Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Social Work as a Democratic Tool: The inclusion of socially marginalized groups in the electoral process
Ersta Sköndal University College, Department of Social Sciences.
2013 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

The democratic deficit in the U.S. becomes strikingly evident as statistics show that only half of the population actually votes in elections. Seeing that many who do not participate in the electoral processes are also generally members of socially marginalized groups then this is an increasing social issue. The effects of this become deepening socio-economic inequalities, greater marginalization and a weakened democracy. This study argues that social workers can contribute to solve this democratic deficit by using social work to reach and include socially marginalized groups in the democratic process of electoral participation. Focusing specifically on San Francisco and the greater Bay Area, I have used qualitative method to interview representatives from non-profit organizations that provide different kind of social service and academic professors from the disciplines of Social Work and Political Science in order to investigate how social work can include marginalized non-voting groups in the electoral process. The result is analyzed together with a theoretical framework built from research on democracy, welfare research, empowerment theory and theories on community practice. The findings show that social work has an important role in creating belonging among these marginalized groups and to bring them into the political process by using social mobilizing and advocacy social work with an empowerment perspective.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2013. , p. 38
Keywords [en]
Democratic deficit, Socially marginalized groups, Electoral participation, Social work, Economic inequalities, Inclusion, Social mobilizing, Advocacy, Empowerment
National Category
Social Work
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:esh:diva-2458OAI: oai:DiVA.org:esh-2458DiVA, id: diva2:656116
Educational program
Socionomprogrammet, inriktning mot etik och livsåskådning
Uppsok
Social and Behavioural Science, Law
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2013-10-15 Created: 2013-10-15 Last updated: 2015-12-23Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

Social Work as a Democratic Tool(354 kB)522 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 354 kBChecksum SHA-512
78ae77705a68b0c443cd4035272cb894c200dc11747bba196a2f6981a7e77c4b9f3e26383930aadf2c77b3f68b478aa36c9a116ce13a852a2a139e0e9c2ff7cf
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
Department of Social Sciences
Social Work

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 522 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 343 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf