ART OF SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE FIS

Knowledge Social Tacit and CodifiedPin Work: A Critique of Standard ization 'in Education and Practice Emilia E. Martinez-Brawley &zPaz M-B. Zorita

ABSTRACT Professional social work education has had a long trajectory in the United States. The nature of knowledge, its dissemination, and the way in which it shapes the expectations of professionals have changed through the years. The structure and standards for professional programs have been molded according to those changes. This article examines the progression of social work education, from preparation for a cause or an artistic undertaking, based primarily on tacit knowledge, to preparation for a technological undertaking or market endeavor, which requires codified knowledge. The connection between educational standards and ways of thinking and knowing is also explored. The authors propose that standardization and homogenization in social work education detract from a more creative and imaginative practice, which has been a valuable hallmark of social work.

rofessional social work education has had a long trajectory in the United States. Throughout the decades, the nature of knowledge, how it is viewed and transmitted, and how it shapes the goals and expectations of professional practice have changed; thus, the structure and standards for professional programs have been molded with the times. This article will examine the progression of social work from preparation for a cause or an artistic undertaking, based primarily on tacit knowledge, to preparation for a technological undertaking or market endeavor, which requires codified knowledge (Saviotti, 1998). Our concern is that professionals and students today are generally exposed only to a technocratic modus operandi that ignores "the frequency with which certain events have occurred in the past," in other words, ignores the historical experience, the artistic elements (Goldstein, 1999; Martinez-Brawley, 2001), and all those dimensions that constitute tacit knowledge in social work. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 534

Additionally, they are often constrained by single methods and single ways to arrive at solutions. As Goldstein aptly put it, As a product of Western thought and education, I shared with my professional colleagues the Cartesian belief that, with proper adjustment of one's mind and method, dependable if not final truths could be achieved. I have since learned that such understanding-the ability to gain a firm grasp of reality-is neither possible nor necessary for good social work practice.(Goldstein, 1999, p. 385) An excellent example of the method dilemma, not in social work but in physics, was offered by Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986): The physicist Richard Feynman had trouble getting his views accepted in the scientific community of physicists because colleagues could not accept how he got his answers: I

www.familiesinsociety.org

I

DOI: 10.1606/1044-3894.3675

02007 Alliance for Children and Families

Martinez-Brawley &Zorita I Tacit and Codified Knowledge in Social Work: A Critique of Standardization in Education and Practice

The reason Dick's physics was so hard for the ordinary physicist to grasp was that he did not use equations [codified knowledge].... He had a physical picture of the way things happened, and the picture gave him

the solutions directly with a minimum of calculation [tacit knowledge]. It was no wonder that people who had spent their lives solving equations were baffled by him. Their minds were analytical; his was pictorial. (Dreyfus &Dreyfus, 1986, p. 150-151) The same thing occurs in socialwork today. Often, practitioners who are successful in their interventions are asked to develop protocols or blueprints that could facilitate the duplication of the intervention in large scale. The assumption is that they are operating from an analytical or atomistic framework. But, these practitioners might be arriving at solutions using faculties, intuition, or imagination that defy analysis and thus, standardization. (Analysis here is used in the sense of dividing the object into its components, and standardizationis assumed to be based on analysis.) In other words, they are using the equivalent of Feynman's "pictorial" frameworks, which are holistic. Finally, this article also examines the connection between educational standards and ways of thinking and knowing. We discuss how social work education today overemphasizes the scientific dimensions of practice, while minimizing the artistic, inventive, and holistic perspectives. Current thinking emphasizes mass scale solutions; technocratic solutions are based on predictable reoccurrence. To solve technological problems, rules are very helpful because they permit repetition across differing contexts. But, in educating professionals, standards based on predictability, though undeniably an important and useful aspect of professionalization, obscure the nonpredictable dimensions of human behavior and decrease the ability of social work to rely on contextual knowledge and foster creativity and inventiveness. To set standards, the profession must rely on codified knowledge, not on the more subtle dimensions of tacit knowledge. Furthermore, in the application, educational standards often get away from being sensible guidelines and become the Procrustean bed. Global (worldwide) standards, in particular, can be corrosive to different contexts and cultures; they rely on a homogeneity of environments that does not exist. In this respect, social work might be unwittingly supporting homogeneity in spite of its stated commitment to heterogeneity and diversity.

