Cold War and Social Work (Other (Not Listed) Sample)

Cold War and Social Work Author Course Instructor Due date Cold War and Social Work Task 01 Cold War Cold War is a term used to explain a state of political, military, and ideological confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union starting from the end of the Second World War and ending in the early 1990s. The drama and importance of the Cold War are based on its influence on the key trends of world politics and international relations, which were based on the confrontation in nuclear threats, space exploration, proxy wars, and the end of the Soviet Union. When understanding the Cold War there are three approaches which include biography, structural factors, and counterfactuals, though the most comprehensive were structural factors. Such factors are ideological warfare between capitalist Americas led by the U.S. and communism led by the Soviet Union which led to fear and advocacy for dominance. The Cold War can therefore not be explained as the sum of leader choices but was a system with structural forces such as the desire for economic hegemony, the search for military alliances, and containment of the other system's ideology. This paper will argue that structural factors essentially defined the Cold War process by highlighting key events which include the Berlin Blockade, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. These events were not the decisions of the individual but were the reactions to strategy – or the struggle for world supremacy and to stay away from a confrontation because of the possibilities of a total nuclear war. On the other hand, works like Stalin, Truman, and Gorbachev's biographies may contain details of personal ambition and decision-making factors but do not pose the cause of the Cold War. Likewise, while counterfactuals are conceptually sophisticated they present hypothetical scenarios that are at best simplistic, and far from the complex incremental realities proffered by structural analysis. Therefore, the structural factors, inclusive of the ideological, economic, and military factors of the age are the most useful in an understanding of the launch, the thrusting into higher dimensions, and the end of the Cold War. Task 02 Social Work as a Profession This progressive change in the profession of social work has been attributed to the development of social problems in the period of the late nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century. When people practiced agriculture and nomadic life, sudden changes in the economy due to industrialization and urbanization brought about new forms of poverty and social vices and hence required organizational intervention. The origins of social work has its roots in the concept of charity and religious ministries but gradually emerged as a separate discipline of work that involves advocacy of human rights for the underprivileged and oppressed, and utilizing specialized knowledge in solving individuals' and families' problems. Another thing that marked the early social work practice was the idea that birthed the settlement house movement. Jane Addams' Hull House in Chicago established in 1889 was a great example of the interventionist approach towards social problems. These houses of settlement were much more than agencies where the poor were assisted. They were focal points for societal renewal with a special call as reformers in workers' compensation, housing, and sanitation. They started this approach to emphasize the need to focus not only on the individual but also in the context of the environment and this led to the development of the person-in-environment perspective for the profession. Over the years there was increasing awareness that social workers had to be trained, and the need for formal education. A very important landmark in the professionalization of social work can be attributed to the founding of the New York School of Philanthropy in 1898 which later evolved into the School of Social Work, at Columbia University. It was this institution that pioneered a curriculum that gives social workers adequate knowledge and skills to address circumstances, and affairs that involve multiple sub-problems for individuals and societies. The skills being taught included case manag...