Economic literacy and the war on poverty : a social work challenge
Date
2008-04
Authors
Engelbrecht, Lambert K.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley
Abstract
This article reports on an exploratory descriptive study that
examined ten social workers’ perceptions of their war on poverty
and the challenges in constructing a conceptual framework for
the development of a Social Community Education for Economic
Literacy Development (SCEELD) programme. It was found that
the social workers were knowledgeable about the uneconomic
activities of their clients and that their ideas about what needed
to be done about this related very much to their attitudes towards
poverty. Significantly, the social workers did not think that
job creation was their primary responsibility nor had, in their
experience, job creation programmes been successful. Rather,
the economic literacy they taught related to housekeeping
imperatives, such as economical food preparation and managing
income and concrete resources no matter how meagre.
Overall, the social workers did not perceive the agency culture
or the context of developmental welfare practice as conducive
to the implementation of programmes aimed at economic
development, and none talked about the relationship between
economic and social development.
Description
Please cite as follows:
Engelbrecht, L. 2008. Economic literacy and the war on poverty: a social work challenge?. International Journal of Social Welfare, 17(2):166-173, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2397.2007.00544.x.
The original publication is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291468-2397/issues
Engelbrecht, L. 2008. Economic literacy and the war on poverty: a social work challenge?. International Journal of Social Welfare, 17(2):166-173, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2397.2007.00544.x.
The original publication is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28ISSN%291468-2397/issues
Keywords
Social work with the poor, Economic literacy, Poor -- Services for
Citation
Engelbrecht, L. 2008. Economic literacy and the war on poverty: social work challenge?. International Journal of Social Welfare, 17(2):166-173, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2397.2007.00544.x.