Practitioners confront complex social problems along with clients, helping them find solutions to problems they face while living under oppressive economic and social circumstances. Clients require help with acute problems, yet have vital experience to draw on. Using feminist standpoint theories promotes consciousness-raising for practitioners about clients’ views on their situations, social structures, and power relationships, increasing clients’ self-determination and systems change. This article offers a rigorous, pragmatic method to analyze practice centering clients’ standpoints. This ‘‘feminist standpoint model’’ recognizes innovative interpretations and creative solutions from clients’ perspectives. Examples from a study of welfare reform illustrate the use of the model.
Abramovitz, M. ( 2000). Under attack, fighting back: Women and welfare in the United States (New ed.). New York: Monthly Review Press.
2.
Andersen, M.L., & Collins, P.H. ( 2001). Race, class, and gender: An anthology (4th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
3.
Blank, R.M., & Haskins, R. ( 2001). The new world of welfare. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
4.
Blau, J., & Abramovitz, M. (2007). The dynamics of social welfare policy (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
5.
Cancian, M., Haveman, R., Meyer, D.R., & Wolfe, B. ( 2002). Before and after TANF: The economic well-being of women leaving welfare (No. 1244-02). Madison: Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
6.
Cohen, M. ( 1998). Post-secondary education under welfare reform . Welfare Information Network Issue Notes, 2(8).
7.
Collins, P.H. ( 2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (Rev. 10th anniversary ed.). New York: Routledge.
8.
Collins, P.H. ( 2004). Black sexual politics: African Americans, gender, and the new racism. New York: Routledge .
9.
Denzin, N.K. ( 2002). Social work in the seventh moment. Qualitative Social Work, 1, 25-38.
10.
dePoy, E., Hartman, A., & Haslett, D. ( 1999). Critical action research: A model for social work knowing . Social Work, 44, 560-569.
11.
Edmonds-Cady, C. ( 2006). The boundaries of sisterhood: Race, class, gender, and participation in Michigan’s welfare rights movement and response to welfare policy, 1964-1972. East Lansing: Michigan State University.
12.
Eisenstein, Z. (Ed.). (1979). Capitalist patriarchy and the case for socialist feminism. New York: Monthly Review Press.
13.
Friedman, P. ( 2001, September). TANF reauthorization and postsecondary education options for welfare recipients. TANF Reauthorization Resource, Reauthorization Notes, 1(3).
14.
Gambrill, E. ( 1999). Evidence-based practice: An alternative to authority-based practice. Families in Society, 80, 341-350.
15.
Ganzglass, E. ( 2006). Strategies for increasing participation in TANF education and training activities. Washington, DC: Center for Law and Social Policy.
16.
Golonka, S., & Matus-Grossman, L. (2001). Opening doors: Expanding educational opportunities for low-income workers. New York : Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
17.
Gutierrez, L.M., & Lewis, E.A. ( 1999). Empowering women of color. New York : Columbia University Press.
18.
Haraway, D. ( 1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies , 14, 575-599.
19.
Harding, S. ( 1991). Whose science, whose knowledge? Thinking from women’s lives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
20.
Harding, S. ( 2004). Introduction: Standpoint theory as a site of political, philosophic, and scientific debate. In S. Harding (Ed.), The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual & political controversies (pp. 1-15). New York: Routledge.
21.
Hartsock, N.C.M. ( 2004). The feminist standpoint: Developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism. In S. Harding (Ed.), The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual and political controversies (pp. 35-53). New York: Routledge.
22.
Hick, S., & Pozzuto, R. ( 2005). Social work: A critical turn. Toronto : Thompson Educational.
23.
Jacobs, J.A., & Winslow, S. ( 2003). Welfare reform and enrollment in postsecondary education [electronic version]. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 586, 194-217.
24.
King Keenan, E. ( 2004). From sociocultural categories to socially located relations: Using critical theory in social work practice. Families in Society, 85, 539-548.
25.
Kondrat, M.E. ( 2002). Actor-centered social work: Re-visioning ‘‘Person-in-environment’’ through a critical theory lens. Social Work, 47, 435-448.
26.
Martinson, K., & Strawn, J. ( 2002). Built to last: Why skills matter for long-run success in welfare reform. Washington, DC: Center for Law and Social Policy and the National Council of State Directors of Adult Education.
27.
Oakley, A. ( 2000). Experiments in knowing: Gender and method in the social sciences. New York: New Press .
28.
Ozawa, M.N., & Yoon, H.S. ( 2005). ‘‘Leavers’’ from TANF and AFDC: How do they fare economically? Social Work, 50, 239-249.
29.
Payne, M. ( 2005). Modern social work theory. Chicago : Lyceum Books.
30.
Saulnier, C.F. ( 1996). Feminist theories and social work: Approaches and applications . New York: Haworth Press.
31.
Smith, D.E. ( 1990). Texts, facts, and femininity: Exploring the relations of ruling. London: Routledge.
32.
Smith, D.E. ( 1999). Writing the social: Critique, theory, and investigations . Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
33.
Smith, D.E. ( 2004). Comment on Hekman’s ‘‘Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited.’’. In S. Harding (Ed.), The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual and political controversies (pp. 263-268). New York: Routledge.
34.
Sosulski, M.R. ( 2004). A road to inclusion: A combined-methods analysis of access to post-secondary education for women in the Illinois public aid system. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin- Madison.
35.
Stone-Mediatore, S. ( 2000). Chandra Mohanty and the revaluing of ‘‘Experience.’’ . In U. Narayan & S. Harding (Eds.), Decentering the center: Philosophy for a multicultural, postcolonial, and feminist world (pp. 110-127). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
36.
Strawn, J. ( 2004). Why congress should expand, not cut, access to long-term training in TANF. Retrieved January 13, 2005, from http://www.clasp.org/publications/TANF_Postsec.pdf
37.
Swigonski, M.E. ( 1994). The logic of feminist standpoint theory for social work research. Social Work, 39, 387-393.
38.
Swigonski, M.E. ( 1996). Challenging privilege through Africentric social work practice. Social Work, 41, 153-161.
39.
Trinder, L. ( 2000). Reading the texts: Postmodern feminism and the ‘‘doing’’ of research. In B. Fawcett, B. Featherstone, J. Fook & A. Rossiter (Eds.), Practice and research in social work: Postmodern perspectives (pp. 39-61). London : Routledge .
40.
Weikart, L.A. ( 2005). The era of meanness: Welfare reform and barriers to a college degree. Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work , 20, 416-433.
41.
Wise, S. ( 1990). Becoming a feminist social worker. In L. Stanley (Ed.), Feminist praxis: Research, theory, and epistemology in feminist sociology. London : Routledge.
42.
Witkin, S.L. ( 2000). Noticing. Social Work, 45, 101-104.
43.
Zaytoun, K. ( 2006). Theorizing at the borders: Considering social location in rethinking self and psychological development. National Women’s Studies Association (NSWA) Journal18, 52-72.
44.
Zedlewski, S. ( 1999). Work-related activities and limitations of current welfare recipients (No. 99-06). Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
