Abstract
Practice and Research appears at first glance to be a research methods text. While I have often heard the phrase “appearances can be deceiving,” in this case, it was true. This book is actually a collection of essays written by Dr. Ian Shaw and, as such, contains a plethora of his personal insights and research writings, which are significant given the vast amount of work conducted by Shaw—they do not stand alone as a comprehensive, singularly themed textbook. Some of them are from his early works such as Consumer Opinion and Social Policy written in 1976, to more recent works such as Evaluating in Practice, originally published in 2010. The target audience for this text appears to be both doctoral students and researchers in the field of social work. The aim seems to be to further the discussion regarding various aspects of research, including but not limited to: whether or not evidence-based practice (EBP) is effective, weighing in on the qualitative versus quantitative debate, and ethics in research. The book is divided into five subsections, with each section containing either four, five, or six chapters. They are: Perspectives on Social Work Research; Evaluation; Qualitative Research; Research, Theory and Practice; and Service Users and Research. Each of these has both numerous strengths and some weaknesses.
The first five chapters present the reader with an array of interesting research ideas and concepts which include a wide range of topics. The first chapter was supposed to focus on “cutting edge” issues in social work. However, it seemed to be more about social work practice issues within the United Kingdom, including issues of research governance and ethics. The most recent citation for this chapter was 2004, and many of the issues he addressed here are essentially either dated and/or irrelevant to the majority of researchers outside the United Kingdom. In Chapter 2, while his focus still is primarily on the United Kingdom, Shaw highlights several other important topics for discussion including the role and purpose of social work research, contexts that shape practice and purpose, maximizing quality, and how the aims of social work can be met through research (p. 41).
In Chapter 3, his focus shifts yet again—with the aim to aid readers in “asking tricky questions” regarding social work knowledge. While this chapter may have met his goal to some degree, it was disappointing to note that within this chapter, Shaw refused to entertain a discussion regarding whether or not social work was positivist or postmodern, because he believed that it is often “ill-conceived, presented in an unduly polarized form” (p. 58). This brings forth some concern to the reader as whether or not one should participate in a full and open discussion of such complex issues. I believe it would have been helpful to have done so.
Chapters 4 and 5 seemed rather out of place at first, given the stated purpose of the book. Chapter 4 provided readers with some insights into the history of social work and sociology and seemed to make a case for the two fields to work together in a respectful manner. It also highlighted the watershed works of Ernest Burgess and Clifford Shaw, who worked out of Chicago in the early 1920s and later. While I appreciated this snapshot of history, I do think its inclusion in this text was not necessarily the best fit. It also struck me that Chapter 5 was also out of place, within the context of this book. I appreciated Shaw’s desire to pay homage to William J. Reid, but the inclusion of an article detailing his work and contributions was less than ideal, and seemed again rather out of context with the intended aim of the text.
In Section II, the chapters also do not center on their expressed purpose. The purpose of Section II was about evaluation. This subsection visited several different areas around evaluation including EBP, qualitative research, the perennial qualitative versus quantitative debate, feminist theory, and evaluating learning organizations. Some of the highlights from this subsection start early on, when he offered critiques of EBP and discussed how social workers do not really engage in EBPs (p. 100). However, he failed to highlight one of the key reasons for that concern. It is because little is done to translate our academic evidence-based research into tangible guidelines for practitioners. That being said, he does present arguments that some researchers have not been exposed too, when he portrays the downsides of EBP.
Shaw did a good job in making the case for the importance of qualitative research and evaluation within this section. Of the five chapters included in this section, the one that proved to be most poignant was Chapter 9, when he discussed the evaluation of a learning organization. Here, he offered up four main parts to evaluation activity and discussed whether or not to have someone from outside or inside the agency conduct an evaluation (p. 175). He also made the point that the notion of “best practice” does not have to mean there is only one way of handling things (p. 174). This is an important point that should not get lost on either researchers or practitioners.
Section III focused solely on qualitative research. Shaw introduced the subsection by presenting the very same article that was used when his journal Qualitative Social Work (QSW) was launched. While the chapter does contain some useful information regarding what qualitative research is, such as its four hallmarks and strengths, it also provides one with the guidelines from 2001 for submitting to his journal (QSW). The remaining chapters in this subsection explore different issues around qualitative research, including the debate between qualitative research and quantitative research (p. 208), ethics, generalizability, and conducting research with children. Within this subsection, there were several excellent points made such as: addressing how qualitative research and evaluation can address outcomes (p. 213), his notion that reliance on ethical codes alone is not enough—when it comes to research (p. 229), and his discussion of lay and scientific theories (p. 244). Shaw also brings up the rather contentious point that the relationship between social work and research should always be radical (p. 278). That sentiment is a valuable one for budding social work researchers and also serves as a reminder to those who have been in academia for years. Whether this rather extreme position appears to sit well with researchers, I’m not sure it holds the same gravity for frontline practitioners.
Section V offers a broad spectrum of topics covering issues about research, theory, and practice. The first chapter within this subsection related mostly to quality issues occurring in the social services in the United Kingdom. However, many of the same issues Shaw mentioned have also occurred within the United States and other areas, as well. I found myself wanting him to have updated this chapter with more timely empirical data, given that the information was over 15 years old. This subsection also included two chapters regarding evaluation for practitioners, and there, Shaw offered important information regarding the role of the practitioner-evaluator (p. 364), and outlined principles to follow (p. 372). He also provided direction for where to look for information, when starting a qualitative research study (p. 375), that would be very helpful to any doctoral student. The final chapter in this subsection addressed research in third-world countries. Shaw utilized the Arab-speaking world as an example in this chapter. Here, he included interesting content however, since it had not been updated since 1994, it does not accurately reflect the way the West views the Arab-speaking world today, nor interacts with the region since then.
The final subsection focused on “consumer voice,” or as Shaw refers to it as “service user opinion.” Here, Shaw discussed the challenges researchers face in accurately capturing consumer voice, as well as the “consumer as a researcher.” Shaw offered the opinion that “issues of politics and associated questions of justice are present in our day-to-day practice” (p. 442). While I indeed find this statement to be accurate, I found myself once again wanting the author to update his work, as three of the five chapters were published before 1990, and again much has changed in how agencies view their consumers, how they evaluate their service to consumers, and how to measure consumer satisfaction, since then.
It is important for me to note, as a future professor (one day), and a current doctoral student, that while I found some of the essays in this book useful, I would not assign the whole book to my class, nor would I utilize it as the sole teaching text for my research class. I found issue with the language which I would deem in parts to be disrespectful. He openly refers to other researchers in less than flattering terms, and in a distinctly disrespectful manner. I got the “take away point” from this book, which Shaw was overly concerned with his own opinions, and less about what current researchers say. Throughout the book, “I” was one of the most commonly used words, and the knowledge that few of his essays possessed more than a handful of references from the past 10 years, which is a significant part of critiquing literature responsibly (Holosko, 2005). Much of the research he used to support his own work was from the 1970s and 1980s. It was apparent that Shaw did not update his essays prior to compiling them into this text, because much of the information that was relevant 15–20 years ago is no longer relevant today. However, I do want to reiterate the text was a valuable read, and I may find parts of it useful in my future work, even though I would not fully utilize it in the classroom. I read this more as a dated chronology of his work in this area—not a current, topical, timely text linking the important research to practice theme, as promised.