Social Work Leaders' Historical Democratic Discourse during Times of National Crisis

Background: The public discourse of social work leaders includes public and professional speeches, peer-reviewed articles, pamphlets, radio addresses, and congressional testimony. It is intended to inform, direct, and communicate with elected decision-makers, the profession, and society at large and is a powerful social work practice. In fact, during times of democratic crisis, social work luminaries have constructed visions of justice and social responsibility by launching, defending, and promoting democratic discourses. The Progressive Era, Great Depression, and Civil Rights Era provide examples of such discourses resulting in significant social reform legislation that promoted democratic ethics. The COVID-19 pandemic and economic emergency situated within the neoliberal era of welfare state retrenchment represents another democratic crisis. How will the United States amend and reconstruct its welfare state? What can current social work leaders learn from the discourse of their predecessors in order to construct compelling social responsibility arguments for today’s democratic crisis?

Methods: A framework of democratic ethics were derived from signature political philosophy works and debates. Democratic tenets included: human dignity, freedom, autonomy, equality, human capacity, moral contemplation of others, political recognition, political self-rule, public deliberation, and citizenship rights. Using this framework, a discourse analysis was conducted employing a multiple-stage design. First, within three eras of crisis, social work leaders were identified: members of presidential administrations, leaders of social work associations, directors of civil society organizations, and authors. Second, social work venues were searched. For the Progressive Era (1890-1920): Conference of Charities and Corrections; Great Depression (1929-1939): radio addresses, congressional testimony, Conference of Social Work, Social Service Review, Social Work Today; Civil Rights Era (1950-1970): Conference on Social Welfare, Social Work. Third, selected text referenced significant national social welfare policy and advocacy and discourse that included explicit discussion of democratic tenets. Combined, 14 consequential texts of 13 social work leaders (Addams, Kelley, Lathrop, Taylor, Abbott, van Kleeck, Perkins, Hopkins, Reynolds, Granger, Young, National Association of Black Social Workers, and Silcott) were thematically analyzed.

Results: Progressive Era: democracy is envisioned as state demonstrating social responsibility for children and mothers. Reformers used stories to humanize and emphasize people’s dignity and capacities. They urged public deliberation to understand social conditions and modeled moral contemplation of others. Great Depression: democratic human dignity, autonomy and capacity building are linked with employment and social responsibility. Citizenship’s economic rights to participate in capital’s decisions to avert exploitation were claimed. Democratic professional conscience emerges critically reflecting on others’ moral worthiness, prioritizing clients’ needs over funders’ interests. Civil Rights Era: combines democratic discourses of persons’ recognition and full participation. Democratic discourses of justice through opportunities, capacity-building, and reparations/compensatory rights emerge. Demonstration-as-discourse enacted democratic ethos of full inclusion. Black social workers contend cannot authentically help people without engaging their political claims. Social workers called to strengthen moral contemplation and resist pressures to dehumanize and exploit clients.

Conclusions and Implications: Historically, some social work leaders elevated democratic discourses to advance socially just U.S. welfare state policies during democratic crises. Social work leaders today should likewise engage these discourses during the current democratic crises.