Poverty, social work, and radical incrementalism: Current developments of the poverty‐aware paradigm

In: Social policy and administration, Band 56, Heft 7, S. 1090-1102

Abstract

AbstractFacing the growing domination of neoliberalism and new public management in welfare services, social work scholars and practitioners are engaged in efforts to resist it. Using Schram's concept of radical incrementalism, this article describes and analyzes the development of the Poverty‐Aware Paradigm (PAP) in Israel in light of this resistance. The PAP is a critical framework that focuses on poverty as a central axis of the analysis of power relations between service users and social workers. Since 2015, when the Israeli welfare ministry adopted the PAP as a leading model for social work practice in the social service departments, the paradigm has had a surprisingly warm reception, and its implementation has been extended to the health and justice systems as well as to additional welfare ministry units. The article discusses these developments as examples of 'radical incrementalism' that is, strategies of resisting neoliberalism by collaborating with the establishment to 'bend' the power of the state to benefit marginalized groups. The article analyzes the contribution of specific elements of the PAP‐its dialectic process of bottom‐up and top‐down development; its discursive contribution; its organizational framework; and its training model. Finally, the article discusses the radical nature of the PAP.