| Summary: | Social work is not likely to be fully legitimized in Saudi Arabia until its claim to professional status has gained public recognition. Most important, this recognition is not likely to come about until social work has demonstrated its ability to deal with the local needs of Saudi society and to show that it truly reflects the Saudi economic, political, religious, and sociocultural milieu. The goal of this study is to discover how well these ends have been achieved to date. === Four methods of data collection were used to achieve these objectives: review of institutional sources, structured interviews with faculty members in social work, structured interviews with selected leaders in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, and self-administered questionnaires with social work practitioners in three ministries. === The results indicate that the social work profession has not yet received wide societal acceptance in Saudi Arabia. Social work practice and training programs are based on nonindigenous models imported from the industrialized Western world. Moreover, social work service is still facing many problems concerning its functions, administration authority, goals, and coordination. === Recommendations are made in the concluding chapter for strengthening the social work profession and its services within the Saudi context. === Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-05, Section: A, page: 1893. === Major Professor: Shiman Gottsachalk. === Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.
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