A critical review of Chinese and international social work: Walking a tightrope between local and global standards

Abstract

This article presents a critical analysis of the challenges global social work standards present for mainland China (hereafter China) with its authoritarian political ideology that is in tension with the profession’s universal values grounded in liberal individualism. China is caught between the Scylla of universal standards and Charybdis of indigenisation seeking to adapt social work to its unique sociocultural contexts. Based on our extensive literature review, we identified four challenges for Chinese social work: (1) balancing personal social services and social development, (2) negotiating global standards and local realities, (3) responding to poverty and other national social development issues and (4) pressures towards indigenisation, while remaining in step with social work’s global standards. China favours the continued adaptation of imported knowledge and practice interventions within local and national sociocultural, economic and political realities. This study also highlights social work in China’s urban bias and limited attention to rural issues, acknowledging this is a concern for social work even in Western contexts.

Keywords

Chinese social work global standards indigenisation mainland China

Introduction

This article examines the development of social work in China, revisiting recurrent themes surrounding issues relating to the transfer of Western social work to China. Early literature did this through concepts of indigenisation, universalisation, internationalisation and localisation (Gray, 2005; Yan and Tsang, 2008; Yip, 2004). For example, Gray (2005) wrote about paradoxical processes in international social work, not least the dilemma of balancing universalisation and indigenisation, using the development of social work in China as an example. The central indigenisation argument was that internationalisation promoted Western social work theories, models, skills and values, as part of the profession’s attempt to promote universal standards, as seen in Africa where the debate began (Gray et al., 2008). Internationalisation based on universalism had led to critiques of professional imperialism in the Third World (Midgley, 1981). Following an extensive literature on indigenisation in social work, international social work discourse changed, with much more attention focused on responsiveness to local contexts and culturally appropriate practice approaches (Gray et al., 2013). The later literature in China reflected these influences. For the most part, our critical review found little proactive theorising emerging from China. Instead, Chinese social workers defended their adaptation of imported knowledge in their development of culturally appropriate models responsive to Chinese political, economic and sociocultural realities.

Social work’s development in China

Following its suspension of social science disciplines in 1952, the government relaunched social work by establishing numerous training programmes from the late 1980s onwards, though it remained a ‘relatively new subject in Chinese universities’ (Chan and Lei, 2017: 1344). By 2008, China had introduced an annual professional accreditation examination based on state-approved textbooks on competent practice (Meng et al., 2018; Niu and Østbø Haugen, 2018). By 2018, there were 348 Bachelor of Social Work and 150 Master of Social Work programmes at Chinese universities and colleges, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA) (2019) had certified 430,000 social workers. They included assistant social workers (zhu li she hui gong zuo shi) and social workers (she hui gong zuo shi), who had passed the accreditation examination (Ministry of Civil Affairs, 2019). The government had aimed to train and employ 1.45 million social workers by 2020 (State Council, 2016). They were part of China’s modernisation movement and the Chinese Dream of becoming a ‘moderately well-off society’ by the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2021. Beyond that, China aimed to be a fully developed nation by the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China in 2049 (New York Times, 2013).

Following the global financial crisis and its worldwide impacts, there was a change in how China embraced international ideas. At this time, it refocused attention on national social welfare policy. The transition from Deng’s to the current leadership brought further challenges to internationalisation that continued to present difficulties for social workers in China, trying to negotiate an authoritarian control system and collectivist culture antithetical to liberal individualism within most Western democracies, where the profession had evolved (Garrett, 2019; Leung et al., 2012).

The universalisation–indigenisation dilemma prior to this time led Chinese social work writers to defend their adaptation of Western models and focus on their appropriateness to local contexts. For China, universal standards and indigenised approaches represented the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis, as social workers wanted to be part of an international profession in an authoritarian political context that made adherence to universal values around human rights and social justice extremely difficult. They had to walk a tightrope between an authoritarian political regime and traditional Chinese cultures. They did this using Confucianism as the best approximation of universal social work values (Leung, 2014; Yip, 2004). The government, too, was bolstering its embrace of the Confucian ideology of collectivism over individualism, citizen responsibility over individual rights, and a social order grounded in stability and social harmony rather than social activism (Yip, 2004).

In this context, Yan and Tsang (2008) used the notions of bentuhuade and bentude to describe internal processes of making Western models fit local contexts. For them, these Chinese terms signalled ‘a recurring caution against professional imperialism and the universality of Western social work values, knowledge, and technology’ (p. 191). Chinese social workers were under pressure to embrace these very technologies and thus form part of the international social work community: ‘Bentuhuade practices within the modified imported approach . . . privilege[d] the social work paradigm of the . . . Anglophone world’ (p. 192), while bentude focused on cultural differences and had ‘a distinct political dimension’ (p. 192).

Garrett (2019) described this period in social work’s development in China as follows: with the introduction of the market-reform agenda, often referred to as Dengism, Chinese political ideology embraced capitalism, while clinging to communist-socialism and centralised ‘state planning or state intervention accompanied by the continuing authoritarian management of civil society’ (p. 412). Chan et al. (2009) believed that economic modernisation accompanied by rapid urbanisation and industrialisation had resulted in complex social challenges. Meng et al. (2018) observed that, despite its embrace of capitalist market reform, China remained a communist country grounded in authoritarian rather than Western democratic ideals. O’Neill (2018) noted that China became a strong consumerist society with individual wealth accumulating at an unprecedented rate for some sectors of the population. However, at the same time, more traditional local communities continued to adhere to Confucianism, which situated individuals within a hierarchical social order from family to the state, rooted in ‘five cardinal relationships: father-son, brothers, husband-wife, friends and emperor-officials’ (p. 30). Within this context, national policy married to Confucian values compelled social workers to promote social ‘cohesion and harmony’ (Ang, 2009: 111). Collectivistic in orientation, Confucian ideology supported a social order that privileged institutional control over ‘individual interaction’ (O’Neill, 2018: 113). It tied social stability to individual endurance and inaction rather than change: non-interference or quiescence was ‘the best way for individual self-preservation in facing changes and challenges’ (Yip, 2004: 608). The political goal of a harmonious Chinese society reinforced this cultural emphasis on social stability through obedience, order, obligation, endurance and self-preservation.

More recent social work commentaries noted the political constraints on government-driven social work in China. Garrett (2019), for example, observed the limited room for critical social work promoting empowerment, change and development by challenging the prevailing social order. To date, modernisation had increased social inequalities and social injustices and an acquiescent social work profession could not challenge the government’s controlling social engineering process. Most social work scholars in China had been reluctant to grapple with these realities (Garrett, 2019). With hindsight, one might argue that indigenisation, with its focus on local cultures rather than broad social and political issues and human rights and social justice, was the best social workers could do within this political environment. It was left to international scholars, often Chinese scholars outside China, to provide critical reviews of social work’s evolution in China (Hutchings and Taylor, 2007; Yan and Tsang, 2008; Yuen-Tsang and Ku, 2008; Yuen-Tsang and Wang, 2002).

Given China’s political ideology and cultural beliefs, the evolving identity of Chinese social work was worthy of ongoing study. A systematic review of the extensive and rapidly expanding literature on this topic led the authors to identify four discernible trends in Chinese social work’s development, as follows:

balancing personal social services with social development;

global standards and local realities;

responding to poverty and other national social development issues;

indigenisation as a continuing focus.

