Contemporary urban social work: a scoping review

Abstract

Today, much of social work is carried out in urban environments, posing distinct challenges to the profession. The complexities of urban life and urban surroundings raise new questions for it, especially in relation to increasing fragmentation, growing inequality, segregation, homelessness, social exclusion, and environmental problems. In general, only little research, however, has been conducted on the performance of social work in urban settings, and urban social work remains conceptually indistinct and not well grounded. Yet, in more recent times, increasing migration to urban settings has prompted more interest in the area. This article presents a two-staged scoping review examining how social work in urban settings is conceptualized in literature from European countries. Our first-stage scoping review findings indicate present conceptualizations of urban social work to be strongly shaped by questions concerning migration, diversity, and new forms of mobility. The second-stage review–leaning on the results of the first phase–concentrated on interrogating closer the knowledge base on urban social work and diversity. The findings suggest that urban social work with migrants is highly related to the question of how to recognize superdiversity in social work bridging relations in urban space, improving access to critical information for migrants, and strengthening social workers’ advocacy for structural change. While urban social work appears to continue to be perceived as problematic, the results highlight the importance of respectful encounters and honest dialogue between migrants and non-migrants and between migrants and professionals, along with the specificity of the use of urban space.