Teaching social work is teaching to ask questions: an inter-subjective approach to social work practice

摘要

This article describes a method for teaching students of social work the basic skills of a self-reflective professional. It is widely used in schools of social work in German-speaking countries. It renounces normative models of 'good practice'. Rather, it tries to give students tools to analyse their own first steps into practice. It teaches them to 'read' or rather reconstruct their own case stories and to understand their implicit assumptions: What is this case about? Dealing with whom (which clients)? Relevant and a responsibility for whom? Teaching students to read between the lines of their own texts is regarded as a way to make them understand the inter-subjective dimension of social work. It is more than an objective task needing technical skills. It is dealing with ambiguity and conflicts always including social workers themselves. Professional competence is not just about problem-solving capability. It includes an ability to question already given answers, and to work through the insecurity linked to this questioning.