Balancing personal social services with social development

In adapting imported knowledge and practice interventions, social work in China embraced forms of generalist practice within a personal services model. Thus, most literature focuses on individualised service responses within various fields of practice, drawing on Western concepts, such as multiculturalism, ethnic sensitivity, empowerment, community development and indigenisation. It uses these concepts to explain how Western social work is being adapted to local conditions. For example, Smith (2003) observed that social work was responding to ethnic diversity, using Western notions of multicultural practice that fit local ‘Chinese characteristics’ (p. 403). Sin (2008) called for ethnic sensitivity in family social work. Others argued that the diversity of Chinese communities and cultures made for challenges in translating interventions from one community to another (Leung, 2014; Tsang and Yan, 2001). Leung and Tam (2014) questioned the person-oriented rhetoric in political discourse, as individual autonomy and choice were inconsistent with Chinese authoritarianism and Confucian collectivism. Nevertheless, attempts to bring established fields of Western social work to China reflected foreign influences with evolving approaches to social service provision based on imported models (Behan et al., 2014). The influence of Western knowledge is visible, for example, in Huang and Wong’s (2013) choice of recreational group work to alleviate survivors’ distress following disasters and Wyatt and Silver’s (2015) use of a cross-cultural crisis intervention (developed in the United States) in the form of post-trauma psychological support following the Sichuan earthquake. They acknowledged that the main challenge to foreign programme implementation was China’s poor service infrastructure for emergency-response provision. Liang and Zhang (2016), too, turned to US models of disaster relief. Xiang and Luk (2012) advocated a Western service-learning approach to social work education based on Butin’s (2003) framework. Liu and Xu (2012) used a collaborative capacity-building approach – between China and Canada – to train workers in the Women’s Federation. Tam et al. (2016) used an ecological model and capabilities approach to address intimate partner violence in China and effect structural change and social justice. Wong (2016) called on social work educators to teach evidence-based health care to students, while Zhao et al. (2017) advocated specialist medical social work training for medical social workers working with abused children. Zhang et al. (2018) examined the barriers to translating evidence-based practice from the USA to mainland China, and the paucity of Chinese research on, or empirically based inventions for, social work practice. These examples show that, despite ongoing calls for indigenisation, Chinese social workers emulated Western generalist social work models.

There has been constant criticism of these trends. For example, Li et al. (2012) perceived the reliance on Western knowledge in evolving fields of practice as problematic, and Sigley (2011) believed individual counselling was ineffective in tackling social issues arising from modernisation. Others were critical of a personal service (casework) focus rather than community and social development to enhance social work’s fit with the government’s reform programme, which prioritised economic development as a national endeavour (Chen, 2015; Dominelli and Ku, 2017; Feng and Peng, 2015; Hugman, 2015; Smith, 2003).

The government envisaged a potential role for social work in maintaining social harmony through social development to address the social consequences of economic modernisation. In international social work:

[t]he creation of nationally authentic professional social work [was] . . . part of the social development strategy of governments. Although in some respects, social work is expected to contribute to alleviation of the social issues created by rapid economic and structural change . . . the overall gains are intended to be developmental and in reality wider social development is also being promoted in culturally appropriate ways. (Hugman, 2015: 148)

Midgley (1995) described social development as a national planning model that gave equal weight to economic and social development. Despite the Chinese government’s national planning agenda, Chinese social work tended to promote Western-influenced personalised responses with scant attention given in the local social work literature to advancing a social development focus (Chen, 2015; Dominelli and Ku, 2017; Feng and Peng, 2015; Smith, 2003). Among the few who have advanced social development, Western influences remain visible. For instance, Dominelli and Ku (2017) believed Western green social work, grounded in an ecological perspective, might provide a framework for environmental sustainability, human well-being and social and environmental justice in China.

