Social workers and the neoliberal values of personal responsibility and self-sufficiency
Results of a NZ study
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10898985 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Darren Renau (0009-0005-5513-2283, Massey University, corresponding author), Nicky Stanley‐Clarke (0000-0002-2491-4056, Massey University), Nicky Stanley-Clarke (Massey University), Tracie Mafile’o (0000-0002-5969-9915, Research Services, Avondale University, 582 Freemans Dr, Cooranbong, NSW, 2265) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 56 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1873-1894 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The British Journal of Social Work (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0045-3102 • E-ISSN: 1468-263X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/bjsw/bcag024 |
| OpenAlex | W7133344202 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 45 |
New Zealand society has entrenched neoliberal messaging of personal responsibility and self-sufficiency over the past forty years. This article addresses a gap in knowledge about social worker political ideologies in New Zealand. It reports on the findings of a quantitative survey administered to New Zealand social workers. The aim of the survey was to identify dominant political ideologies held by social workers, measure a range of socially authoritarian and right-wing economic attitudes, and identify if these attitudes are consistent with their self-identified political ideology. Following analysis using IBM SPSS Statistics software, the results of the study found that most respondents positioned themselves as Liberal or Progressive yet held more right-wing attitudes towards personal responsibility and self-sufficiency than their political ideology might have predicted. The most significant finding is social worker age made more of a contribution than political ideology with respect to attitudes and beliefs around personal responsibility and self-sufficiency. Social workers under the age of fifty are more likely than social workers fifty years or older to be unwittingly reflecting neoliberal values of personal responsibility and self-sufficiency onto their clients, which is then likely to further marginalize their clients
Authoritarianism · Ideology · Moral responsibility · Neoliberalism (international relations) · Politics · Social responsibility · Healthcare innovation and challenges · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Social Work Education and Practice
The Acceptable R-Square in Empirical Modelling for Social Science Research
Using Social Media and Snowball Sampling as an Alternative Recruitment Strategy for Research
Political Ideology
Social workers as willful subjects
The Unexamined Identity
Eats me alive
The “Undeserving” Narrative in Child and Family Social Work and How It Is Perpetuated by “Progressive Neoliberalism”
Neoliberalism, austerity and social work with children and families
Keywords, care and neoliberalism
Collective desolation, individual consolations
Informed outrage
Exploring the Political Diversity of Social Workers
Are Social Work Educators Bullies? Student Perceptions of Political Discourse in the Social Work Classroom
Upholding social justice
People are responsible for their own individual actions’
Neoliberalism and social work identity
What are we talking about when we talk about ‘Neoliberalism’
When the snowball fails to roll and the use of ‘horizontal’ networking in qualitative social research
Social workers' emotional labour with families in poverty
A Common Sense of the Times’? Neo‐liberalism and Changing Public Opinion in N ew Z ealand and the UK
Child Welfare as Justice
Getting beyond 'Heroic Agency' in Conceptualising Social Workers as Policy Actors in the Twenty-First Century
Social Workers in a Modernising Welfare State
The Caged Bird Sings
Talkin’ Bout iGeneration
Contesting Neoliberal Reform of Statutory Social Work in Switzerland and England
Recognizing New Opportunities
The Responsibilities of the Poor
Keeping the Lights On
The ideological morphology of left–centre–right
Thatcher’s Children, Blair’s Babies, Political Socialization and Trickle-down Value Change
Political ideologies of social workers
The Perception of Poverty and Social Welfare Policies among Undergraduate and Graduate Social Work Students in the United States
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |