Ana Marija Sobočan, Sara Pistotnik, Jelka Zorn

Darja Zaviršek

The thematic analysis of the famous work of the Soviet pedagogue Anton S. Makarenko The Road to Life focuses on two themes: a.) the introduction of the main working methods of social education of abandoned children from the children's colony in the Soviet Union in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century; b.) the analysis of gender relations in Makarenko’s work. The method of collective organization of children of different ages, based on the socialist values of collective education, work, and gender equality, was central to Makarenko’s work. Makarenko's method opposed the mainstream educational methods of punishing, medicalizing, and pathologizing children, and therefore faced criticism. The Road to Life was rewritten several times by Soviet censors to conform to Soviet ideology. His work must be read as an ethnography of the colony and an allegory of the new “social education” of abandoned children. In the fifties of the 20th century, the book was translated into Slovene and other Yugoslav languages. The article presents the oral history vignettes of some professors of social work in Slovenia. Their recollections prove that they knew Makarenko's work and considered his method of working with children and the fact that he was critical of labelling and pathologizing children, important. The author concludes that there are no traces of Makarenko's work in social work practice, as evidenced by graduate theses from 1957–1991 and oral histories of social work educators in Slovenia. There are some suggestions as to why this was the case.

Ana Cergol Paradiž, Irena Selišnik

The demographic catastrophes of the two World Wars, together with the desire for post-war “cultural demobilization” and a return to “normal conditions”, stimulated a series of different initiatives that emphasized the importance of charity and social work in the public discourse, especially in the field of protecting mothers and children and specifically widows and orphans. Before World War II, many of these initiatives were advocated and implemented by Slovenian women's associations and some of their prominent representatives, e.g. Alojzija Štebi, who also worked in state structures for social welfare. Some of the changes that these individuals advocated even before the war were implemented immediately after 1945, when the Women's Anti-Fascist Front was also significantly involved in this type of work, and a significant number of its members were also employed in prominent positions within the Ministry of social policy. Although at the ideological level, the post-war agents certainly at least to some extent took into account the guidelines outlined by feminists before the war, as many of them were already active in the women's movement before the war, in their texts they themselves mainly emphasized the fracture in the field of social politics with conditions in the period before the revolution.

Maja Vehar

After the Second World War there were many changes in the field of gender relations and sexuality in Slovenia. Among the main issues were the rise of medical protection for sexual and reproductive health, the issue of abortion and contraception, and sex education. In addition to the outline of the situation in the field of sex education and family planning in the 1950s and 1960s, the author raises the question of the role of social workers in the planning of sex education and the implementation of sex education, as well as the question of how social workers were trained to work in the field of sex education. It answers the research questions with the help of a review of existing literature and a critical analysis of archival sources.

Sara Pistotnik

The 1960s were formative years for social work in Slovenia. Newly trained social workers had been slowly integrated into various social institutions, developing social work practices in line with the social views of the era. The development of social work methods by social workers that practiced in abortion commissions is discussed. First, the social context and regulations guiding the integration of social work in the decision-making about social indication as a legitimate reason for granting abortion is described. Then the guidelines for professional work as stated by the social workers are presented together with how the process of the decision-making before commission was envisioned. Finally, some discrepancies between theory and practice are outlined as they emerge from the various historical sources used in the analysis. These relate to the qualifications of social workers as well as the collaboration with other professionals and institutions, revealing a systemic nature of the problems in the process of implementation of social indication.

Tanja Buda

A historical review of social work practice with single mothers, based on Bachelor theses from the Higher School of Social Work in Ljubljana, shows that social workers' discourse on this social issue changed significantly over the decades. In the 1960s, social workers sought to address the needs of single mothers and to support them particularly when poverty and housing insecurity were prevalent in the family. The findings of the research presented in the paper support the thesis that, despite the progressive views of the socialist political doctrine of the time, social workers in practice in the mid-1970s held an essentially traditionalist view of the family that eventually became entrenched in the 1980s. The belief that a child needs a father and a mother for »normal development« was so categorical with regard to single mothers that it can be assumed that social work in this sense moved away from the ideology of socialism.

Gašper Krstulović

The history and current situation in the field of education of children with special needs in Slovenia are described. In the last hundred years, many specialized educational institutions were established in Slovenia, which operate alongside the regular education system. These institutions were established with the aim of educating a specific population of students who, for various reasons, were excluded from the regular education system. Most of these institutions still operate today. However, since their establishment, the institutions have undergone many changes in personnel and above all in who they include, which reflects the changed situation in the field of general education in Slovenia and the changes in the social attitude towards sensory, physical and intellectual disabilities. Due to the changed social attitude towards children with disabilities and their education, the way of working in specialized educational institutions has also changed, the included population of students has also often changed, despite the fact that the declarative purpose of these institutions have remained unchanged since their establishment.

Jelka Zorn

The borders of the political community (i.e. the state) are the borders of social rights. The erasure from the Permanent Residents' Register, which began in 1992, is an example of systematic exclusion from the community, thereby violating dignity and denying rights. Although the limitating of social rights and the illegalisation of persons are not central to social work, they are crucial to the ethics and mandate of the profession. The research question of the article is whether the borders of social rights are also the borders of social work. Theoretical concepts of racism and structural violence are applied. Social work studies and other studies that problematise limitation of the welfare state in different ways are presented. The ethnographic part of the article consists of statements by social workers about how they remember the erasure from the Permanent Residents’ Register when it was not yet recognized as a violation of human rights. The experiences of residents who were erased are drawn from other research.

Sara Pistotnik

Darja Zaviršek

Neva Železnik

Vito Flaker