Negotiating global standards and local realities

By serving as agents of universality, international social work associations promoted Western social work education and practice globally, though the idea that ‘western social policy and social work offers a universalistic set of prescriptions for promoting social welfare has been widely discussed and challenged’ (Midgley, 2007: 33). Chinese scholars wanted to adopt a global professional identity in keeping with social work’s global standards. However, internal pressures, arising from the differing views of politicians and administrators and China’s broad definition of social work, which included social workers (she hui gong zuo shi), assistant social workers (zhu li she hui gong zuo shi), volunteers and welfare service cadres, had serious implications for the profession’s fit with international standards. While professionally educated social workers were seeking to adapt the knowledge and values of international social work, social service agents employed by the state promoted national political objectives, such as building a harmonious society, and tended to differ on the processes of professionalisation and indigenisation (Niu and Østbø Haugen, 2019). While national policy and welfare regimes determined the social work mandate in most parts of the world, the situation was different in China, due to its unique combination of political ideology and cultural beliefs, as already described. There was little social workers could do to promote a global professional identity because the government dictated the ethos and ambit of social workers. The low status of the profession, poor salaries, heavy workloads and lack of professional guidance severely curtailed social work’s ability to define its identity in mainland China. Though Hong Kong academics had increased awareness of international education standards and promoted social work’s Global Agenda as a guiding framework, inevitable tensions remained between global social work values and the profession’s evolution in China (Cheng, 2008; Gray, 2005, 2008; Hutchings and Taylor, 2007; Jia, 2008; Taylor and Hutchings, 2008). The international definition claimed social work was a practice-based profession and academic discipline that promoted social change and development, social cohesion and the empowerment and liberation of people (International Federation of Social Workers, 2014). In China, the Ministry of Civil Affairs assumed responsibility for social welfare and national policies regulating social work (Meng et al., 2018). Xia and Guo (2002) believed that professionalisation, by which they meant evolving professional standards, and institutionalisation, the development of welfare institutions, were major factors in social work’s positioning in China. China’s top-down planning model left little room for the profession to evolve its own identity and the public remained uninformed and ignorant about the functions of social workers in evolving social services (Chan et al., 2009). Hutchings and Taylor (2007) argued that strong state control made it difficult to apply the rights-based international definition of social work and global standards for social work education in China. Jia (2008) responded that Hutchings and Taylor (2007) had overlooked China’s democratic development and unique culture. He argued that social work’s contribution to policy-making, social change and human well-being was in keeping with the international definition. In reply, Taylor and Hutchings (2008) acknowledged that the quest for global standards based on ‘fixed notions and criteria developed in the west’ (p. 103) might not be universally applicable. Cheng (2008) advocated a more generalised definition of, and culturally appropriate standards for, Chinese social work. In their survey of social work, students and practitioners in China, Zhao et al. (2018) found that most were committed to social work values as defined by the United States Association of Social Workers, including respect for basic individual rights and commitment to social advocacy, albeit to a lower degree than their Western counterparts. However, social workers could not apply externally determined professional standards of international social work directly to China. This was because of China’s authoritarian political regime and welfare agenda outsourcing ‘public services to community organizations through a competitive bidding procedure . . . [with government] welfare officials . . . responsible for drafting bidding documents, preparing contracts and monitoring service quality’ (Chan and Lei, 2017: 1343). Chan and Lei (2017) found that social workers faced ‘challenges in working with government bureaucrats, addressing the needs of service users and fulfilling their contractual duties’ (p. 1353). Niu and Østbø Haugen (2019) reported that social work’s low status left it with little political clout, while Liu et al. (2012) found social workers were more concerned about their professional identity than broader sociopolitical issues. The new social workers in their study had

gone through a difﬁcult journey, from knowing nothing about social work to struggling with their new identity in a profession that they have come to love. Unfortunately, their admiration for social work values, appreciation of social work missions, and conﬁdence in social work development may not be sustainable due to the continuous challenges to their professional identity and their material survival in the workplace. (Liu et al., 2012: 197)

In this context, Niu and Østbø Haugen (2019) reported that social workers’ professional identity evolved through:

a combination of on-the-job training and supervision, studying national textbooks for qualifying exams, and exposure to international ideas about social work. Discussions about social work in China have typically centred on the applicability of Western models and the political dynamics between different stakeholders . . . [with social workers at times experiencing conflicting] sets of professional standards. (p. 1932)

Smith (2003) believed that social workers were trying to straddle government and community expectations, while Yip (2007a) noted that dynamics of politicisation, professionalisation and commercialisation were creating tensions for social work education and practice. Zhen (2008) discerned three characteristics of social work in China: (1) it was tied to service provision; (2) it comprised a range of practitioners, including state personnel in social welfare units; and (3) it had yet to respond to regional disparities arising from uneven socioeconomic development. Liu et al. (2012) observed agreement among Chinese scholars that the professionalisation of social work required active state intervention and support.