Tacit and Codified Knowledge: Their Place in Social Work The distinction between tacit and codified knowledge has

many implications for understanding how social work education arrived at its present ethos. Consequently, it

might be worthwhile, at the outset, to sketch some useful interpretations of what constitutes tacit and codified knowledge, also referred to as "articulated knowledge" (Senker, 1998). Tacit knowledge, simply stated, is that which flows spontaneously from an intimate and sympathetic acquaintance with the object to be known. In this sense, knowledge is an "indwelling" or is "incarnate" in the knower (Polanyi, 1969, p. 134). Philosophers have for centuries debated the nature of tacit and codified knowledge, but it was Polanyi who made it central to the philosophy of knowledge. He suggested that many exploratory acts of discovery are motivated by "passion" or belief in "causes"; that is, they are acts charged with strong personal meanings and commitments (Polanyi, 1966), thus the term personal knowledge. In social work, the early pioneers, who were strongly committed to social causes, passionately searched for truth and understanding to improve the conditions of the poor. Pioneers such as Jane Addams, Grace and Edith Abbott, Julia Lathrop, Jacob Riis, Dorothea Dix, Mary Richmond, Josephine Chapin Brown, Mattie Cal Maxted, and hundreds of others exemplify this search (Trattner, 1986). Through their searches, they became connoisseurs who "knew much more than they could tell" (Polanyi, 1967, p. 4). Tacit knowledge was their m6tier; it was heuristic and existed within individuals. Tacit knowledge was the substance through which social work pioneers practiced their art, emphasizing contextual wisdom. Tacit knowledge, which by definition is embodied in particular individuals-among whom Jane Addams was a prime example-resembled a private good, a personal talent or capability. (Saviotti, 1998). Yet, it would be a mistake to assume that the pioneers' knowledge was of a lower order or nontransmissible. On the contrary, they were serious researchers and master teachers, skilled at involving all faculties in their efforts at discovery. The drawback was that tacit knowledge could not be easily communicated or transferred to many others unless the individuals possessing it moved to different environments and personally demonstrated it. Yet, for years, tacit knowledge based on intuition, informed hunches, and years of experience was successfully transmitted. For example, the experience and tradition of "beginning where the client is" became a dictum or axiom and, at -some level, a codified practice principle. Codified knowledge took roots when individuals and organizations became concerned with communicating what they knew to ever-increasing numbers of novices. Transferring knowledge through the imitation of models or masters was no longer viewed as economic or, more important, as the sign of a maturing profession. The need to transfer and market information gave impetus to efforts to tighten up the loose-fitting elements of an art. Furthermore, when social work began to develop very specific functions and establish a market claim within

535

FAMILIES IN SOCIETY I Volume 88, No. 4

that specific area of knowledge, the need for codification became more entrenched. As Freidson (2001) stated, "in the most elementary sense, professionalism is a set of institutions which permit the members of an occupation to make a living while controlling their own work [read market]" (p. 17). Through professionalization, social workers wanted to preserve exclusivity over an area of knowledge and enhance the status of their endeavors. This necessitated training and induction into the codes. Knowledge of the codes would provide the way to distinguish between outsiders and insiders of the profession. The keys to the gates of professional heaven would then remain in the hands of those who had been trained to open them. In other words, practitioners would be required to successfully complete an educational process as their formal induction. Codification would make knowledge easier to communicate and disseminate through training. As the number of individuals seeking training increased, social work's reliance on articulated rather than tacit knowledge also increased. Articulated knowledge, it was found, could be more readily packaged for the many because it relied on protocols-formulaic or quasi-formulaic interpretations that could be reproduced and disseminated easily. To use the example of the development of social work in the United States during the first half of the 20th century and beyond, social work was primarily reliant on tacit knowledge transmitted through a strong apprenticeship by individuals who modeled different approacheswhether based on biomedical, sociological, or psychological discourses (Healy, 2005). When social workwas heavily influenced by the psychodynamic tradition circa 1940, for example, what master teachers and practitioners aimed to achieve were insights and revelations that were arrived at through client observations or their own therapeutic experiences. Those who were more influenced by the discourses of sociology or economics also endeavored to arrive at very contextual generalizations, to the point of inhabiting the spaces they were studying. Witness, for example, the social reformers of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s such as Norman Thomas, Robert Hunter, Dorothy Day, Frances Perkins, Lillian Wald, and Mary Ovington, among others (Brawley, 2007; Crocker, 1992; Sklar, 1995), all of whom resided among the poor. These individuals focused on just those matters on which evidence was accumulated through life experience, through the behaviors they repeatedly engaged in and the morals they drew from their engagement with others. Consequently, the authenticity of their observations and conclusions was enhanced. The problems sociology studied, Mannheim suggested, particularlyAmerican sociology, arose "from the immediate necessities of everyday life. They assumed the form of convergent planning and concerted action" (Mannheim, 1953, p. 186). As we shall see, the situation began to change in later decades.

536

Professional and Academic Thinking: Two Paradigms In a study of the practice narratives of social workers in Italy, Fargion (2006) documented two types of thinking that govern practitioners' reflections: the "romantic" and the "enlightenment" Fargion observed that some practitioners described their work in terms of recurrent patterns but not necessarily predictable steps. They tended not to mention structured patterns as ways of working. She labels this the romantic style, which appears to be closely related to what has been called the postmodern, humanistic, or artistic paradigm (Martinez-Brawley & Zorita, 1998). This paradigm does not emphasize rule setting but the interaction between the workers and the environment, as well as between the workers and the recipients of the service. Fargion stated that romantic practitioners tend not to portray their practice in normative terms (p. 262). They emphasize the artistry of doing and are heuristic in their visions. On the other hand, other practitioners tend to describe the work process as stable with a rather fixed sequence, a structure which they always follow. Phases or steps are connected to one another by reasons of logical principles: something must be done before the next step can be taken. Accounts appear as coherent and illustrative of a structure which is pre-established. (Fargion, 2006, p. 261) Fargion called this second style enlightenment thinking, which would be closely related to what has also been called the scientific paradigm and emphasizes rule setting and rule following to achieve predictability. It is squarely based on codified knowledge, and in transmitting it, social workers would strive to achieve regularities and theoretical explanations. Fargion (2006) offered some additional characteristics of enlightenment thinking. She suggested that practice is organized by abstract rules, with frequent reference to specialists. Most important, she added, intervention is driven by evaluation. On the other hand, in romantic thinking, "rules derive from actual practice; understanding is based on what emerges in the interaction and the whole work is perceived as an intervention" (p. 269). It is generally acknowledged that enlightenment thinking represents the model of practice promoted by those who are concerned with the ever-increasing status aspirations of the profession. In the United States, enlightenment thinking is vehemently espoused by the gatekeepers, that is, the faculties in control of the induction of novices into the profession (Martinez-Brawley, 2001). As Freidson (2001) commented, professional schooling "is the authoritative source establishing the legitimacy of the practical work activities of the occupation's members,

Martinez-Brawley &Zorita I Tacit and Codified Knowledge in Social Work: A Critique of Standardization in Education and Practice

and it is the primary source of the status of its members and their personal, public, and official identities" (p. 84). Faculties stress articulated knowledge and codification, but the dilemma is that those who practice feel that their experiences are being undervalued. For academics, romantic thinking evokes the image of the anti-intellectual social worker, operating on the basis of incoherent, commonsensical assumptions ... in an anarchic and individualistic

way..., an advocate of "heart" (rather than "head") work..., and whose practice is a-scientific and asystematic (Fargion, 2006, p. 270). Unfortunately, this bias seems to be spreading in the industrial or developed world, as social work strives for recognition in the halls of the academy. Ways of knowing that had always coexisted with one another, if not happily, at least with a level of harmony, have been transformed into quarreling paradigms, one of which ends up dominating the academic and professional discourse and value system. This is most pointedly apparent in the United States, where advanced levels of professionalization have been reached, with concomitant high levels of standard setting and prescription for both practice and education.

Knowledge, Thinking, and Standards in Social Work Education Today Picking up the history of social work education in the United States, Beless commented: Social work education in the United States traces its roots to 1898, when the New York Charity Organization Society offered a summer training course for charity workers. During the next two decades, social work education became more formal and systematic. (1995. p. 635)

By 1919, there were 17 schools that had organized into the Association of Training Schools for Professional Social Work, a precursor of the American Association of Schools of Social Work (AASSW), which by 1927 required educational standards for membership in the organization. By 1935, schools were required to be affiliated with universities. By 1939, a 2-year graduate curriculum had been mandated, and when the National Association of Schools of Social Administration (NASSA), a rival of the AASSW, wanted to issue undergraduate degrees, a major schism between the two occurred. The idea of who could be a professional was bitterly debated: Must every social worker have a graduate degree, or would an undergraduate education suffice? How would such a professional be trained? At what level? Would the content of the courses draw primarily from the

psychological or the social sciences? Even at that early date, a biomedical and psychological approach was already dominant. In 1952, when after a lengthy study, a commission recommended the merger of the AASSW and the NASSA into a single body, the resulting association, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), was charged with the responsibility of setting educational standards and accrediting only master's degree programs. The process of standardization had taken hold, and from there on, rules and prescriptions for educational practices began to flatten differences among the various schools for good and ill. It was not until 1974 that undergraduate education, that is, the first 4 years of college leading to a baccalaureate degree, became acceptable and accredited. Standards were then set for both levels of preparation. Social work education today is governed by standards that assure compliance with a basic set of professional principles, codes, and know-how. These standards are based, primarily, on codified knowledge, enlightenment thinking, rule setting, and order. Social work education is governed by a complex formulaic manual or set of rules that translate the "codes" and privileges a way of thinking about education and practice. It is not that the codes themselves are not valuable, or that scientific principles or enlightenment thinking are not useful. The problem is that when codified knowledge becomes the only paradigm, it curtails creativity and inventiveness in the way professionals approach their world and results in tacit knowledge being underused. If only one way of thinking or one paradigm is allowed, even the best paradigm can become corrupt. In codified knowledge, the transmission of knowledge relies on prescriptions, not on reflection. The codes allow professionals to resolve discreet problems. Codified knowledge prescribes not only solutions but the definition of the problems, and it does not permit the professional to "design" solutions in the way Dewey (1916, 1933) or Schbn (1983, 1987) suggested. Codified knowledge relies on and is constrained by "habituated thoughts and processes" (Wilkinson, 1999, p. 36)-lenses that spring from such processes constraining an open vision. Dewey pointed out that progressive communities "endeavor to shape the experiences of the young so that instead of reproducing current habits, better habits shall be formed, and thus the future adult society be an improvement on their own" (Dewey, 1916, p. 92). Dewey's words are applicable not only to the young but also to successive generations of professionals. If professional education endeavors to develop improvement in successive generations, then it should encourage creativity beyond habituated thoughts and processes. Schbn advanced that "if we see professional knowledge in terms of fact, rules, and procedures applied non-problematically to instrumental problems, we will see the

