GROUP WORK
• A group of almost similar characteristics facing the same
problems is helped out by a group worker.
• Group work itself is a process of social learning. Each
member of the group is a model in itself for the other.
• The social worker have to remain very careful while
applying social learning in a group worker practice as
every time individuals expose or model new behaviors
both positive and negative behaviors.
• The group worker controls the negative behaviors of the
group through modeling the outcomes of practicing
negative behaviors. When the group observes that
some specified negative behaviors are not rewarded
and appreciated, they are less likely to produce such
behavior.
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
CONSTRUCTIVISIM
People construct their own understanding and knowledge of the
world through experiences and reflection of those experiences
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
Culture and context impact understanding of what occurs in
society and constructing knowledge based on this
understanding.
Proponents of SCT
John Dewey
- “directed living”
- demonstrate their knowledge through creativity and
collaboration
Jerome Bruner
- Learning is an active, social process’ in which students
construct new ideas or concepts based on their current
knowledge.
Jean Piaget
- Construct knowledge through creating and testing
theories
Lev Vygotsky
- Learning through social interactions and relationships”
- “Learning through doing”
- “Interpretation, Articulation and Re-evaluation”
Major concepts
• Environment
• Realities
• Learning process
• Experience
• Reflection
• Exploration and discovery
Basic premises:
1. Individuals have their own reality and their own ways of
viewing the world
- An individual’s reality is created by the individual and no
other individuals has the same reality. As individuals
experience the world, and therefore mold their reality
accordingly, the individuals attempt to describe their
reality to others using words, either verbally or non-
verbally.
2. People are active participants in developing their own
knowledge of the world, rather than passive recipients of
stimulus-response interaction with their environment.
- Individuals do not create their view of reality on their
own, nor they become passive and allow society to
completely form their views. Rather, individuals
participate in this process of reality construction by
interacting with the environment and processing these
experience through their own cognition. (Individuals
realities are continually is changing and adapting to the
various experiences which they are encountering in their
life.
3. An individual’s reality and knowledge is placed in a
historical and cultural context; the reality is developed
through social interactions within these historical and
cultural context.
- Individuals experience and interpret the world, as well
as developed knowledge in meaning, based on the
current social processes and the current and beliefs of
their culture and subculture (takes place within a
historical and social context)
4. Language is used to express an individual’s reality
- Languages is the means by w/c individuals with their
own constructed reality, attempt to explain their reality
and attempt to understand others The meanings are
transmitted to others through language. People are
believed to interact with others and society, and assign
meaning and symbols to these types of interactions and
relationships
5. Reality is what “we” agree on; Truth is an agreement.
- Reality is what we agree on (where) the we can refer
unit as small or as large groups, Therefore truth is agreed
upon by individuals in which they specify that something
will be viewed in a particular way. The agreed upon truth
is usually determined by the dominant group within
culture.
A social constructivist approach to practice
• Greene and Lee (2002; Lee and Greene,2009) have
identified six (6) aspects or skills that would enable
a social worker to apply the basic premises of social
constructivism to practice.
1. Develop collaborative relationships with client
The social worker and client should maintain an egalitarian
relationship where the social worker is viewed as the expert who
is there to help the client by applying learned theoretical
knowledge to the client’s situation.
In fostering collaborative relationship the worker should
continually assess for clients strengths and resources which
reinforces the client as the experts and validates her or him as a
collaborative partner.
2. Focus on and work towards client-defined goals
Clients are less likely to be motivated to work towards
goals that are externally imposed on them versus working towards
goals which clients find relevant to their needs and situation
When goals are externally mandated, the social worker
and the client should participate in a dialogue where the client
and social worker acknowledge this goals as mandate and
attempt to have the client find routes to reach that goal which
are defined by and personally meaningful to the client.
3. Take a position of curiosity
This aspect specifies that the social worker can attempt
to discover the reality of the client by taking a position of curiosity
versus assuming the client’s version of reality.
The social worker should be genuine in pursuing the way
in which clients view their life, their problems, their strengths and
resources and their daily routine
4. Take a ‘not-knowing, non-expert’ position’
This approach should enable social workers to work
collaboratively with clients in attempting to understand their
reality and acknowledging that clients can teach the social
worker about their competencies, strengths, resources, problems
and solutions
Note: that this approach does not suggest that the
social worker should be passive when the client ask a question or
for an opinion, but rather the social worker should “give an honest
answer, as long as the social worker’s position is presented as one
of many possible ideas”
5. Learn and use the client’s language
In further validating the client as the expert in her or his
situation, the social worker should attempt to learn and use the
client’s language and meanings she or he gives the concepts.
6. Co- construct reality through dialogue
A social constructivist approach allows client to express
their reality and experiences in an attempt to help clients view
their realities as influenced by the dominant culture and
encourages clients to look at alternative interpretations of their
stories
IMPLICATIONS TO SOCIAL GROUP WORK
1. Constructing a New Reality
2. Let your client be the teacher
3. The “Many World’s” mindset
4. Client Self-Determination
5. Externalizing the Problem
 6. Collaboration of Ideas
NARRATIVE THEORY
Proponents
Michael White
• The originators of narrative theory for clinical practice
are Michael White and David Epston, who live in
Australia and New Zealand.
• Began collaborating in the 1980’s.
• Their best-known book is Narrative Means to Therapeutic
Ends (1990)
• Michael White was a former electrical and mechanical
draftsman and became a social worker in 1967.
• White, developed an interest in how people came to
understand their world and his major ideas for narrative
therapy evolved from this theme.
David Epston
• was a family therapist
• Epston was an excellent storyteller and is also known for
the innovative narrative techniques of letter writing,
resource collection that could be passed from one to
another, and the development of supportive
communities for person who are rewriting their personal
narratives.
“It was critically important for people to not label themselves as
“broken” or “the problem” or for them to feel powerless in their
circumstances & behavioral patterns”
Narrative theory
Major premise: all people are engaged in an ongoing process of
constructing a life story, or a personal narrative, that determines
their understanding of themselves and their position in the world.
Ultimate value : is empowering clients; helping them to gain
greater control over their lives and destinies.
Origins and social context
• These represent different approaches to the
understanding of human behavior and the nature of
change than we have considered so far
EXISTENTIALISM
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM
MULTICULTURALISM
POSTMODERNISM
1. Respect.
People participating in narrative therapy are
treated with respect and supported for the bravery it
takes to come forward and work through personal
challenges.
2. Non-Blaming.
There must be no blame placed on the client
as they work are through their stories and they are also
encourages to not place blame on others. Focus is
instead placed on recognizing and changing unwanted
and unhelpful thoughts and behavior.
3. Client as Expert.
Narrative therapists are not viewed as an
advice-giving authority but, rather, a collaborative
partner in helping clients grow and heal. Clients know
themselves well and exploring this information will allow
for a change in their thoughts and behaviors.
Nature of the individual
1. Personal experience is fundamentally ambiguous
Ambiguous meaning it cannot be easily understood
because it could mean many different ways to others.
2. People arrange their lives into stories to give meaning
For it to be understood it must be arranged in ways to
give them coherence and meaning
3. New experiences are filtered in or out of a story line
depending on whether they are consistent with the
ongoing life narrative
As we develop our self-concept we learn filter the
things the will serve us best and those that are not.
4. Life narratives are co-constructed with significant others
All stories are unique but they are shared at some
degree with others (family, community) and they reflect the
value systems of those communities. Individuals learn from
one another.
e.g. conforming to social standards
5. Cultural norms contribute significantly to life narratives
Our culture has huge contribution and impact on how
we think, act, and behave that most certainly shaped our
personality our life story.
e.g. Martin – cultural values influence one’s personal
narrative
6. Some story lines are dominant while others are
suppressed
The social worker helps the clients to give up stories that
are result of rigid narratives and encourages the client to
“envision”, or consider, alternate stories about both the past
and the future.
Through discussion and these other techniques the
social worker encourages the client to reauthor her life
story according to alternative and preferred stories of
identity.
7. People are capable of developing new, empowering
stories
earlier we mentioned that this theory believes on the
notion of the self as inherently fluid; therefore it is capable of
developing new stories including new senses of the self.
The role of the clinical social worker is to help clients
construct new life narratives that portray them in a different
, more positive or productive, light.
Major concepts
PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Any personal narrative includes a process of selective
perception.
These stories tend to be self-perpetuating because of
their habits of language, and also because of the influence of
cultural values that may impede alternative modes of thinking.
DECONSTRUCTION
It refers to the social worker and client’s analysis of the
client’s claims to knowledge and understanding in order to see
the underlying ideas that are manifested in surface complaints
Application to social group work
1. It helps clients view the problem as external to themselves,
rather than some intrinsic part of them;
2. It can assist them in developing compassion for themselves and
their own situations.
3. It helps them see how the problem affects their lives both in
negative and positive ways;
4. It presents the opportunity for the social worker and clients to
come up with alternate stories as a way for the client to envision
what his or her life might be like without the problem in question
5. Can be used to guide clients into discerning the causality that
led to the problem, which in turn can help inform their future
behavior.
 DIRECTIVE COUNSELING ADVANTAGES