Like social work, the development of a social service structure was a work in progress, with attempts at social capital building involving the creation of ‘opportunities for residents to meet and interact . . . [to] encourage the exchange of information and opinions and foster a culture of mutual support’ (Wu et al., 2010: 2594). Individual and community initiatives were a primary focus of China’s bureaucratic state welfare strategy (Chan and Lei, 2017), which Xu and Chow (2011) believed social workers could make more efficient, less bureaucratic and increasingly community focused.

Xu (2012) argued that social work derived its legitimacy from its fulfilment of socially accepted values, such as caring and volunteerism, and the Chinese government was more concerned with social work’s role in promoting social harmony than in endorsing international social work values relating to rights-based democratic participation. Hence, Leung et al. (2012) argued that the psychological and interpersonal focus of social work fit with the problematic of government that saw personal failings as a threat to social harmony.

In the public–private relationship the government retained strong control, with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) the weaker partner. Huang et al. (2011) reported that centralised control and weak NGO participation had restricted social workers’ response to the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. NGOs’ lack of knowledge about professional social work might also have been a factor (Dai, 2013), while Ting and Chen (2012) highlighted the importance of local ownership and participation for post-disaster reconstruction in rural communities. For Ku and Ma (2015), this involved social workers abandoning their professional authority to engage in resource provision and capacity building in emergency relief and community reconstruction.

Wang (2013a, 2013b) discerned three broad historical ‘categories’ of social work in China: (1) general social work performed mainly by community members and volunteers, (2) administrative social work carried out by public officials and (3) professional social work involving social workers certified by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Gao and Yan (2015) thought the emerging civil society was generating institutional spaces for social workers to take an active role in welfare service delivery. Local government welfare departments or social service organisations providing government-funded services for residents employed social workers in major cities, such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen. However, social work service provision in rural China had yet to develop.

Responding to poverty and other national social issues

In 2017, 43 million people in China were living in poverty (World Bank, 2018), despite the central government’s policy of Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TAP) launched in 2014 to eliminate extreme poverty in rural China by 2020. TAP included a database on rural poor people that recorded household needs and local conditions. It required the social participation of registered individuals, social organisations and government structures in rendering targeted assistance, including access to employment, education and medical care; infrastructure construction; and economic development projects (Li et al., 2016). This rural response, however, did not involve social work, which had yet to extend beyond its predominant urban focus (Gao and Yan, 2015; Leung, 2012; Liu, 2012; Wu et al., 2016; Yip, 2007b). Relatively less attention was focused on social challenges in rural China.

The World Bank (2017) reported that China had the second largest population of rural residents in the world, numbering more than 580 million people, who were reliant on agriculture-based economies that had been severely disadvantaged by modernising development. The social fabric had changed irrevocably, due to the exodus of the young and economically active population, leaving behind women, children and older people and creating large numbers of migrant workers (Leung, 2012; Long et al., 2011; Meng et al., 2018; Yunong and Xiong, 2008). This large, vulnerable, left-behind population comprised more than 60 million children, 50 million older people and 47 million women overlooked in social service provision (Meng et al., 2018). Responding to these left-behind groups in rural areas suggested a need for generalist practice and community development to ensure the socioeconomic sustainability of rural communities (Bin, 2009).

Yip (2007b) blamed the urban–rural imbalance on the influence of imported social work knowledge and direct practice models, which had led to the adoption of forms of specialist clinical practice and individualist urban service approaches (Yip et al., 2013). This might be due, in part, to Hong Kong’s influence on social work’s development in mainland China, since Western knowledge suited to developed urban contexts had shaped professional practice there, hence the predominant focus on individualist approaches requiring clinical expertise, with less attention to context-appropriate approaches to address rural issues. Among these were issues relating to the 277.47 million rural residents who had migrated through rapid urbanisation, 168.84 million of whom were migrant workers (nong min gong) working mostly in urban centres as temporary labourers in poor working conditions with minimum wages (Garrett, 2019; Meng et al., 2018). They had left behind spouses, children and ageing parents facing precarious livelihoods. Rural social work had yet to respond to rural social realities of this nature, though there were models worthy of emulation (Tsui et al., 2017).

