ONLINE DOCTORAL SCHOOL
Social work research as a practice of transparency - edition 2025
TiSSA organises, together with the Department of Social Work & Social Pedagogy of Ghent University, the Centre for Sociological Research of the KU Leuven, and Faculté Ouverte de Politique Economique et Sociale of the UC Louvain (Belgium) with the support of the Doctoral School of Social and Behavioral Sciences of Ghent University, a series of online lectures as part of the online doctoral course "Social work research as a practice of transparency". The 2025 central theme of this PhD ACT is The Theory Practice Nexus.
The course will be spread over four training days, each consisting of two main parts, in total 24 contact hours.
- Each morning session is plenary for all interested researchers and will consist of two lectures by international experts in conducting social work research.
Participation on the morning sessions is free of charge and accessible to everyone interested. Registration is not required.
- In the afternoon, we organise interactive seminars with the enrolled PhD students where collaboration, discussion and exchange are central.
To participate during the afternoon sessions as a PhD student, it is required to apply by December 6. Each PhD student will present his/her work during one of the training days. Participation is free of charge.
Target audience
All PhD researchers in the field of social work and social sciences can enroll for this doctoral school. Participation on the morning sessions is free of charge and accessible to everyone interested!
Topic
The 2025 central theme of this PhD ACT is The Theory Practice Nexus. As social work as an academic discipline is normative, researchers need to make this normativity transparent. This implies that different areas of choice in research are critically analysed and choices are made explicit. These different areas of choice refer to the following questions: (1) what is the position of the researcher; (2) what is the definition of the problem and who has the power to define it; (3) what are the methods to be used and how are they to be used; and (4) how are the results interpreted, represented and disseminated? In this course we examine and discuss (some of) these key choices, discussing the considerations of PhD researchers in making sounds choices during the research process.
Objectives and learning outcomes
The choices made by social work researchers, although they can seem to be very obvious ones, often remain implicit during the different research processes. This weakens social work as an academic discipline as its profile remains unclear in relation to adjacent disciplines such as sociology, psychology and educational sciences. The aim of the course is to train researchers to develop their social work research as a practice of transparency in order to strengthen the identity of their work. This refers to the reflexive capacity of researchers in which they need to learn to make their perspective on research and their research topic and the choices they often make implicitly, explicit and bring these into the public debate.
Program
The program can be found here.
How to apply for the doctoral school?
- Interested PhD student wishing to enroll to the course need to submit an abstract.
- In these afternoon sessions, we will discuss the place of theory in your research. We therefore expect you to address the following question in your abstract:
- Which theory/theories guide(s) your research?
- How does theory ‘impact’ your research questions and methodology?
- Your title and abstract of no more than 500 words, describing the research you will present during one of the afternoon session, must be uploaded by December 6, 2024.
- As de deadline has expired, you can no longer enroll for the afternoon sessions. Please contact us at info@tissa.net if you have questions. Participating in the open morning lectures is of course still possible.
- Abstracts submitted will be reviewed mid-December. Upon approval of your abstract, we will get in touch in early January to set up the schedule with all participants.
Practical
- To get a certificate of attendance, PhD students are expected to present at 1 afternoon session and take part in at least 3 out of 4 training days.
- Participation is free of charge, but please make sure you have an account on Zoom (or Google/Facebook) to join through the zoom link.
- This zoom link will apply to all sessions, as well as to the interactive sessions with PhD students:
https://zoom.us/j/96853479337?pwd=a0c3em1zNVV5d0N6NnN4YS8zbWhmZz09 - Participation on the morning sessions only is accessible to everyone interested and registration is not required
- The PhD ACT is a collaboration by Ghent University and the University of Leuven - researchers from other universities should check at their own institutions if this course can be recognised as part of their doctoral training.
Organising committee
Prof. dr. Rudi Roose (Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy - Ghent University and chair of TiSSA)
Prof. dr. Griet Roets (Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy - Ghent University)
Prof. dr. Koen Hermans ( LUCAS - Centre for Care Research and Consultancy - Leuven University)
Prof. dr. Wim Van Lancker ( Centre for Sociological Research - Leuven University)
Prof. dr. Martin Wagener (Faculté Ouverte de Politique Economique et Sociale - UC Louvain)
Dries Cautreels (Secretary of TiSSA)
