Actor-Centered Social Work: Re-visioning "Person-in-Environment" through a Critical Theory Lens

The ecosystems perspective has become the most prevalent approach for understanding the relationship between person and social environment. It views the individual and larger social systems as separate but contiguous elements that transact with each other in relationships of mutual influence. This article revisions the relationship between person and social environment through the lens of critical theory. Emphasizing distinctively human characteristics, arguments define human actors as coconstructors of, not just interactors within, their social environments. It is suggested that the individual is "in" the larger social system not so much the way a smaller box is contained within a larger box but rather the way dancers are in a ballet or a football team is in a game. The dancers and the players co-constitute the dance and the game. Although human behavior is shaped by society and its structures, those very structures are recursively constructed, maintained, and reproduced by the social actions of human agents over time. Implications for social work practice, research, and education are discussed.