Pressures towards indigenisation

There has been a major focus on indigenising Western models of social work to develop culturally relevant social work education and practice (Chan and Chan, 2005; Cheng, 2008; Cheung and Liu, 2004; Feng, 2013; Wang, 1997, 2000; Wong, 2002; Yan and Tsang, 2008; Yan and Tsui, 2007; Yip, 2005, 2007a; Yuen-Tsang and Ku, 2008; Yuen-Tsang and Wang, 2002; Yunong and Xiong, 2008). Wang (1997) believed the adoption of Western models was contingent on their fit with traditional Chinese cultures, principally Confucianism, socialist ideology and sociocultural changes arising from economic reform since 1978. As we have seen, several Chinese scholars highlighted the futility of directly importing Western approaches through international collaborations (Wang, 2000; Yan and Tsang, 2008; Yuen-Tsang and Ku, 2008; Yuen-Tsang and Wang, 2002). Yuen-Tsang and Wang (2002) analysed tensions and debates in curriculum design for professional social work education and found a blending of universalising and indigenising tendencies. They and others appealed for the indigenisation of social work theory and practice (Gray, 2005, 2008; Yunong and Xiong, 2008).

Gray and Coates (2010) noted that indigenous knowledge was ‘local, empirically-based knowledge about culturally appropriate solutions to particular contexts’ (p. 616). Rather than adaptation from Western contexts, it arose from within local cultures and societies. In this vein, Cheung and Liu (2004) examined the necessity of, and possibility for, developing indigenous social work based on their study of Chinese women’s self-concept embedded in family and Chinese traditional values. Yan and Tsui (2007) argued that Chinese social work scholars should work with practitioners to develop indigenous knowledge, while Guo (2016) called for an indigenous and developmental model of social work to take an active role in social development and social governance in China. In examining the social distance between social workers and ethnic minorities, Chai (2016) went further, calling for indigenous social workers in ethnic minority areas.

Conclusion

This article has highlighted the tensions between Chinese and international social work, not least issues in applying global standards in the context of a government-driven strategy that employed a broad definition of social work within a new outsourcing welfare strategy. Some of these tensions arose from Western influences towards personalised services and the Global Agenda focused on social development. The thrust to emulate the approaches of advanced Western societies created difficulties for social workers within the Chinese political and cultural milieu. Though a relatively new profession in China, the government’s drive to establish social workers as agents of social harmony led to an unprecedented growth in the number of ‘social workers’, based on a fluid professional identity (Niu and Østbø Haugen, 2019). Their task was ‘to undertake politically shacked roles; marginalised within community and lowly paid and subject to precarious working conditions’ (Garrett, 2019: 425). This critical review suggested that, ultimately, in fulfilling their ‘task’, social workers in China would continue to adapt imported knowledge and thus develop culturally sensitive models responsive to Chinese realities, while remaining disengaged from broader structural and political issues. The political and social policy project with its overarching aim of building a harmonious society offers a reason why social workers in China are often ‘not articulating how conflicting principles can give rise to practical dilemmas, insulating themselves from political scrutiny and risk’ (Niu and Østbø Haugen, 2019: 1935). This results in a politically constrained social work, being firmly wedded to allegiance to state policy, acceptance of the existing socio-political and economic structure (Leung, 2012).

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council under grant number 201506300080 and the Special Research Fund (BOF) at Ghent University under grant number BOF17/CHN/060.

ORCID iDs

Qian Meng

Griet Roets

Author biographies

Qian Meng, PhD at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, Ghent University, Belgium.

Mel Gray, Emeritus Professor at the School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle.

Lieve Bradt, professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, Ghent University, Belgium.

Griet Roets, professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, Ghent University, Belgium.

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