Overview of the Historical and Contextual Development of Sociology and Social Work

Abstract

In this first chapter, we identify the historical roots of ideological divisions between social work and sociology. Not all sociologists and social workers know that their disciplines were once closely linked. This is not surprising because it suited the professionalization projects of each discipline in the twentieth century to construct historical narratives that emphasized their differences rather than their commonalities. Internationally, however, the two disciplines emerged in close association. Within academic institutions, the disciplines often shared departments, although those shared departments became established at different times in different countries—around the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe, and half a century later in Australia and New Zealand (Crothers 2008; Nash and Munford 2001).