从实证主义到批判实在论:社会工作实践研究的应用

From Positivism to Critical Realism:The Application of Social Work Practice Research

每个实践研究都不可避免地浸润着研究者对知识的看法,而在建立知识的过程中,又不可避免地触及研究者对世界和现实的理解,认知世界是人类文明发展的一个永恒课题。本研究认为,相较于传统的实证研究,批判实在论对现实世界有更真实和丰富的理解。以批判实在论分析社会工作实践发现,社会工作实践是通过激发生成机制而带来转变,而生成机制又存在于现实中看不到、体验不到的真实领域中。因此,只聚焦于经验世界的实证研究对理解社会工作实践有很大的限制;相反,以批判实在论为基础的实践研究能够填补传统连贯因果论中因与果关系的空白,能够辨别出现实中推动转变的生成机制。

Whether explicit or not,every practice research involves the researcher’s view of knowledge,and in the process of building knowledge,it is inevitable to touch the researcher’s understanding of the world and reality.In the 289 th issue of the Journal of Social Work,the authors published a paper entitled"Practice Research on the Assessment of Family Crisis,the Effectiveness of Social Work Intervention",which describes how the authors of the practice research experience the process of evaluation,monitoring and learning.Due to space constraints,the previous article did not elaborate on the"critical realism"on which the analysis was based.The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap.This article hopes to point out that"critical realism"has a more realistic and rich understanding of the real world than traditional empirical/positivist research;and that social work practice brings about change by activating"generation mechanisms",which reside in the‘real domain’that are invisible to and inexperienced by us in reality.For"empirical"theorists,the best knowledge is called"propositional knowledge",which refers to the statements that can be proved to be"true and false"through testing.After the validation process,such knowledge could be endorsed and stated in books for others to learn,so that such kind of knowledge can spread around to support practice.Because knowledge of this sort is said to be true reflection of the‘laws’of external things,human beings find the intelligent foundation to control the world,to change the lived reality.All these rely on one’s grasp of knowledge from books.Of course,in addition to the knowledge from books,we also have a lot of other types of knowledge,including that employed in our daily lives like swimming,cycling,etc.We have the experiences in the application of such knowledge.However,unless we can translate this applied knowledge into propositional knowledge,and the things mentioned in the proposition can be observed and then verified to tell the truth,the unverifiable knowledge is not credible as scientific.So,for example,knowledge of religion,knowledge of philosophy,etc.,even if they might play their roles in human life,these types of knowledge is considered not as good as propositional knowledge,and will not be accepted as"proposition knowledge"("scientific knowledge").Only if propositional knowledge can be proven as true or false,be proven right or wrong,can they be established as"lawful"form of proposition and thus can enter the hall of fame for scientific knowledge."Critical Realism"begins as a critique of the‘positivist’scientific tradition.The first objection is about the epistemic status of‘the reality’.Critical realists agree that the real world is objective,but the biggest problem is that the world seems to be something we cannot directly perceive and understand,and at best,we can only get imperfect understanding.So human beings are unable to build the knowledge of objective truth.For the"critical realism",there has never been a truth in the framework of human knowledge.It is true that"critical realism",like"empiricalism",holds the view of the binary status between men and the world.Unlike positivism,in the binary polarity,the nature of the external reality must be understood through the use of a modified dualism.Men and the objective world must be separated.When we have something to do with the world,we can possibly influence the latter,but we cannot objectively reflect how we change this outer world.We always look at the world with some kind of glasses,from a certain angle,with a certain framework.Our language seems to represent objective things,but we must know the mediating nature of language,ideas,methods and other artificial tools.When we take these tools as the mediating medium,our observation and description of the external world would thus be modified.Men could not be sure of the objective nature of their observation and the description of‘things’in the world.We cannot claim any objective reflection of external facts,let alone be able to find the truth.This paper,in order to establish knowledge of the external world,follows the ideas from critical realism through the construction of the‘generative mechanisms’to determine how social facts come into being.We show the identification of causation through identifying the"generation mechanism"that drives changes.This argument is illustrated with the authors’findings in a study of a social service project helping families in crisis in Hong Kong,highlighting the concepts of mechanisms,in terms of Role Replacement Mechanism,Challenge-taking and Targeting Mechanism,and Context Mechanism.Practice research is very concerned about the intervention effect of social work.How does social work practice have an impact?In the past,if we used the traditional"induction method"to find the causality by the method of comparing scores from"pre-test,post-test",we can only prove that you have done something.By the evidence of post-testing,the results may show the extent,if any,of the effects of social services on service recipients.But the results shows little about what factors are attributable to those changes.One cannot know the reasons or the causalities of a case by using the"pre-test,post-test"method."Critical Realism"is based on the articulation or formulation of generative mechanisms for the establishment of knowledge,in order to open the"black box"and find a relatively clear identification of causality.On the basis of this kind of practice research,social workers can point out that the change in the service users is owing to the participation and involvement of social workers,and claim that the intervention of social workers is effective.Social workers can clearly explain that the reason for the change is due to the professional involvement of social workers.With the evaluative research informed by the critical realism,we could show that social workers are an important part of social transformation.The stance of"Critical Realism"is still about science.In the theory of practice research,"post-empiricism"is used as the basis,and therefore,the scientific stance of practice research is established.To critical realists,science remains important.If social workers could explain to policy makers,funders and the public how social workers build up and use their scientific knowledge as a guide to design,implement,monitor,and evaluate social work practice,there is a solid ground on which the professional status of social work is established and sustained.