537

FAMILIES IN SOCIETY I Volume 88, No.4

practicum in its entirety as a form of technical training" (Sch6n, 1987, p. 39). If, on the other hand, we follow the

way in which practitioners "sometimes make new sense of uncertain, unique or conflicted situations of practice, then we will assume neither that existing professional knowledge fits every case nor that every problem has the right answer" (p. 39). Lymbery (2003) worried that because "the political climate has not supported social work, it has forced the profession into a narrow, reactive, residual model" (p. 103). He further comments that the wholesale adoption of a competence-based model for social work education can be seen as a combination of a desire to have a more publicly understood measure of the ability of social workers, the need to produce employees capable of functioning to the requirements of employers and the increased

levels of managerial control both of social work practice and education (Lymbery, 2003, p. 103). Research findings are seen by management as providing evidence "that research can identify specific interventions that 'work; enabling unproblematic connections between assessment and intervention" (Hall, Slembrouk, & Sarangi, 2006, p. 165). This is very much the ethos of the incessant search for "best practices?' But sadly, these new research and management paradigms have resulted in changes so radical that many new forms of education in social work resemble narrow technical training. Educational policies further translate these trends into demands. For example, the standards for research in the Educational Policy and Standards (EPAS) of the Council on Social Work Education (2003) support the "understanding of a scientific, analytic, and ethical approach to building knowledge for practice" (p. 10). On the surface, it could be argued that this is a broad statement that should result in giving more freedom to programs. However, what is disappointing is that in reality, because of the hegemony of "evidenced-based" practice as a dominant paradigm in the United States and the emphasis placed by the accreditation process on measurable outcomes, institutions tend to interpret the standards strictly in terms of enlightenment thinking, fearing any reliance on tacit or artistic endeavors. The result is that practitioners are constrained from intervening meaningfully in the lives of clients because they can only rely on measurable

interventions, and what can be measured does not always present the fullness of the picture in reality. As Polanyi (1997) suggested, "an object is very different when we see it through a blackened tube" (p. 252) because such a tube cuts out "marginal clues.' And certainly, seasoned professionals would assert that successful practice is often about relying on marginal dues. Our call for more open knowledge horizons is not to deny the advancements of the Enlightenment or to support only prescientific thinking,

538

but rather to point out that some important forms of knowledge in the tradition of social work are not given adequate consideration. To forsake rationality in favor of unrationalized know-how is to sail on uncharted seas, and there will always be those, especially in our Western culture, who challenge the wisdom of the venture. A number of academic psychologists have even gone so far as to create experiments purporting to show not only the occasional fallibility of the human expert, a fact that no one would deny,but consistent flaws in human decision-making that might imply the general superiority of rational mathematical approaches to real-world problems. More cautious psychologists are just now beginning to recognize the overwhelming complexities attendant upon such research and to question experimental evidence that claims to show systematic human deficiencies and the superiority of rational models. (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986, p. 41) In the words of Jordan and Jordan (2000), social work

does not need "the dreary, mechanistic, systematic, technocratic approach" that produces "ready made packages according to a pseudo-scientific classification" (p. 205).

Glassman and Robbins (2007) reported their concern that the signature pedagogy of social work education, the imitation of the master artist, is being contested in the context of 21st-century educational revisions. This makes evident not only the love affair with measurable competencies that has permeated the field but also "increased university expectations for faculty productivity in research" (or more accurately, in a particular kind of research driven by quantification). Such research activity alienates faculty from the imprecise encounters typical of practice and results "in faculty disengagement from field education activity" (Glassman & Robbins, 2007, p. 162). Faculty research becomes totally absorbed with measurable problems, and education becomes obsessed with measuring outcomes. This is a problem that is also apparent in general education and its focus on testing. As Morial (2007) suggested, we can learn from the farmer who does not "fatten the calves by putting them on the scales." But, returning to the issue of educational standards, setting standards for what needs to be transmitted or taught in professional education has shown that future practitioners can be prepared quickly to meet basic criteria. In food inspections or regulation systems, for example, standards ensure that minimum safety requirements are met by all who go through the process. In massproduction systems, if basic standards are enforced, minimums are assured. But educational standards should not only reflect minimums but also must incorporate aspirations and visions of the possible. Yet, application of standards often results in control rather than guidance, in

