Seminar Restructuring Welfare Governance Impacts on Welfare Professionalism and Street level bureaucrats

The governance of the welfare state in advanced Western societies has undergone a considerable change in the past two decades. Quasi-market characterized by contracting-out and competitive tendering and new steering techniques such as performance and quality management have spread in the provision of social service provision and have become salient features of the new governance models. The restructuring of welfare state governance has also a strong impact on ideas of professionalism. Traditional understandings of professionalism are challenged by new logics of managerialism. As a result, the relationship between welfare professionals and their clients, but also the relationship to their superiors has been changed profoundly. Seen from the perspective of welfare professionals, the new welfare state paradigm creates enduring conflicting demands: For what and by whom are they held accountable? For the efficiency or the effectiveness of their work? For the quality or the number cases treated? The seminar studies the shift from social work to more business-akin models in a critical perspective, enquiring in particular the impact on accountability, ideas of good quality', and strategies to cope with organizational dilemmas. The seminar includes a three-day workshop with an international guest. Nissim Cohen is senior lecturer at the University of Haifa, Israel and specialized in comparative welfare policy with a special emphasize on healthcare policy welfare professionalism and street-level bureaucracy (see course: Welfare professionalism in an age of marketization and managerialization - Reflections on discretion and accountability). Schram, S. (2012). Welfare professionals and street-level bureaucrats. In M. Gray, J. Midgley, & S. Webb (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social work. (pp. 67-81). London, United Kingdom: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446247648.n5 Bemerkung Es wird erwartet, dass Studierende zusätzlich den begleitenden internationalen Workshop (in der englischen Sprache), der vom 28.06.2016 - 30.06.2016 angeboten wird, belegen. FB 01 Humanwissenschaften Uni Kassel SoSe 2016 Soziale Arbeit und Lebenslauf FB 01 Humanwissenschaften Prof. Dr. Klenk Tanja