At the Edge of the Frame: Beyond Science and Art in Social Work

The central argument in this article is that social work has always been a practice at the fringes. The phrase is used in its best sense and in at least two meanings: (1) that social work has been at the edges of the mainstream of scientific discourse, not because of any intrinsic deficiency in the profession but because of the nature of the practice; (2) that, in the postmodern sense, social work has been a collage where science, art, rationality and intuition, systematic and asystematic knowledge meet. In this latter sense, this article proposes, social work can represent a very desirable convergence of paradigms that needs to be acknowledged and celebrated. Perhaps the most significant contribution of postmodernism is that it accommodates this possibility.