Personal beliefs and professional practice : a comparative study of Buddhist and socialist social workers in Britain and Japan as the basis of an analysis of the relationship between personal belief systems and social work practice

Abstract

People with strong beliefs often argue that their beliefs have a powerful effect on their actions. This thesis takes one example of this argument by examining the relationship between social workers' beliefs and their professional practice. It starts with an introduction to the background of the research, then ideology and phenomenology are discussed as theoretical concepts, since ideology is the basic concept being analysed and phenomenology the methodological approach used. The phenomenological approach is used to discuss and analyse the results of interviews with four groups of social workers, two in which the social workers profess to use Buddhist concepts in their social work practice (one in Britain and one in Japan) and two (also one in Britain and one in Japan) in which the social workers profess to use Socialist concepts in their practice. These social workers were asked to be interviewed since they profess that their practice is affected by their personal ideology. The differences between personal ideology and operational philosophy are discussed. Three fundamental concepts of Buddhism and Socialism related to social work practice are analysed, and then used to compare the different relationships between personal ideology, operational philosophy and social work practice in the four groups, which emerged from the interviews. The development of social work practice and welfare ideologies in Britain and Japan are discussed. The interviewees are then described and the results of the interviews are summarised and analysed, before being compared to other relevant research findings. It is demonstrated that two groups (the Japanese Buddhist and British Socialist) show in the main, congruence between their personal ideologies, operational philosophies and social work practice, and that the Japanese Socialists and British Buddhists do not. This is discussed in terms of various theoretical issues. The two ideologies under research, and the welfare systems in Japan and Britain, are compared in terms of their differential effect on social work practice. Finally, some suggestions are made for further research, leading on from the results of this project