i

Call for Papers. Special Number "100 Years of Social Work: Discussions and Perspectives on the Discipline's Past, Present and Future". Submissions in Spanish or English until the 30th April 2025 for publication in October 2025 (Issue 10). For more information please see the following link.

Common sense as a conceptual tool to reflect on social work’s past, present and future: A short essay marking 100 years of social work education in Chile

Authors

Abstract

Antonio Gramsci’s conceptualisation of common sense helps us to think more critically about dominant ideas within, and beyond, social work. Especially important are his articulations of common sense (senso comune) and good sense (buon senso). Gramsci’s understanding is also rooted in a more encompassing theoretical apparatus in which hegemony and the role of intellectuals are central. Having pointed to the progressive possibilities associated with the shaping of a more Gramscian social work, four alterative social work futures are identified

Keywords:

Common Sense, Gramsci, Capitalism, Hegemony, Intellectuals

Author Biography

Paul Michael Garrett, University of Galway

Paul Michael Garrett is an educator and writer based in Ireland. After many years of practice as a social worker, he obtained his PhD from the University of Nottingham where he lectured for five years before taking up his current post at (what is now) the University of Galway in 2004. Here he helped to set up the first social work programme in the west of Ireland and has been teaching on postgraduate and undergraduate programmes for over twenty years. Paul is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and was awarded a Higher Doctorate from the National University of Ireland in 2022 as well as an Honorary Doctorate from Ghent University, Belgium, in 2024.

His most recent books include: Welfare Words: Critical Social Work and Social Policy (Sage, 2018), Dissenting Social Work: Critical Theory, Resistance and Pandemic (Routledge, 2021), Social Work with the Black African Diaspora co-authored with Washington Marovatsanga (Policy Press, 2022), Social Work and Common Sense: A Critical Examination (Routledge, 2024).

References

Adjei, P. B. and Minka, E. (2018) ‘Black parents ask for a second look: Parenting under “white” child protection rules in Canada’, Children and Youth Services Review, 94: 511–524.

Bhattacharyya, G. (2015). Crisis, Austerity, and Everyday Life. Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bourdieu, P. (2003 [1977]). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Brenner, J. and Fraser, N. (2017). ‘What is progressive neoliberalism?’, Dissent, 64 (2): 130-141.

Brockmann, O. and Garrett, P. M. (2022). ‘People are responsible for their own individual actions’: dominant ideologies within the Neoliberal Institutionalised Social Work Order, European Journal of Social Work, 25 (5): 880-893.

Calvi, P. (2024). ‘In Argentina, Javier Milei’s Shock Therapy Is Wreaking Havoc’, Jacobin, 10 April https://jacobin.com/2024/04/javier-milei-austerity-policy-impacts

Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW) (2019). Statement of apology and commitment to reconciliation https://www.casw-acts.ca/sites/default/files/Statement_of_Apology_and_Reconciliation.pdf

Crehan, K. (2002). Gramsci, Culture and Anthropology. London: Pluto.

Crehan, K. (2011). ‘Gramsci’s concept of common sense’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 16 (2): 273-287.

Crehan, K. (2016). Gramsci’s Common Sense: Inequality and its Narratives. Durham & London: Duke University.

Crehan, K. (2018). ‘The Common Sense of Donald J. Trump: A Gramscian Reading of Twenty-First Century Populist Rhetoric’. In A. Jaramillo Torres and M. B. Sable (eds.) Trump and Political Philosophy: Leadership, Statesmanship, and Tyranny. Cham: Springer International, pp. 275–91.

Davidson, A. (2011) ‘Review: Peter Thomas’ The Gramscian Moment, Thesis Eleven, 105 (1): 134-144.

Dettlaff, A. J., Weber, K., Pendleton, M., Boyd, R., Bettencourt, B. and Burton, L. (2020) ‘It is not a broken system, it is a system that needs to be broken: the upEND movement to abolish the child welfare system’, Journal of Public Child Welfare, 14 (5): 500-517.

Forgacs, D. (1988). A Gramsci Reader. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Fraser, N. (2022). Cannibal Capitalism. London: Verso.

Freire, P. (2017[1970]). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Penguin Classics.

Garrett, P. M. (2018). Welfare Words: Critical Social Work and Social Policy. London: SAGE.

Garrett, P. M. (2021a). Dissenting Social Work: Critical Theory, Resistance and Pandemic. London: Routledge.

Garrett, P. M. (2021b). ‘”A World to Win”: In Defence of (Dissenting) Social Work—A Response to Chris Maylea’, British Journal of Social Work, 51 (4): 1131-1149.

Garrett, P. M. (2024). Social Work and Common Sense: A Critical Examination. London: Routledge.

Gilbert, J. (2015). ‘Disaffected consent: that post-democratic feeling’, Soundings, 60: 29-42.

Green, M. E. (2013). 'On the postcolonial image of Gramsci', Postcolonial Studies, 16 (1): 90-101.

Green. M. E. and Ives, P. (2009). 'Subalternity and Language: Overcoming the Fragmentation of Common Sense', Historical Materialism, 17(1): 3-31.

Hall, S. (2011). ‘The Neo-Liberal Revolution’, Cultural Studies, 25 (6): 705-728.

Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J. and Roberts, B. (1978). Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order. Houndsmill: MacMillan Education.

Hall, S. and O’Shea, A. (2015) ‘Common-Sense Neoliberalism’ in S. Hall, D. Massey and M. Rustin (eds.) After Neoliberalism. London: Lawrence and Wishart, pp. 52-69.

Hawari, Y. (2023). ‘When Palestinians tell the world what is happening to them, why are they met with disbelief?’, The Guardian, 13 November. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/13/palestinians-world-israel-carnage-gaza

Hoare, Q. and Nowell Smith, G. (eds.) (2005). Antonio Gramsci: Selections from Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Khan. A. S. and Shahid, M. (2022). ‘Care Practices among Muslim Slum Dwellers in India: Does Common Sense Still Matter?’, The International Journal of Community Development, 4 (4) 426–441.

International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) (2014). Global Definition of Social Work http://ifsw.org/get-involved/global-definition-of-social-work/

Ioakimidis, V. and Trimikliniotis, N. (2020). ‘Making sense of social work’s troubled past’, British Journal of Social Work, 50 (6): 1890-1908.

Ives, P. (2004). Language and Hegemony in Gramsci. London: Pluto.

Lange, E. L. and Pickett-Depaolis, J. (2022). ‘Introduction’. In E. L. Lange and J. Pickett-Depaolis, J. (eds.) The Conformist Rebellion: Marxist Critiques of the Contemporary Left. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Langer, A. I. and Gruber, J. B. (2021). ‘Political agenda setting in the hybrid media system: Why legacy media still matter a great deal’, The International Journal of Press/Politics, 26 (2): 313–340.

LasTesis (2023). Set Fear on Fire: The Feminist call that set the Americas ablaze, London: Verso.

Marovatsanga W. and Garrett, P. M. (2022). Social work with the Black African diaspora. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Marx, K. (1981 [1857-58]) Grundrisse. London: Penguin.

Marx, K. (1990 [1867]). Capital, Volume 1, London: Penguin.

Mau, S. (2023). Mute Compulsion: A Marxist Theory of the Economic Power of Capital. London: Verso.

Miéville, C. (2022). A Spectre Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto. London: Head of Zeus.

Morley, C., Ablett, P. Noble, C. and Cowden, S. (eds.) (2020). The Routledge Handbook of Critical Pedagogies for Social Work. London: Routledge.

Muñoz Arce, G. (2018) ‘Critical social work and the promotion of citizenship in Chile’, International Social Work, 61(6): 781-793.

Muñoz Arce, G. and Pantazis, C. (2019) ‘Social exclusion, neoliberalism and resistance: The role of social workers in implementing social policies in Chile’, Critical Social Policy, 39 (1): 127–146.

Ranciere, J. (2003). The Philosopher and His Poor. Durham & London: Duke University.

Rivera Cusicanqui, S. (2020 [2010]). Ch'ixinakax Utxiwa: On Decolonising Practices and Discourses. Cambridge: Polity.

Rosengarten, F. (ed.) (1994a). Antonio Gramsci: Letters from Prison, Volume 1. New York: Columbia University Press. Trans. R. Rosenthal.

Rosengarten, F. (ed.) (1994b). Antonio Gramsci: Letters from Prison, Volume 2. New York: Columbia University Press. Trans. R. Rosenthal.

Rupert, M. (2005). ‘Reading Gramsci in an era of globalizing capitalism’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 8 (4), pp. 483–497.

Sherlock, C. and Blaney, F. (2023). ‘Asylum seekers flee Clare hotel after local protesters block access with tractors’, Irish Mirror, 16 May https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/asylum-seekers-flee-clare-hotel-29992147

Singh, M. V. and Leonardo, Z. (2023). 'Educators as decolonial intellectuals: Revolutionary thought from Gramsci to Fanon', Critical Studies in Education, published online 8 January DOI/full/10.1080/17508487.2022.2146150

Singh, G. and Cowden, S. (2009). ‘The social worker as intellectual’, European Journal of Social Work, 12 (4): 1369-1457.

Slater, T. (2012). ‘The Myth of “Broken Britain”: Welfare Reform and the Production of Ignorance’, Antipode, 46 (4): 948-969.

Smith, G. (2011). ‘Selective Hegemony and Beyond-Populations with “No Productive Function”’, Identities, 18 (1): 2-38.

Snir, I. (2016). ‘”Not Just One Common Sense”: Gramsci’s Common Sense and Laclau and Mouffe’s Radical Democratic Politics’, Constellations, 23 (2): 269-281.

The Economist (2024). ‘The woman who will lead Chile’s counter-revolution: Chileans tried youthful utopianism. Now they crave maturity and moderation’, The Economist, 24 September https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2024/09/24/the-woman-who-will-lead-chiles-counter-revolution

Vivero‒Arriagada, L. (2017). ‘Trabajo Social entre el sentido común, hegemonía y praxis: Un análisis basado en Gramsci’, Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud, 15 (1): 547-563.

Wacquant, L. (2009). Punishing the poor. Durham & London: Duke University.

Williams, R. (1973). ‘Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory’, New Left Review, Nov-Dec: 3-17.