S o u t he r n C hr i s t i an C ol l e g e

United Church of Christ in the Philippines

Midsayap, 9410 Cotabato

CO LLE G E O F S O CI AL W O RK

SW225 – SOCIAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES

MODULE 3: Perspectives on Social Development

This module contains different perspectives on social development that helps you apply in
understanding your client diverse background. Module 3 includes:

1. Strength Perspective
2. Empowerment Perspective
3. Spirituality and Faith Sensitive Perspectives
4. Feminist Perspectives
a. Women in Development (WID)
b. Women and Development (WAD)
c. Gender and Development (GAD)
d. Effectiveness Approach (AE)
e. Mainstreaming Gender Equality (MGE) approach
5. People Centered Development
6. Anti-oppressive

At the end of this module, you are should be able to:

1. Critically analyze social issues using human rights, gender and other progressive
approaches as lenses.
2. Explain how the approaches are used to analyze broader social, political and cultural
context of development.

ELICIT
What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you heard the word “social
development”?

ENGAGE
Why client empowerment is important?

SCC-College of Social Work

Excellence: Our Way of Life and Ministry
EXPLORE
Please read the content of Module 3 and answer the assessment questions.

Strengths perspective
In social work practice, the strengths perspective has emerged as an alternative to the more
common pathology-oriented approach to helping clients. Instead of focusing on clients'
problems and deficits, the strengths perspective centers on clients' abilities, talents, and
resources.

The following are seven important principles of the strength’s perspective (Chapin, 1995; Early
& GlenMaye, 2000; Kisthardt, 1992; Miley, O’Melia & DuBois, 2001; Poertner & Ronnau, 1992;
Rapp, 1992; Saleebey, 1992c; Sullivan & Rapp, 1994; Weick et al., 1989):

1. People are recognised as having many strengths and have the capacity to continue to
learn, grow and change.
2. The focus of intervention is on the strengths and aspirations of the people we work with.
3. Communities and social environments are seen as being full of resources.
4. Service providers collaborate with the people they work with.
5. Interventions are based on self-determination.
6. There is a commitment to empowerment.
7. Problems are seen as the result of interactions between individuals, organisations or
structures rather than deficits within individuals, organisations or structures.

Empowerment Perspective

The empowerment method focuses on the achievement of goals and change of systems by
utilizing available strengths, resilience, and resources. By focusing on competence rather than
deficits in individual or social functioning, the empowerment model supports resourcefulness
and the development of skills to remove social barriers for individuals and communities.

Framed by a generalist foundation, empowerment practice directs social workers to address

challenges at all levels, including those of individuals, families, groups, organizations,
neighborhoods, communities, and society. Empowerment is achieved through synchronized
efforts that work with – not on – people, their relationships, and the impinging social and
political environment. These simultaneous and coordinated efforts create a spiral of influences
that initiate, sustain, and amplify empowered functioning.

Empowerment-based practice actuates a strengths perspective, centering the social work

process toward competence promotion and away from the stigmatizing notion of deficit
reduction. An empowering approach reveals the worker's unwavering commitment to social
justice. This approach operates on the axiom that we all benefit when we acknowledge every
person's rights and responsibilities to contribute to and receive from community participation
in a reciprocal relationship.
Being empowered is not a static condition but rather a dynamic and cyclical one. Human
individual and social systems are in perpetual motion, either "getting better" or "getting worse"
at any given moment. Empowerment indicates a simpatico state in which one's perception of
self-efficacy and essential value is mirrored in and accentuated by social relationships and the
larger environment. Empowerment is a confluence of the individual, the interpersonal, and the
sociopolitical where the experience of power in each sphere continually replenishes the
others.

The empowered individual enters each interaction assuming success, respect, and influence;
and when these expectations are rewarded, carries back a sense of personal control and
esteem. This realization of interpersonal success builds confidence for interactions at the
institutional level-feelings that drive empowered people forward to assert their rights, develop
their privilege, and fashion just environments. In return, a just and ethical society offers equal
access to power which is reflected in the lives of each individual citizen.
Empowering initiatives at the individual level are supported and sustained only by opening
pathways to power sources in social, economic, and institutional structures. Empowering
initiatives at the societal level only have benefits when those individuals and groups previously
disenfranchised rise up to meet them.

To facilitate empowerment, practitioners integrate a continuum of strategies ranging from

individual development to relationship improvement to resource acquisition and reallocation
through social and institutional change. Collaborating as partners, clients and social workers
can coordinate these efforts simultaneously or sequentially, but no part of the ecosystemic
transaction can be ignored.

Empowerment efforts at the personal level provide only brief respite if they are not supported
by complementary changes within interpersonal and sociopolitical realms. Likewise, even
broad-based social improvements wane if not protected by the continuing influence of
empowered individuals, families, and groups.

Spirituality Perspectives

THE ROLE OF SPIRITUALITY IN SOCIAL WORK

Spirituality has also been defined as the beliefs and practices that develop based on personal
values. and ideology of the meaning and purpose of life. It refers to the belief that there is a
power or powers outside of one's own that. transcend understanding.

Interest in spirituality within the social work profession has progressed through three broad
stages (Canda, 1997; Canda & Furman, 1999).

Stage 1 – Sectarian origins (began with the colonial period and lasted through the early 20th
century). Early human services and institutions were primarily influenced by Judeo-Christian
worldviews on charity, communal responsibility, and justice. This period witnessed competing
explanations of human behavior, an emphasis on distinguishing between moral blame and
merit (e.g. the worthy and unworthy poor) versus a focus on social reform and social justice
(e.g. Jewish communal service and the settlement house movement) (Fayri, 1988, Lowenberg,
1998; Popple and Leighninger, 1990).
Stage 2 – Professionalization and secularization (1920s through 1970s). Social work began to
distance itself from its early sectarian roots. As the larger society shifted and began to replace
moral explanations of human problems to a view of scientific, rational understanding, the
social work profession began to rely more on libertarian morality, secular humanism, and
empiricism as the foundation for its ethics, values and practice approaches (Imre, 1984;
Siporin, 1986). “Religion and spirituality were increasingly viewed, at best, as unnecessary and
irrelevant, and, at worst, as illogical and pathological” (Russel, 1998).

Stage 3 – Resurgence of interest in spirituality (beginning in the 1980’s and continuing through
the present) (Canda, 1997; Russel, 1998). Indicators of this new phase within the profession
include a marked increase in the numbers of publications and presentations on the topic, the
development of a national Society of Spirituality and Social Work, and the reintroduction of
references to religion and spirituality in the Council on Social Work Education’s 1994
Curriculum Policy Statement and 2000 Education Policy and Accreditation Standards after an
absence of more than 20 years.

Into the 1990s there was a focus on diversity issues in many of the social sciences. The 1994
revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) included a new
category for religious and spiritual problems such as loss of faith, problems with religious
conversion, or questioning religious values. The impetus for the consideration of a new
diagnostic category came from a proposal from the Spiritual Emergence Network, which had
concerns regarding how the field of mental health pathologized religious and spiritual
problems. Individuals often experience distress as a result of questioning their faith. Although
these symptoms can mimic a psychiatric disorder, these reactions are “normal.”

Specific to the field of social work, consideration of spirituality and religion gained attention.
During the 1990s the “strength perspective” was becoming more popular, with its emphasis on
acknowledging patients’ worth, attributes, strengths and potential. Social workers began to
embrace their role in helping patients enhance their capabilities and was a move away from a
pathology based model.

Feminist Perspectives

Over the year’s development programs have been criticized for ignoring gender roles and the
impact it has on women in the global south. However, we see a shift to integrate women into
development programs in hopes of eradicating poverty and low social economical status. The
six main theoretical approaches are: “(1) the welfare approach; (2) women in development
(WID); (3) women and development (WAD); (4) gender and development (GAD); (5) the
effectiveness approach (EA); and (6) mainstream gender equality (MGE).

Despite the effort to reinforce gender mainstreaming into society we still see a vast number
of gender inequality especially in the developing world. Women make up the 70% of individuals
living in poverty and in sub-Saharan Africa 57% of HIV infected individuals are women. This
also includes the disproportionate ratio of women to men in the job market and at leadership
position, low level of education among women, and low socio-economic status among women.

The term “Women, Gender and Development” could be seen a discipline much like every other
area of knowledge. However, what sets it apart from various disciplines is that, its major
contributors are individuals that raise issues and concerns, concerning women, gender and
development. These are academics, feminist activists and development practitioner.

In 1972 Ann Oakley, was able to distinguish the difference between sex and gender. Gender
refers to one’s sexuality based on masculinity and femininity and sex refers to the biological
features of one physiology. With the rise and popularity of the term gender, came with its
misusage of its actual meaning. For example, as Most development agencies and NGO’s
supported its terminology, however they used it as a reference point when talking about
mainly women issues. Today the term gender has become more popularized, that it is usually
linked to a wide range of sectors like politics, economics, environment and health.

