Latest / Europe Calling Podcast / #262 "Social work and the far right in European democracies" (English)

Transcript

#262 "Social work and the far right in European democracies" (English) · Europe Calling Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 2: I come from my side as well to all participants in this digital space.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: So it is impressive to see how many of you have joined us today, to discuss a topic that challenges not only professionally but also in terms of democratic policy social work under the influence of The Far Right.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: My name is Eva Grigori and i'm the head of the Austrian team on this project.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: It's my pleasure to guide through this presentation So my first thanks go to the Europe Calling team for their excellent organization.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: And for much like this, I think are really essential for bringing complex research results out of the academic sphere directly into the political public.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: because working on this three national project is both intensive and enriching.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: And without the dedicated cooperation of our colleagues from Germany, Austria and Hungary we wouldn't be standing or sitting here today.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: So why are we all doing this?
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I'm going to start sharing the presentation.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: The project, Social Work and the Far Right in European Democracies was born out of a conviction that challenges facing democracy are not isolated national cases.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: We want to understand how the far right in different European countries and democracies influences social work.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: in times when democratic values and structures are under pressure, solidarity across professional and national borders is our most vital response.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: And we think that this event today.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Talk about the outline briefly and then I will hand over the words.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: we have structured our input today in three parts to provide you with a comprehensive overview.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: In the first part, we'll introduce uh...the political context explainer project goals and present methodology.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: end up on research team as well in this second part.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: We show your findings represent both quantitative and qualitative insights into the influence of the far-right on social work in Germany, Austria and Hungary.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: In third part we take a specific look at Social Work in Hungary.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: We will highlight current challenges underground and discuss perspectives for democratic professionalization under difficult conditions.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: In total, our presentation will take about seventy five minutes so you can relax a bit and after that as Emily said the floor is open to you.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: You have an opportunity to address your questions directly.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: So let's dive in.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: I'll now hand over to Julia Weber The overall coordinator of the project.
• 3:38
  Speaker 0: Thank you very much indeed for inviting us and a hearty welcome from my side.
• 3:48
  Speaker 0: Social work is profession, it cannot really liberate itself.
• 4:10
  Speaker 0: what we have been observing in the past years, is a participation of the extreme right.
• 4:25
  Speaker 0: And I will be talking about that terminology little later.
• 4:33
  Speaker 0: the government or in parliament at national level, regional and local levels.
• 4:42
  Speaker 0: That's a tendency that raises question how can professional autonomy be safeguarded especially for the profession of social worker?
• 5:02
  Speaker 0: remain loyal to the definition of its work and it's objectives being so... closely were netted into the social welfare state.
• 5:20
  Speaker 0: And there are findings for Germany and Austria, and Hungary which clearly show that we're moving towards a authoritarian far-right anti democratic the system and through reports from the countries, from schools for example.
• 5:53
  Speaker 0: From social conflicts we can learn a lot about this.
• 6:01
  Speaker 0: And of course, the social participation and social welfare itself is not completely isolated from this influence.
• 6:20
  Speaker 0: The social work really needs a certain professional leeway to actually function well.
• 6:34
  Speaker 0: And these authoritarian and nativist positions really call into question a lot of the basic values off social work, so the question is how can Social Work really maintain its fundamental values?
• 6:55
  Speaker 0: The research in this area is quite manifold.
• 7:00
  Speaker 0: In Germany, we have a very differentiated research activity with a lot of deep dives in the regional area.
• 7:15
  Speaker 0: However, in Austria research is not so far advanced and in Hungary this quite a novelty.
• 7:28
  Speaker 0: it's new areas for research.
• 7:32
  Speaker 0: then please give us the second transparency.
• 7:38
  Speaker 0: Our project is a follow-on of two studies that were carried out in North Rhine-Westphalia and Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania And we follow up with question whether Right, have repercussions on the practical activity in this profession.
• 8:10
  Speaker 0: And if... This was to be the case?
• 8:13
  Speaker 0: To which extent do Does this influence manifest itself?
• 8:21
  Speaker 0: And how can we as scientists and researchers actually find solutions or formulate recommendations.
• 8:35
  Speaker 0: Our team in Hungary is a huge team, I would like to warmly thank Judith Kosma for the coordination.
• 8:53
  Speaker 0: She really initiated this research project in Hungary and she contacted us following a publication on the subject, one of the research magazines.
• 9:14
  Speaker 0: And under the almost gone political circumstances and conditions in Hungary, we could not really locate The project with a university.
• 9:31
  Speaker 0: That is why were very grateful that We where allowed to pursue research With support of some civil society organizations and it was really a very fruitful cooperation.
• 9:56
  Speaker 0: And we contacted colleagues from different universities.
• 10:00
  Speaker 0: We identified them in the University of Debertsen, The University of Sergei and Pitch and at Jewish theological seminary which is a university for Jewish studies in Budapest.
• 10:23
  Speaker 0: are also in the scientific committee as members, and the German team has four members.