E.G. Williamson  Time-saving

 born on August 14, 1900 in Rossville, Illinois
 received a B.A. degree from the University of Illinois in
1925 and his Ph. D. in psychology from the University of
Minnesota in 1931.
 a leader of student counseling and supported inclusion
of students’ ideas and opinions in the administration of
the University
 died on January 30, 1979
 Counsellor-centered: the counsellor direct the client to
take steps in order to resolve his conflicts
 Based on assumption that the client cannot solve his
own problems for lack of information
 Counsellor plays an important role; he tries to direct the
thinking of counselee by informing, explaining,
interpreting and advising
 Gives more importance to intellectual aspect than
emotional aspects
Features of Directive Counseling
Attention
is focused upon a particular problem and possibilities
for its solution
 Economic
 Organized
 Active participation of counsellor
DISADVANTAGES
 Counselee is dependent.
 Lead to new adjustment problem
 Attitude not developed by own experience
 Client commit mistakes in the future
CONCLUSION
 As the client was in need of some information regarding
his vocation, counselor provided that to the best of his
knowledge.
 He wanted to select a direction and the counselor
helped him in choosing that the counselor gave some
alternatives in the same line so that the client may be
able to select avocation according to his choice and
can choose a career
 During counseling, the counselor tried to explore the
reason for his choice of vocation, like why is he
motivated towards this job? Is his selection worthy and
genuine?

Prescriptive

Also called as prescriptive counselling

Decision

Client make the decision and counsellor see whether

the decision is keeping with the diagnosis

Dependent

Counselee work under the counsellor not with him

Role of the counsellor

Pivot

A leader of the situation

Direct

By informing, explaining and sometimes advising

Provide

Possible solutions of the problems of the client

Steps in directive counseling

ANALYSIS

Data is collected from a variety of sources for an

adequate understanding of the client

SYNTHESIS

Implies organizing and summarizing the data to find out

the assets, liabilities, adjustments and maladjustments of the client

DIAGNOSIS

Formulating conclusions regarding the nature of and

causes of the problems expressed by the client

PROGNOSIS

Estimating the future effect of the problem, what

happened if the problem continues

COUNSELING

Indicates taking steps by the counsellor with the client to

bring about adjustment in life

FOLLOW-UP

Implies helping and determining the effectiveness of the

counselling provided to the client