Voorwoord / Preface

Abstract

From text: In order to describe contemporary social work contextually, a synopsis of developments in the discipline is called for. Various developmental phases in the profession are described in the research. Concerning the South African context, Potgieter (1998: 20-4) distinguishes three phases, namely social welfare in South Africa in the preapartheid era, that of the apartheid era and that of what he terms “the new era 1990 and beyond”. During the pre-apartheid area, social work in South African was primarily focused on the effects of poverty and unemployment which went hand-in-hand with urbanisation and industrialisation.