This research study investigates self-identified feminist social workers??? conceptualizations of spirituality, how spirituality influences their practices, and their ideas about the effects of spiritually influenced practice. There is increasing interest in exploring and considering spirituality across social work approaches, accompanied by a strong demand for empirical research and the development of knowledge in this area. The past few years in particular have witnessed an expanding social work literature that discusses the incorporation of spirituality into practice. In this thesis spirituality refers to a complex construct that can be deeply personal and/or communal, and that can encompass a sense of connection with something bigger that transcends ordinary life experience. In order to examine spirituality in the context of feminist social work practice, the goals of this study needed to be exploratory and demanded the use of a qualitative methodology. In-depth individual interviews were conducted with twenty experienced direct practice social workers. Grounded theory analysis of the interview data uncovered surprising and significant convergences amongst research participants??? beliefs, values and practices. These unexpected commonalities invited a further analysis of the data that produced a set of practice principles. These practice principles reflected the participants??? understandings of spirituality and basic values, their ideas about processes of spiritual development and beliefs about the spiritual essence of human life, and their spiritually influenced practice methods and relationships. The process of developing practice principles included further data collection through the written feedback of participants and the use of three focus groups. This second round of data collection and analysis extended and refined the practice principles. The practice principles are particularly relevant for social work because they are based in the participants??? collective practice wisdom and represent an important step towards helping to legitimize spiritual knowledge. The practice principles also have important implications for social work practice, education and research in that they can promote discussions about spirituality, guide practice, provide a base for the future development of spiritually influenced models and frameworks, and direct curriculum development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/258177 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Coholic, Diana, School of Social Work, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Social Work |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Diana Coholic, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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