A Content Analysis of Social Work Publications in Select Journals during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background & Purpose: Social work (SW) research is instrumental in guiding the profession’s response to pandemics and disasters. SW publications directly impact SW education, interventions, policies, and practitioners. Failure to identify the gaps in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic risks the probability of responding to another pandemic unprepared and ill-equipped. This research aims to identify what issues emerged in select SW journals at micro, mezzo, and macro levels during the pandemic to identify themes the SW profession surmised important.

Methods: An interpretative content analysis was utilized for the study. A multi-stage purposeful sampling process was employed to select journals and articles published during the pandemic between March 11, 2020, and March 11, 2022. Inclusion criteria were 12 of the most influential SW journals (Hodge et al., 2012) and the journal having published at least one issue during the period. The articles published in the select journals relevant to the pandemic were identified with “COVID-19,” “pandemic,” or “emergency.” One hundred four articles were first identified, of which 10 were removed as they did not speak directly to the pandemic, leaving a total sample of 94 articles. Data analysis was completed in two phases using NVIVO. In the first phase, articles were discreetly deductively coded at micro, mezzo, and macro levels of practice based on the research aim/purpose. The second level of inductive coding identified issues (research problem formulation) within each level of practice. Similar issues emerged across levels of practice, and dialogical reasoning elicited themes.

Results: The first phase of coding showed that most studies (42 articles) focused on micro practice compared to macro practice (37 articles) and mezzo practice (15 articles). The second phase of coding yielded that the most researched issue across the levels of practice was the impact of the pandemic. The second phase issues were further classified into either reflective or innovative in their scope, with reflective being the more common. Reflective pieces examined the experiences of individuals, families, students, and educators. Innovative articles described adaptive strategies and resources for SW practitioners, educators, students, and governing bodies to improve services.

Conclusions: Findings from the first phase demonstrate that SW scholarship during the pandemic approached the pandemic through the micro lens, which may be attributed to a larger, individualistic, inward-looking trend within SW scholarship. The limited number of mezzo studies may be due to difficulty defining mezzo SW, less attention to group work in scholarship, and difficulty studying groups. The second level of findings showcased adaptive innovations that emerged with best practices and guidelines for field education, curriculum, competencies, and pedagogy to prepare social workers. These findings are vital for leading SW researchers in shifting the focus and power of scholarship to unidentified or understudied issues among all practice levels.

Reference

Hodge, D. R., Lacasse, J. R., & Benson, O. (2012). Influential publications in social work discourse: The 100 most highly cited articles in disciplinary journals: 2000–09. British Journal of Social Work, 42(4), 765-782.