Little is known about the education on ethics in social work schools in Greece. From a review of the social work schools‟ curricula, only two out of the four have a course for the social work ethics, which is held for one semester, one hour a week. In addition, no school has a course on critical practice. Importantly, the course book in the social work school where the group interview was held that is given to students is not about social work ethics, but for ethics in psychotherapy.
In fact, the title of the book is “Basic Principles of Deontology in Psychotherapy”. The book contains ethical issues raised during the relationship between the therapist and the client, including issues of dual-relationships, confidentiality, prejudices of the therapist and its unethical influence in the relationship. The appendix contains the code of ethics of the American Association of the Psychologists and the code of ethics of the British Association of Psychologists. Although, notes with the code of ethics of the Hellenic Association of Social Workers (HASW) and the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) are also provided to students. Evidently the social work education on ethics lacks any specialized academic knowledge on social work ethics in relation to the special nature and identity of the profession.
More importantly, the course does not support students understanding of social work‟s identity and its ambiguities, but also turns the profession into a psychotherapeutic enterprise and may encourage social workers for engagement with individualistic values and ethics rather than collective ones such as social justice.
Key issues for social work academics emerged in their described ethical dilemmas in their role placement supervisors. These findings are important in order to understand how hospital practitioners are prepared to deal with the ethical challenges of the profession. Practice learning has been always an important part of social work education in Greece. Therefore, students become ethically informed not only through the theoretical course on ethics in their schools, but through their involvement in practice realities. Students witness the ways that ethical dilemmas
are dealt by their supervisors and learn from their attitude and actions. In fact, five hospital social workers argued that social work school remain distant from practice realities and questioned the ability of schools to effectively prepare students for practice. This issue was brought up in the group interview so as to deepen this understanding by exploring academics‟ perception. Although academics appeared to be opposed to hospital social workers‟ perception about the distance between theory and practice, in some instances they seemed to make ethical decisions without involving the students in ethical analysis of cases.
Interestingly, academics described similar ethical dilemmas with those of hospital social workers.
The ethical challenges when social workers had to deal with power relationships were the prominent issues in their descriptions of ethical dilemmas. Importantly, the way that academics perceived power relationships appeared to construct the individualistic character of social work practice and emphasized their lack of engagement with the collective purposes of the profession.
The sections below describe the above issues in more detail.
6.1.1 Social theory versus social work practice
As mentioned above, five hospital social workers argued that when they started to practice they were faced with practice related difficulties and obstacles that where never mentioned in their training. The social work academics shared a different interpretation on this issue. Yianna seemed to argue that the personality of the social worker and their personal values were as important for their preparation as anything that could be taught in schools. In particular, she said:
I don‟t believe that it is only a matter of preparation from social work schools, it has to do with the personal values that each person has, and their psychological maturity. These things also affect how the social worker will react when some issues come up. Besides, education can not prepare students for everything.
Yianna further defined what she meant by “psychologically mature”. She specifically made reference to a textbook used in the department that defines this as a developmental process through which a person “flies the nest”, but maintaining a close relationship with their relatives.
The aim of this process was to enable a person to establish a condition of differentiation, autonomy and self-existent individualization (Johnson, 1998). Importantly, the emphasis here was on individualism rather than any notion of collectivism.
Anna also believed that the social worker‟s personality was the most important factor in managing practice issues. In particular, she determined that if a social worker had a “powerful personality”
and had a valuable six month social work in a placement, they would have the ability to deal with any difficulties in their practice. In contrast, Georgia reflected on her practice twenty years ago.
She agreed that she was faced with difficulties that she had never imagined as a student, and conceded that unavoidably students are not pressured by the real conditions. As such, Georgia suggested that without in-depth exploration of ethical dilemmas students would not be pushed to make decisions.
Overall, social work academics appeared to identify one‟s personal values with those of the profession‟s. In fact, they seemed to believe that once one became a social worker his/her personal values were identical to those of the profession. In that sense, practicing in accordance with personal values was consistent with practicing in accordance with professional values. In addition, the powerful personality appeared to be a virtue for the good professional. These findings were consistent with the perception of hospital social workers about the determinant role of personal values in the ethical social work practice. And finally, the social work academics appeared to challenge the significance of social work education in the formation of the competent or effective social worker. They all seemed to believe that the personality of a social worker, and specifically the ability to be autonomous, differentiated, and powerful, alongside appropriate personal values, were the factors that determined the good social worker.
6.1.2 Social work students and practice learning
Yianna described an ethical dilemma which she claimed was often raised by her undergraduate social work students who practised in an elementary school. Students argued that teachers forced them to deal with the daily educational program of the pupils and practice as teachers, whilst not offering opportunities to develop social work skills and their professional identity. In particular, social work students complained that teachers do not acknowledge the social work identity and expect them to have advanced teaching skills so as to help them in their educational program. Yianna argued that these types of situations often ended up with conflict between students and teachers, and she would need to intervene to again clarify that social work students in training did “other things” than teach. However, Yianna did not demonstrate any effort to present and discuss the social work role in schools. She implied that teachers should give
thought to her argument that social workers just do “other things”. Not surprisingly, Yianna stated that teachers do not seem to understand the social work role and identity in schools.
Interestingly, Yianna commented that she often did not tell her students about these conflicts with teachers, although students and their role in schools was so often challenged. She justified this decision by arguing that students were inflexible at times and they took any disagreements personally. Yianna said:
It is a matter of technique. I usually decide to hush it up. If someone insults them or says that they did not perform well, I keep it secret and I tell them that the issue is closed. However, if sometimes the issue is raised by the students, for example when someone insulted them or did not speak to them, we‟ll discuss it. Of course I am trying to reduce the tension when I judge that this is for the benefit of the students .I will reduce the severity of the incident and I will say to them that “these things happen”.