Social assistance or the “welfare approach” originated back 1950s to the 1970s during the era
of decolonization and political transitioning in most African and Asian countries. The welfare
approach was a response to most of the newly independent countries outcomes of inequalities
among the local elites and the common man in each nation.

Most international development agencies applied a very western approach towards helping
these nations develop. Some of these theories where the modernization theory, and the
Malthusian theory (Population vs. Resources). These brought about a negative impact and
outcome towards most developing nations development and it also help to further impede on
its progress.

Women in development (WID) approach, was originated as a result of three major feminist
moments/waves concerning feminine conditions. The first two were due to the feminist waves.
The first wave also known as women’s suffrage movement, originated in the North America
back in the late 19th century, when women fought for the equal right to vote and participate in
politics. The second-wave of feminism sought to deal with the remaining social and cultural
inequalities women were faced with in everyday affair i.e. sexual violence, reproductive rights,
sexual discrimination and glass ceilings. The second wave was very controversial however the
women’s movement was very influential that the UN organized the first global conference on
women back in 1975 at Mexico. The conference sought to address nations role on fighting
gender inequalities and support women’s right. The third was influenced by Ester Boserup
(1970) publication on “Women’s Role in Economic Development”. “The book sent a shock wave
through northern development agencies and humanitarian organization” (pg 93). She states
and gave empirical results of how increasingly specialized division of labor associated with
development undermines or neglects the value of women’s work and status especially in the
developing world. As it explains why women were being deprived an equal share among men
in social benefits and economic gains. Boserup book had an influence on making women more
visible in development approach and as a specific category when addressing women in
development. In 1973, the US congress implemented a bill, which required the USAID to include
women in development programs. The WID approach helped to ensure, the integration of
women into the workforce and increase their level of productivity in order to improve their
lives. However some have criticized this approach as being very western. Since it is a
perception of the global south from global north perspective, as it fails to acknowledge the
collective and cultural concerns of women in the developing world. It approach has been
tagged as being rather cumbersome on women, as it fails to understand the dynamics of the
private sphere but focus solely on the public sphere.
The women and development (WAD) approach originated back in 1975 in Mexico city, as it sort
to discuss women’s issues from a neo-Marxist and dependency theory perspective. Its focus
was to “explain the relationship between women and the process of capitalist development in
terms of material conditions that contribute to their exploitation” (pg 95). WAD is often
misinterpreted as WID, however what sets it apart is that, WAD focuses specifically on the
relation between patriarchy and capitalism. The WAD perspective states that women have
always participated and contributed towards economic development, regardless of the public
or private spheres.

The Gender and development approach originated in the 1980s by socialist feminism. It serves
as a transitioning point in the way in which feminist have understood development. It served as
a comprehensive overview of the social, economic and political realities of development. Its
origin relates back to the Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN)
network, when it was first initiated in India. The DAWN program was then officially recognized
in 1986 during the 3rd UN conference on women in Nairobi. The conference brought about
activist, researcher and development practitioners globally. As the conference discussed
about the achievements made from the previous decade’s evaluation of promoting equality
among the sexes, and a full scope of the obstacles limiting women’s advancements, especially
in the developing world. The forum discussed about the effectiveness of the continuous debt
crisis and structural adjustment program implemented by the IMF and the World Bank, and
how such concept of neoliberalism tends to marginalize and discriminate women more in the
developing countries. The diversity of this approach was open to the experiences and need of
women in the developing world. Its two main goals were to prove that the unequal relationship
between the sexes hinders development and female participation. The second, it sorts to
change the structure of power into a long-term goal whereby all decision-making and benefits
of development are distributed on equal basis of gender neutrality. The GAD approach is not
just focused on the biological inequalities among sexes: men and women, however on how
social roles, reproductive roles and economic roles are linked to Gender inequalities of:
masculinity and femininity.

The Effectiveness Approach (EA) originated in the 1980s. Its ideas are linked to the concept
surrounding WID, which was the inequalities women faced and how societies fail to
acknowledge the impact of women in economic development. However EA sort to not just
include women into development projects but also reinforce their level of productivity and
effectiveness in the labor market. So this required the development of infrastructure and
equipment that aided to increase women’s earnings and productivity (especially women in the
rural areas).

