Abstract
Social good embodies ideals that are at the heart of the social work profession and promotes its values and goals. Several trends have converged in recent years to create a sense of urgency around social good and to bring together grassroots organizations, global leaders, businesses, and individual social entrepreneurs who are interested in finding creative solutions to the greatest challenges of our society. These trends include mass immigration, uncertain economic future, human rights abuses, food shortages, and inadequate responses to natural and human-caused disasters. They have brought fresh energy to the focus on the need for innovative solutions to large-scale, or macro, social causes that have traditionally been important for the social work profession and are now part of the Grand Challenges for the profession.
Social good refers to services or products that promote human well-being on a large scale. These services or products include health care, education, clean water, and causes such as equality and women’s rights. The quest to promote social good around the world can bring together physical and virtual communities that unite around a cause or an idea, discoursing globally and instantaneously, and translating into coordinated actions such as protests or petition drives (prime examples are Black Lives Matter and #OscarSoWhite). Social good is a term that coalesces many movements around the world, is featured in corporate websites, and unites different sectors of society—government, nonprofit, grassroots, and business.
Although the term social good is widely used across a variety of disciplines, it is currently underdeveloped both in research and in practice. The social work profession is uniquely positioned to lead the development of a scientific agenda, evidence-based practices, and educational programs aimed at promoting social good.
Social good unites ideals that are rooted in the profession’s longstanding social justice tradition and are particularly relevant to today’s turbulent and divisive political and economic climate. Social good has the potential for reconnecting the social work profession to its roots in social change and innovation, as articulated in the work of Nobel laureate Jane Addams, and to its future ambitions as represented by the grand challenges. As a research topic, social good is ripe for further refinement—especially in terms of construct operationalization, study design, and measurement.
A preliminary conceptual model that was developed using a review of the current social good academic literature, a web-based review of social good initiatives, and informant interviews, inspires this call for papers.
The conceptual model proposes that social good is comprised of three anchor themes—(a) environmental justice and sustainability, (b) social inclusion, and (c) peace, harmony, and collaboration. These three themes are universal elements of social good. These anchor themes provide the basis for discussing and developing a new definition of social good. Second, social good requires global, multilevel thinking and a variety of perspectives, values, and disciplines. Promoting social good requires the engagement of collaborative and nontraditional systems of change. Third, levering innovative technology enables the use of novel and unconventional approaches when designing and executing solutions for achieving social good.
The goal of this special issue is to elicit the manuscripts that help define the concept of social good, describe ways of engaging diverse and nontraditional systems in the promotion of social good, and identify innovative technologies that can be used to develop social good–oriented solutions. We are interested in the manuscripts that speak to these issues broadly as well as the manuscripts that focus on the unique roles and responsibilities of the social work profession.
In particular, this special issue seeks scholarly work along the following suggested topics: Research-based, theoretical, conceptual, or case-based articles that focus on any of the anchor themes of social good: (a) environmental justice and sustainability; (b) social inclusion; and (c) peace, harmony, and collaboration Scientific avenues for producing and disseminating useful research in the area of social good Measuring social good Cross-discipline collaborations to promote social good Using technology and social innovation for social good Social good in human service organizations Leadership and social good Educational implications and applications of social good The relationship between social good and contemporary social work practice
Studies using diverse methodologies are invited as meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and theoretical and conceptual papers.
Submissions may be sent directly to the guest editor, Michàlle E. Mor Barak, PhD,