Martinez-Brawley & Zorita I Tacit and Codified Knowledge in Social Work: A Critique of Standardization in Education and Practice

enforced sameness rather than creative program divergence. In social work, the prevalent and highly legitimized scientific paradigm has rendered standards that are often rigid and unimaginative, and thus transformed an education that used to be liberal into one that emphasizes the application of specific protocols and mechanistic skills instead of imaginative solutions. The scientific method, appropriate as it is in many instances, is atomistic rather than holistic. Scientists have begun to point out its limitations even in the hard sciences. The Noble Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schr6dinger commented: The image of the world around us that science provides is highly deficient. It supplies a lot of factual information, and puts all our experience in magnificently coherent order, but keeps terribly silent about everything dose to our hearts, everything that really counts for us. (quoted in Revel &Ricard, 1998, p. 185) If the scientific method becomes hegemonic in social work education, much will be lost, for not all social questions can be answered scientifically, and not all problems of the human condition are amenable to dissection. Moreover, if social work is a caring profession, it should heed the words of Schr6dinger. Standards ingrained in the scientific paradigm will favor and require evidential procedures rather than a flow of thinking and imagination. For example, child welfare social workers are trained in following standards that emphasize checklists of behaviors that can be readily observed. Unfortunately, such emphases often miss the marginal dues that would have rendered radically different conclusions and forms of intervention. Resorting again to Polanyi's principle, we not only know more than we can tell, but we can also benefit from more than we can prove. As Lymbery (2003) suggested, a preference for positivism and evidence endangers a fuller understanding of social work, "which is characterized as much by practical and moral consideration as by technicality and rationality" (p. 106). In this vein, commenting on the relationship between universities in the United Kingdom and government bodies vis-A-vis research, Butler and Pugh suggested that although research as an academic mandate is commendable, the "cosy coincidence of interests between policy makers, social work practitioners, and researchers" can transform social work research into a "much-reduced, colourless, and almost entirely depolitised form of practice" (Butler & Pugh, 2004, p. 55). In the production of knowledge, the question of what forms of knowledge can be produced is central to this conundrum. "The government in its desire to achieve 'best practice' has embraced some remarkably simplistic and positivistic assumptions about social knowledge and is in danger of creating an orthodoxy of practice" (Pugh, 2005, p. 89).

The reflective and critical attributes of the educated person have suffered and sometimes been abandoned in favor of evidence based performance. Standards require evaluation, and in enlightenment thinking, "evaluation determines intervention" (Fargion, 2006, p. 269). Process in education and in practice has been relegated to a secondary position vis-!-vis outcomes. Developing the educated professional has been reduced to a series of steps that in most minds can and should be effortlessly duplicated. Rewards are given to those who turn out quick, narrowly targeted, and easily measurable results. Education becomes atomistic. Even efforts to interconnect through horizontal and vertical integration, much stressed by the CSWE in the United States, while well-intentioned, do not allow extrinsic elements to enter the domain. Standards often do not legitimize alternative ways of discovery, and given the risks involved and the current ways of thinking in social work, few institutions would challenge the existing norms. The established educational model denies that "we know more than we can tell.' In light of the rich history of tacit knowledge in social work to which we have referred, this is clearly a situation that needs to be revisited with an eye toward reform. Additionally, because educational standards in social work aim to have universal value, the current social work paradigm, at least in U.S. education, has set aside the important dimension of context in knowing and acting. Every place becomes the same; context is treated haphazardly, if at all; and differences among people and communities, which are much spoken about in the text of the standards, cannot be tailored to because they are not, by their very nature, standard. There is another danger in standardization and homogenization in relation to the knowledge base. As Payne (2001) suggested, it is difficult to identify a common and stable knowledge base in any profession, including social work. It is very hard to determine and agree what the knowledge base consists of or whether it is a base, fundamental in character, or a more uncertain set of areas of knowledge whose use varies with circumstances and resources. (p. 140)

Standards and Global Practices For the past 30 years or so, higher education in the United States-and, indeed, all over the world-has become less and less differentiated, not only in content but also in form (Martinez-Brawley, 2005, p. 21). Current efforts to

globalize, harmonize, and standardize social work knowledge fly in the face of any recognition of the artistic, tacit, and contextual aspects of social work, which are difficult to simplify. Positivistic research, because it is atomistic, bases its investigations on the most basic components of any situation. Yet, in human interaction, delving into

