Hugo Mennemann, Jörn Dummann: Einführung in die Soziale Arbeit
Reviewed by Prof. Dr. Peter-Ulrich Wendt, 2020-04-07
Translated from German version by DeepL
Hugo Mennemann, Jörn Dummann: Einführung in die Soziale Arbeit. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft (Baden-Baden) 2018. 2., überarbeitete Edition. 238 pages. ISBN 978-3-8487-4616-3. 24,90 EUR.
Since the review was written, a newer edition with the ISBN has been published, to which our ordering options refer.
There is a detailed German review for this work. Read here
Summary
I think Hugo Mennemann and Jörn Dumann have done justice to the challenge they see of "finding a responsible, appropriate and at the same time stimulating path between differentiation and simplification as well as between comprehensiveness and limitation" (p. 9). They make a further contribution to familiarising those interested and students in their first semester with "social work".
The fact that they involved students in developing the structure of the volume and asked (specialist) colleagues "about the central content and basic concepts of social work" in order to ultimately develop the structure for an introductory lecture (whereby the students' suggestions supported the changes compared to the first edition [including an exemplary introduction to individual fields of action and an explanation of action-related key concepts]) – all of this serves the claim "that this book makes an introductory, identity-forming, structuring and at the same time challenging contribution for many" (p. 12). The expectation of the two authors that the "possibility (may) arise of creating a link between theories and practically relevant questions" may also not be unfounded due to the design of the volume (p. 11).
This is therefore a work that productively complements the spectrum of existing introductions. It is also quite obvious that, firstly, in view of the dynamics of the field (described), there will not be "one" introduction to social work, secondly, in view of the recognisable formation of schools in social work (when outlining the theoretical aspects in the second section of the book), and thirdly, in view of the overlapping of social work/pedagogical practice through reference disciplinary appropriation, there should not be. So anyone casually looking for "the" (one) introduction from within the discipline will continue to search in vain.
In any case, I will encourage "my" social work students to read this introduction comparatively.
Review by
Prof. Dr. Peter-Ulrich Wendt
Professur für Grundlagen und Methoden der Sozialen Arbeit an der Hochschule Magdeburg
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