Mainstreaming Gender Equality (MGE) approach also commonly referred to, as gender
mainstreaming is the most recent development approach aimed on women. Gender
mainstreaming ensures that all gender issues are address and integrated in all levels of
society, politics, and programs. It originated in 1995 at the 4 th UN conference on women in
Beijing, China. At the forum, 189 state representatives agreed that the inclusion of both women
and men in every development project was the only way to succeed and progress in a nation
economic growth and development. The WID approach had been drop by various aid agencies
like CIDA, due to it negative interpretation from supporters as being too feminist and brought
about hostility from men towards such programs. So basically organization like CIDA now has
to include men and women in their annual development report concerning the allocation of
fund’s spent towards education, health care, and employment of both sexes.
 People Centered Development
People Centered Development Theorists generally agree with Dependency Theory about why
some countries are underdeveloped – because of a history of exploitation and extraction by
western Nation States and TNCs.

PCD theorists are also very critical of the role of large institutions in development –
international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF and both western nation states and
developing nation states. They argue that big development projects aimed at macro level goals
such as increasing GDP and neoliberal strategies of deregulation often do not improve the
lives of people ‘on the ground’. In this sense, as Amartya Sen argues, development needs to be
about giving people independence so they have real power and choice over their day to day
situations, it shouldn’t be ‘top down’ coming from the west, via governments and then trickling
down to the people.

People Centered Development theorists also have a much broader conception of what
‘development’ could actually mean. They don’t believe that development has to mean them
becoming more like the West and development shouldn’t be seen in narrow terms such as
industrialising and bringing about economic growth, development projects should be much
smaller scale, much more diverse, and much more coming from the people living in developing
countries.

Finally, PCD theorists reject Western Definitions of ‘underdevelopment’ – just because some
cultures are rural, non-industrialised, and not trading, doesn’t mean they are inferior.

Vandana Shiva
Vandana Shiva is a good example of a theorist who comes under the umbrella of a People
Centred Development approach to development.

She has spent much of her life in the defence and celebration of biodiversity and indigenous
knowledge. Seed freedom is central to the idea of Shiva’s work (the rejection of corporate
patents on seeds, and protecting the rights of local peoples to save their own seed).

Vandana Shiva has also played a major role in the global Ecofeminist movement. According to
her 2004 article Empowering Women, Shiva suggests that a more sustainable and productive
approach to agriculture can be achieved through reinstating a system of farming in India that
is more centered on engaging women. She advocates against the prevalent “patriarchal logic
of exclusion.”

How should developing countries develop?

1. People centered development means ‘ground up development’ – empowering local
communities. Because of this, there are potentially thousands of pathways to
development
• The thousands of small-scale fair trade and micro finance projects around the world
are good examples of PCD style projects embedded in a global network.
• Bhutan is a good country level example of PCD principles – globalizing on their own
terms.
• Indigenous peoples living traditional lifestyles, effectively rejecting most of what the
west has to offer is another good example.
 2. At a global level, PCD theorists believe that any development projects embarked upon
should embody three core principles –
o Social Justice – they shouldn’t be based around exploitation (like tied aid is)
o Inclusivity – they should be democratic, bottom up, not top down – they should
be designed with communities living in developing countries, not by western
experts.
o Sustainable – Projects shouldn’t degrade local environments

Anti-oppressive

Anti-Oppression work seeks to recognize the oppression that exists in our society and
attempts to mitigate its affects and eventually equalize the power imbalance in our
communities.

Basically there are certain groups in our society and communities that hold power over others
based on their membership in those groups. For example, if you were to look at the
demographics of the CEO’s of any major corporation, city council, parliament etc. you would
notice that most if not all of these positions of great power are populated by white (publicly
straight) males. On the flip side, if you were to look at the demographics of janitorial staff or
fast food workers you might notice that these positions are populated largely by persons of
colour, specifically women of colour. When studying the statistics of those receiving social
assistance or state aid you would also notice that the vast majority of those in our
communities living in this poverty are folks with disabilities and the elderly.

Oppression = prejudice + power

• Oppression is more than the prejudicial thoughts and actions of individuals, oppression
is institutionalized power that is historically formed and perpetuated over time;
• Through the use of that institutionalized power, it allows certain groups of people or
certain identities to assume a dominant (privileged) position over other groups and
identities and this dominance is maintained and continued at institutional and cultural
levels;
• This means oppression is built into institutions like government and education
systems. For example, think of ways that heterosexism is privileged by and built into
laws around marriage, property ownership, and raising/adopting children.