539

FAMILIES IN SOCIETY I Volume 88, No. 4

complexity is essential for understanding. Hall et al. (2006) suggested that at least in professional practice, "a

more complex dialogue is needed between researcher and practitioner, 'making things more complicated' with research as only one of several voices which contribute to change" (p. 168). The relevance of social work principles to a so-called global culture is currently being emphasized; yet, in reality, serious questions can be raised about the existence of a global culture. When general principles emerge in social work, they still are manifested in relatively local ways. For example, confidentiality would garner full agreement in many parts of the world; yet, it could not be said that it is truly a global concept because it dearly has different meanings, valences, and applications in different communities. Therefore, since the rules of confidentiality are different, global standardization of their application is a myth. A teenager's pregnancy might need to be a wellkept confidence in some societies but not in others. For something to become truly exportable in social work, it

must be decontextualized, stripped from its relationship to local passions and anecdotal encounters. What can be exported will consequently only refer to a very small portion of the practice or of the knowledge base. This is not to say that global relationships are not meritorious, that global exchange has no value, or that we cannot learn from one another. But the enforcement of global standards in social work would be a mistake. Educational standards that are tied to the legal framework of specific countries or localities, or to the rights

afforded to specific groups in particular settings cannot be exported on the basis of their universality. Proponents

of global standards for social work, claiming that standardized knowledge is a mark of professional status and maturity, ignore the more subtle differences across practice in other, highly reputable professions. Different medical approaches are evident everywhere

and styles of practice where drugs are not the main therapy are also variable.... Lawyers inevitably vary in their role and organization depending on the legal and administrative history of the country....A mullah

or rabbi recognizably carries a priestly role but their knowledge base is widely different from that of a Catholic priest or Lutheran minister. (Payne, 2001, p. 141)

A solid critique of standardization -vis-a-vis the resulting decontextualization of knowledge was raised in an article by Voss, Hat, Bates, Lunderman, and Lunderman (2005). They found that many Native American colleges on tribal lands-called "homelands"-did not have social work programs but rather chose human services and counseling programs at the associate or baccalaureate levels. When surveyed, they explained their selections saying

540

that those nonsocial work programs were "less rigid and more accommodating to incorporating traditional pedagogy and cultural prerogatives than the social,work curriculum" (Voss et al., 2005, p. 210). One of the authors suggested that what was required was a "shadow curriculumr" for native indigenous students, a curriculum that "would be grounded upon core indigenous values and traditional philosophical assumptions" (p. 211). Peebles-Wilkins and Shank (2003) suggested a practical relationship between educational standards and market demands in the context of social work. They pointed out the threat that the ethos of research universities represented for the profession and argued that most disciplines in research universities use standards as a form of market control, to ensure that their professional members have a strong say in their destiny. These are important points raised in relation to the demands for standards. Yet, our argument is less market related than based on the nature of social work knowledge and the dangers standardization poses for respecting and incorporating various traditions and knowledge paradigms. Our contention is that in spite of best intentions, overemphasizing standardization brings forth an inability to accommodate different histories and ways of knowing, either because they are not perceived as legitimate or because they fall outside the parameters of the standard (Martinez-Brawley & Zorita, 1998). Even standards that are well written and include flexibility tend to be based on enlightenment thinking, the scientific paradigm, and the proven existence of a knowledge base, which Payne (2001) wisely disputed. He poses some formidable questions worth pondering: What, among the various aspects of knowledge that social workers might use, is basic and what is not? Also, social work is a practical activity, so must knowledge be not just known about but used, to count as part of the knowledge base? That is,it must not be potentially usable but actually in use (Payne, 2001, p. 135).

And so, from these considerations, we must ask, can standards in social work education become global, or is it wishful thinking? What are the merits of standardizing practice and education? Is social work not embedded in language that is contextual and varies in meaning in various countries in the world? Would it not be better to share insights and allow different contextual meanings to challenge each other? The expression "language games" refers to the on-going negotiations which take place in specific contexts, between concrete social actors, regarding their use of specific categories and concepts, and the meanings attributed to them....It follows that

Martinez-Brawley &Zorita I Tacit and Codified Knowledge in Social Work: A Critique of Standardization in Education and Practice

meanings (i.e., the uses of words in languages) may vary dramatically across social groups with different cultures and different interests. (Fargion, 2003, p. 518) In a review of the European efforts to harmonize social work education across countries of the European Union (EU), various authors found that although harmonization, a form of standard setting, -was good for the market and might even be an asset in the scientific tradition of universality of knowledge, it did present problems for social work's commitment to more local traditions (Christie, 2005; Martinez-Brawley, 2005; Pugh, 2005). Referring to multiculturality and new forms of inequality in the Irish context, Christie, for example, stated: "Increasing monitoring, standardization and registration may help address these questions but may also render the professions less flexible in responding to a changing context" (p. 126). Pugh and Gould (2000) suggested that in spite of trends toward decontextualizing knowledge in order-to globalize it, nation states, like individuals, can still offer resistance, particularly in the cultural arena. In the case of harmonization in social work in Europe, when policies were adopted to achieve similar outcomes, cultural factors in each country could not be disregarded (Kornbeck, 2005). Finally, in relation to the same issue, Pugh (2005) focused on the trend to create a one-size-fits-all approach to social work education. He stated that the development of professional standards, professional registers and codes of conduct, all ostensibly aimed at providing better and safer services for the public, are also creating powerful regulatory mechanisms, which may be used to discipline not only erroneous and poor practice, but have the potential to squash or inhibit unorthodox perspectives and dissenting practitioners. (p. 92)

