Alive On the Street, Dead In the Classroom: The Return of Radical Social Work and the Manufacture of Activism

Abstract

International evidence is presented for a renewal of radical social work. After a decade of monopolization by neoconservatism in all aspects of public policy and private consciousness, a new commitment to radical analysis and transformation is detected. Radical social work, the second time around, will need to avoid the earlier mistake of abandoning action for critique. In the context of social work education the manufacture of radicalism in the classroom is explored.