Socjologia a praktyka rozwiązywania problemów społecznych – między naukowymi a nieformalnymi teoriami problemów społecznych
SOCIOLOGY AND PRACTICE IN SOLVING SOCIAL PROBLEMS – BETWEEN FORMAL AND INFORMAL THEORIES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Summary/Abstract: This paper is concerned with the interrelationships between social sciences (especially sociological theories of social problems) and practice in solving contemporary social problems. Shall be indicated that nowadays link between a theory and its understanding and application in practice is not evident and might not even exist. This situation maintains because sociologists fear that getting involved in practice may seem to be unprofessional and demean their work’s value as science. On the other hand, practitioners in social services are more likely to be critical and unwilling to apply academic theories into practice, they are more likely to build informal/ practice theories and guide by the “practice wisdom”. In the paper research findings about the process of social constructing of parental upbringing inefficiency were examined as the example of informal theories. Both formal and informal theories are similar (they include definitions of social problems, their causes, possible solutions and an example) and perform similar functions. Both of them interpenetrate, their aim is to build significant stories of the social problem and to convince the society to suggested solutions of the problem. The aim of the article, referring to academic literature and author’s research analyzes, is to enable to answer the question how private and practice-driven theories become social constructs that provide guidance on social workers’ professional activity in a way academic formal theories do. Informal theories on one hand may be seem as an eclectic approach, but on the other hand they can be powerful force that make social work into a ritual that reaffirms and perpetuates the problematic condition.

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