Concluding Thoughts Standards aim at universalizing and making knowledge more uniform, whether to enhance the marketability of graduates, give benchmarks against which evaluations can occur, or safeguard the public from practitioners who may not be -well qualified. In the United States, analyses of the standards suggest that the EPAS statements reflect a "growing recognition of requirements for social workers to participate in the building of the professional knowledge base" (Wagner, Newcomb, & Weiler, 2001), a matter that can

only meet with approval. This seems to be a global trend. Accreditation standards for social work programs aim to cover those areas of the knowledge base considered to be essential, allowing programs, at least in theory, some room to satisf! specific needs. But, as we have discussed, the knowledge base is unstable and contested, and professional practice is bound by time and place. Unfortunately, the

emphasis in all standards is not on the peculiarities of diverse settings but on the generalities that can be abstracted. Furthermore, as Payne (2001) suggested, even attempts to achieve clear definitions of the knowledge base of social work have fallen short of promise. Educational standards can probably effectively capture codified knowledge and include an inventory of the most common aspects of practice. Standards are not useful in capturing tacit knowledge and thus are limiting in addressing some important aspects of real practice. Notions of creativity, an important ingredient of professional practice well grounded in the art, do not easily coexist with the "focus on competence that has been the dominant force in social work education in recent years" (Lymbery, 2003, p. 99). Evidence-based practice has been in vogue, and "like competence, it is based on a central idea that is hard to refute: that social workers and their organizations need to act in accordance with evidence about the interventions that are particularly successful in defined sets of circumstances" (Lymbery, 2003, p. 106). Evidence-based practice has also increased its appeal because it purports to offer a relatively neutral orientation. But, behind this appearance of neutrality, as Lymbery (2003) clarified, compktence-based practice epitomizes a long history' of debate between "positivist and interpretivist" visions of social work. Returning to Fargion (2006), standards would be more amenable to setting the stage for the enlightenment-oriented practitioner while setting aside much that the romantic has to offer. Given that educational standards and enlightenment thinking are often equated with legitimacy, they tend to support a dangerous hierarchy: Investigating ideas, qualitative approaches, and other narrative approaches to research are deemed less valuable than quantitative approaches. Current educational standards often misunderstand or sell short the nature of much of social work practice. Our concern about educational standards is that they focus on only one way of developing knowledge, and one way of telling the social work story. Yet, they have great influence in the development of future practitioners. Much of the complexity of the social work field-which, like art, is fraught with contradictions, uniqueness, and uncertainty-is thus lost to the history making of the profession. Day-to-day social work is uncertain enough that practitioners need to be trained to recognize the unpredictability of life itself and endeavor to achieve creative interventions in the situations they encounter. Given the current state of affairs in research, education, and practice, we call for a thorough revision of what is demanded from researchers and educational programs. Practitioners are left to carry the burden of untenable situations when all interventions are driven by measurable outcomes. As we have discussed, positivistic models cannot address tacit knowledge, an important dimension in social work, and measurement never gives the full picture. High

541

FAMILIES IN SOCIETY I Volume 88, No.4

standards of education and practice should guide programs without undue constraints and allow them to tailor to their own contexts. The richness of multiple contexts, different paradigms and cultural understandings should not be reduced to mechanistic formulas but considered for their intrinsic value and shared with students to enrich their viewpoints. The complexity of social work is a powerful dimension of the profession which should not, like an onion, be divested of its layers to the point where it loses its identity and usefilness. As Goldstein (1999) proposed, ...the need for inventiveness and imagination in the face of complexity ... should, of course, be balanced

with a perspective -call it scientific, rational, if you will-that encourages disciplines thought and inquiry, logic and analysis. Still, without artistry and talent, the helping experience would prove to be an exercise in professional pretense, a quasi-scientific approach to the study and control of human conditions. (p. 394) References Beless, D. W. (1995). Council on Social Work Education. In Encyclopedia of social work (19th ed., pp. 632-636). Washington, DC: NASW Press. Brawley, E. A. (2007). Speaking outfor Americrdspoor: A millionaire socialistin the ProgressiveEra.Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Butler, E. &Pugh, K.(2004). The politics of social work research. In K.Lovelock, K. Lyons, & J. Powell (Eds.), Reflecting on social workDisciplineand profession (pp.55-71). Ashgate, UK: Aldershot. Christie, A. (2005). Social work education in Ireland. Histories and challenges. Portularia:Revista de TrabajoSocial, 5(1), 111-130. Council on Social Work Education (2001). EducationalPolicy and Accreditation Standards.(Revised June 2003 and October 2004). Crocker, K.H. (1992). Social ivork and social order: The settlement movement in two industrialcities 1889-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Dreyfus, H. L. & Dreyfus, S. E. (1986). Mind over machine: Thepower of human intuitionand expertise in the era of the computer. NewYork: Free Press. Dewey, J.(1916). Democracy and education.New York: Macmillan. Dewey, J. (1933). How we think (Rev. ed.). Lexington, MA. Heath. Fargion, S. (2003). Images of contract. An empirical study of the use of theory in practice. BritishJournalof Social Work, 33, 517-533. Fargion, S. (2006). Thinking professional social work. Journalof Social Work, 6(3), 255-273. Freidson, E. (2001). Professionalism:The third logic. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Glassman, U., & Robbins, V. C. (2007). Letters to the editor. Journalof Social Work Education,43(1), 161-163. Goldstein, H. (1999). The limits and art of understanding in social work practice. Familiesin Society, 80(4), 385-95. Hall, C., Slembrouk, S., & Sarangi, S. (2006). Languagepractice in social work. London: Routledge. Healy, K. (2005). Social work theories in context Creatingframeworksfor practice.New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jordan, B., &Jordan, C. (2000). Social work and the third way. Tough love as socialpolicy. London: Sage. Kombeck, 1.(2005). A fresh start for convergence theory? Ideas for comparing change in social work education across the E.U. Portularia:Revista de Trabajo Social, 5(1), 29-44. Lymbery, M. E. F. (2003). Negotiating the contradictions between competence and creativity in social work education. Journalof Social Work, 3(1), 99-117.

542

Mannheim,K. (1953). Essays on sociology andsocial psychology. New York: Oxford University Press. Martinez-Brawley, E. E. (2001). Searching again and again: Inclusion, heterogeneity and social work research. British Journalof Social Work, 31(2), 271-285. Martinez-Brawley, E. (2005). The complex scenario of social integration, harmonization and convergence in social work education and practice. Portularia:Revista de Trabajo Social, 5(1), 17-28. Martinez-Brawley, E. &Zorita, P. (1998). At the edge of the frame: Beyond science and art in social work. British Journalof Social Work, 28, 197-212. Morial, M. (2007, March 8). Seen and heard. Arizona RepubliG p. D2. Payne, M. (2001). Knowledge bases and knowledge biases in social work Journalof Social Work, 1(2), 133-146. Peebles-Wilkins, W., & Shank, B. W. (2003). A response to Charles Cowger. Shaping the future of social work as an institutional response to standards. Journalof Social Work Education,39(1), 49-56. Polany, M. (1967). The tacit dimension. Garden City, NY. Anchor Books. Polanyi, M. (1969). Knowing and being.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Polanyi, M. (1997). Creative imagination. In R.T. Allen (Ed.), Society, economics, &philosophy. Selected papers(pp. 249-265). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Pugh, R. (2005). The professionalisation of social work in the U.K.: Independence, prescription and regulation. Portularia:Revista de TrabajoSocial,5(1), 77-94. Pugh, R., & Gould, N. (2000). Social work and social welfare. European Journalof Social Work, 3(2), 123-138. Revel, J.F., & Ricard, M. (1998). The monk and the philosopher. New York: Schoken Books. Saviotti, P. P. (1998). On the economic of expertise. In R. William, W. Faulker, & I.Fleck (Eds.), Exploring expertise: Issues and perspectives (pp. 29-53). London: Macmillan. Sch6n, D..A. (1983). The reflective practitioner:How professionalsthink in action. New York: Basic Books. Sch6n, D.A._ (1987). Educatingthe reflective practitioner.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Senker, J. (1998). The contribution of tacit knowledge to innovation. In R. William, W. Faulker, & J. Fleck (Eds.), Exploringexpertise: Issues andperspectives (pp. 223-244). London: Macmillan. Sklar, K. K. (1995). FlorenceKelley and the nation'swork. The riseof women's politicalculture, 1830-1900. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Trattrer, W. E. (Ed.). (1986). Biographicaldictionary of social welfare in America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Voss, R. W., Hat, A. W., Bates, J.,Lunderman, M. R., & Lunderman, A. (2005). Social work education in the homeland: Wo'lakota Unglu'SuTapi. EPAS or impasse? Operationalizing Accreditation Standard 6.0. Journalof Social Work Education,41(2), 209-227. Wagner, M., Newcomb, P., & Wfefler, K. (2001). The 2001 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards: Implications for MSW programs. Advances in Social Work, 2(2), 113-118. Wilkinson, 1.(1999). Implementing reflective practice. NursingStandard, 13(21),36-40. Emilia B. Martinez-Brawley, EDD, MSS, ACSW, is John E Roatch Distinguished Professor and professor of social work, Arizona State University, 502 East Monroe Street, Suite C250, Phoenix, AZ 85004-4442. Paz M-B. Zorita, PhD, MSSA, is associate professor of social work, Arizona State University. Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to the first author at [email protected] or the address above. Manuscript received: May 22,2007 Accepted: August 13, 2007

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: Tacit and Codified Knowledge in Social Work: A Critique of Standardization in Education and Practice SOURCE: Fam Soc 88 no4 O/D 2007 The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.