The Nexus of Social Progress and Economic Inequality: Implications for the Grand Challenges for Social Work

ABSTRACT In its extended history, social progress has become a metanarrative of the western world, one that has been both extolled and more recently pervasively dismissed. This review examines this history, including efforts to resurrect the concept, both through global research and within social work. Specifically, the advancement of social progress is incorporated as a central rationale of the Grand Challenges for Social Work. The problems inherent in the concept, particularly its nexus with economic inequality, as well as the many documented advances in social progress, form the basis for several implications for the Grand Challenges that are reviewed here. These include the need for a clearer conceptualization and expansion in the challenges to explicitly include quality of life, economic and racial justice, and mental health issues, and a more systematic integration of empirical methods into the initiative itself, such as a monitoring of the success of its 12 challenges. In addition, addressing the Grand Challenges will require the continued development of an array of social work practices aimed at both individual and systemic change.