Systems of oppression run through our language, shape the way we act and do things in our
culture, and are built around what are understood to be “norms” in our societies. A norm
signifies what is “normal,” acceptable, and desirable and is something that is valued and
supported in a society. It is also given a position of dominance, privilege, and power over what
is defined as non-dominant, abnormal, and therefore, invaluable or marginal.
Anti-Oppression is the strategies, theories, actions and practices that actively challenge
systems of oppression on an ongoing basis in one's daily life and in social justice/change
work. Anti-oppression work seeks to recognize the oppression that exists in our society and
attempts to mitigate its effects and eventually equalize the power imbalance in our
communities. Oppression operates at different levels (from individual to institutional to
cultural) and so anti-oppression must as well.
Though they go hand in hand, anti-oppression is not the same as diversity & inclusion.
Diversity & Inclusion have to do with the acknowledgment, valuing, and celebration of
difference, whereas Anti-Oppression challenges the systemic biases that devalue and
marginalize difference. Diversity & Inclusion and Anti-Oppression are two sides of the same
coin--one doesn't work without the other--but they are not interchangeable.
Privilege is unearned benefits/entitlements or lack of barriers assigned to an identity that
society considers a "norm" and therefore dominant. Privilege and oppression are well-
maintained social systems that are reinforced by binarized, normative hierarchies that
categorize certain identities as superior (privileged) and their supposed opposites as inferior
(oppressed) (e.g. male and female; straight and queer; cisgender and transgender, etc.). There
are various forms of privilege, some of them tangible and others less so. One form of privilege,
for instance, is the representation of one's identity in mainstream media and books—
something intangible but nevertheless valuable in our culture.

Intersectionality is a legal and sociological theory that promotes the understanding that
individuals have multiple identity factors and are "shaped by the interactions and intersections
of these different social [identity factors] (e.g., race, ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender, class,
sexuality, geography, age, (dis)ability, migration status, religion, etc. This means that inequities
do not result from the social devaluing of a single identity factor in isolation, but rather from
the intersections of different parts of an individual's identity, power relations, and experience.
Black legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in her 1989 essay,
“Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of
Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” which argues that
marginalization and discrimination experienced by a black woman cannot be understood in
terms of racism or of sexism considered independently, but must include the interactions.
Since its coinage, the concept has been expanded to describe experiences outside of black
womanhood, and the general concept is that people experience more than one type of
oppression because of their intersecting marginalized identities. The concept of
intersectionality is not an abstract idea but a description of the way multiple oppressions is
experienced by actual people.
Anti-oppression movements and work must acknowledge and account for intersectional
experiences of systemic oppression in order to be both fully inclusive and effective in
dismantling systemic barriers to equity.
Assessment Question:
Why Anti-Oppressive Practice is important to Social Work?

EXPLAIN: Why there some countries remained underdeveloped according People Centered
Development Theorist?

ELABORATE: Share an event or experiences in your life that gives your life meaning or
sense of purpose?
EVALUATE:
Identify what is asked in the following statements. Write your answer on the space provided
before each number.
______________________1. The stage of Spirituality wherein Social work began to distance itself
from its early sectarian roots
_______________________2. Coined the term “intersectionality” in her 1989 essay,
“Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist
Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist
Politics”
_______________________3. Projects shouldn’t degrade local environments
_______________________4. Challenges the systemic biases that devalue and marginalize
difference
_______________________5. Approach was a response to most of the newly independent
countries outcomes of inequalities among the local elites and the
common man in each nation
_______________________6. The first wave of women’s movement
_______________________7. The perspective states that women have always participated and
contributed towards economic development, regardless of the public
or private spheres
_______________________8. Its ideas are linked to the concept surrounding WID, which was the
inequalities women faced and how societies fail to acknowledge the
impact of women in economic development
_______________________9. This worldview was primarily influenced early human services and
institutions on charity, communal responsibility, and justice
______________________10. Indicates a simpatico state in which one's perception of self-
efficacy and essential value is mirrored in and accentuated by
social relationships and the larger environment

EXTEND: Do some advance research on 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

REFERENCES:

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https://www.antiviolenceproject.org/anti-oppressive-practices/

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Thompson, K. (December 9, 2015). People Centered Development. Retrieved February 3, 2020,

from ReviseSociology: https://revisesociology.com/2015/12/09/people-centered-development/

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