They are colleagues from another discipline. They some times believe that you, as students, are not here to do whatever they want, we explain to them, but we say that this case is closed.
Although Yianna labeled such cases as ethical dilemmas, she appeared to have no dilemma on ethical grounds. Instead, she appeared to stereotype students as being “inflexible”. More importantly, she decided to hide from students the conflicts with teachers, and she seemed to not use such dilemmas as an educational process for ethical decision-making. Moreover, Yianna appeared to manipulate students‟ perception about what was or was not important to focus or act on. In fact, she explicitly referred to herself as being certain to know and act for the “benefit of the students”, whilst she seemed to take a rather unconscious decision to hinder students by letting them decide on their own what was the best solution for them. Interestingly too, although she made a personal decision to “close this case”, she used “we” to indicate a collective decision between the students and herself.
Yianna also appeared to ignore the power relationship between students and teachers and the consequent conflicts. Although students appeared to be exploited by the teachers and forced to lose the sense of their professional identity Yianna appeared to make no effort to teach them how to emancipate themselves. Importantly, although Yianna was able to identify this situation as ethically problematic the absence of the critical approach was what framed her attitude towards this ethical dilemma.
What also emerged from the above illustration was that the social work identity and role in school placements was not very well defined. Although the role of social workers in schools has been defined and legitimated by a law since 1978 no public school in Greece employs social workers (Stathopoulos, 1999). Yet, some schools of social work collaborate with specific public schools to place students. It is not surprising that social work remained confusing to teachers and vulnerable to arbitrary definitions of its identity. Moreover, social workers both in hospitals and schools are not the key professionals. This means that social workers in a secondary role have less decision-making power or other influence. In this context, social work students although with limited authority, power, knowledge and experience, were left to defend the contribution of the profession within public schools. And, in terms of the role of the social work supervisor, Yianna indicated that she handled these situations with as little intervention as possible.
Another main issue that was discussed in the group interview was an ethical dilemma mentioned by Anna, who was supervising a placement in a local Borough. The issue was raised by her students that they felt used by some administrators who made decisions and presented student‟s work as their own in order to gain personal benefits and support their status. Anna described that after discussing this issue in supervision, she and the students decided to have a meeting with the mayor and the administrators of the Borough board to make a complaint. She argued that community development should be based on values such as transparency, collectivity, and group decision-making processes. She also indicated that during the meeting she defended these values and argued that social workers were tied to these values, and could only function according to them. Anna said that her dilemma was that the undemocratic processes did not fit social work‟s values, they should not compromise, and the placement setting be closed for students. On the other hand, Anna argued that this decision would mean that social work students would no longer work with a vulnerable social group (i.e. gypsies) to promote social belonging. But because of student anger and her own lack of time or energy to deal with the situation, the final outcome remained outstanding.
Anna further stated that she could personally deal with this situation if she had the time and the energy to work individually with each of the members of the Board and “manipulate” them. She mentioned group theory and the greater power that one group has in contrast with individuals who had not formed a group to support opinion or ideas. In that sense, she argued that if she had the time she would see these people individually to “break” their power. Anna said that this case was still under negotiation as the mayor claimed that he could not accept the students‟ arguments
that denigrated his colleagues. What was important to note in this case was Anna‟s thinking about how she would deal with the ethical dilemma if she was willing to devote some time to dealing with this case. Particularly, she demonstrated that she would challenge the undemocratic procedures, not with ethical justifications, but by manipulating the power of the group that fostered undemocratic procedures in the Borough.
This argument contradicts the ways that ethical dilemmas are perceived by ethic theories. In particular, ethical dilemmas are perceived as a part of a broader discourse on ethics and should be dealt with by opening a “pure moral discourse” in which ethical rules or values are openly challenged (Clifford and Burke, 2005; Hugman, 2003; Clifford, 2002). Anna seemed to have been certain of what was or was not democratic, and demonstrated no effort to engage herself in discussion with members of the Borough to challenge her own thinking and perception about the case. Instead, she appeared to see a discussion with the members of the Borough as a matter of power and she seemed to be only concerned with how she could manipulate their power.
Georgia commented that it was good that her colleague referred to social work values because this would function educationally for the students to build a capability to resist “institutional authority and power”. Georgia also argued that social workers never agree with authority, and they must build strong personalities and have sufficient knowledge to avoid being absorbed by the system (e.g. defining their own rules and boundaries). A stereotypical image of the social work profession emerged from these comments. Georgia said that “social workers are always opposed to the authority”, possibly because she perceived authority, by definition, as being unethical. She claimed that organizations that employed social workers should permit them to define their own purposes and roles. Georgia‟s claim about professional autonomy, in conjunction with her perception about the non-ethical behaviour of “authority”, implied that social work‟s values, ethics or purposes should remain unchallengeable. Georgia also seemed to believe that social workers should defend their professional autonomy despite the profession maintaining a low status and its identity confusing to the majority of Greek citizens (Dedoussi et al., 2004;
Pediaditaki, 2003).
Yianna supported Anna‟s opinion that she should cancel this placement, as she believed that since it is an educational program “we should not educate students to bow their heads”. However, she also argued that if social work students were qualified and employed in a similar organization they would probably not have the “benefit” of leaving their jobs, something they can do as