• 10:45
  Speaker 0: Professor Kruger, Dr.
• 10:48
  Speaker 0: Mülling from Brandenburg University and Stefan Albrecht as a project coordinator.
• 10:58
  Speaker 0: And our scientific committee is composed of representatives from all the three countries, we receive a grant form Hans-Böckler Foundation which is connected with the German Trade Union Confederation DGB And in April of last year, we were also awarded with the research ethics approval... ...of the German Research Ethics Commission.
• 11:39
  Speaker 0: Now how do we understand the far right and the deep professionalisation?
• 11:47
  Speaker 0: in this context of social work, I would only like to give you a very rough idea about that.
• 11:54
  Speaker 0: We base ourselves on the understanding of Piro regarding the far right, extreme-right positions show radical exclusion, they are really positioning themselves as illiberal and anti-democratic.
• 12:21
  Speaker 0: And we also use the term of extreme right in Germany for example, being a movement that it clearly wants to do away with the state and its structures.
• 12:46
  Speaker 0: And they really coincide.
• 13:02
  Speaker 0: They base themselves on the differentiation of the value of human beings and they reject a kind of pluralism.
• 13:20
  Speaker 0: So, they really are radically excluding part of the society in their positioning.
• 13:31
  Speaker 0: and that, controversy with the objectives and activities of social work professions.
• 13:51
  Speaker 0: Some of these problems are being ratified, then solidarity is excluded, it is not promoted.
• 14:06
  Speaker 0: There's no wish to solve social conflict for everyone.
• 14:12
  Speaker 0: Certain groups of the society are actively being included from offers and services... ...for example there a kind of exclusive solidarity in place with them which isn't solidarity with everybody.
• 14:33
  Speaker 0: We asked ourselves the question, which we would like to clarify.
• 14:40
  Speaker 0: How far the deprofessionalization is advanced?
• 14:45
  Speaker 0: Because the depprofessionalisation... ...which already present needs to be looked at very closely and what the push factors of the far right in this context are.
• 15:07
  Speaker 0: So how, to which extent?
• 15:09
  Speaker 0: Are they undermining the professional standards from a perspective off-the-far Right and How these processes actually having an impact on undermining the substantial values of social work.
• 15:40
  Speaker 0: And we look at a huge number of positions in European debate, many different perspectives, and in this context we would like to underline that we practice a value-based approach.
• 16:11
  Speaker 0: And these values can be damaged... ...in the long term a deprofessionalization which starts with the far right and is pushed forward by the far-right, can actually be contemplated in day to day practice.
• 16:46
  Speaker 0: We use mixed methods approach after quantitative questionnaire which we use almost identically in all the three participating states.
• 17:02
  Speaker 0: We also asked social workers whether they would be willing to participate... ...in a qualitative interview process, and selection of these social workers actually gave us this.
• 17:20
  Speaker 0: interviews.
• 17:20
  Speaker 0: One thousand two hundred and sixty-one social workers from Germany were interviews viewed.
• 17:30
  Speaker 0: From Austria we have one thousand three hundred and sixteen interview partners, And from Hungary we have a two hundred eighty seven filled in questionnaires And then we had interviews with about twenty representatives from each country.
• 17:59
  Speaker 0: We have not finished the analysis yet, but actually also done some parliamentary document search and analysis, particularly with a view to the AFD in Germany.
• 18:20
  Speaker 0: The FPU which is a partner in coalition governments in several parts of Austria and Miha-Sankh and a fetish off course in Hungary.
• 18:42
  Speaker 0: A vast specter of documents were viewed.
• 18:50
  Speaker 0: Some legislative projects, some opinions and all these documents are also viewed in conjunction with media reports, and then also of course analysed in conjunction with the news that we gathered from our statements.
• 19:25
  Speaker 0: We gathered have a look at it under an international comparative perspective and we We also created our own system to look at the macro, micro and meso level.
• 19:56
  Speaker 0: But I don't want go into that detail.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Thank you Julia for this contextual framework!
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Now we are familiar with the goals of the structure in methodology and theoretical framework of SOFRID.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: And now let's talk about the core of our empirical work – what have been found out?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: The shed light on the findings across three countries, I now hand over to Christine Krüger.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: She leads the German research team to Wikiborder.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: she's researcher in the Hungarian Team and on a slide you see the name Christoph Oman.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: unfortunately he became ill his researcher for the Austrian context.
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: Thank You Eva In the second part I will give you a first insight into our results in Germany, Austria and Hungary.
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry that some came out of Northern Germany which is often not the case but was not planned.
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: so you see my face again as sunny light.
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: And this time we'll focus on responses to social work towards far-right influences.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: From an international comparative perspective, we know that empirical research on social work and the far-right remains unevenly developed throughout Europe.
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: In Germany they have seen expansion of professional and academic debates in the last ten years I would say.
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: but internationally research and public discourse still remain limited.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: But the empirical research suggests that social workers respond to far-right influences with tacit acceptance, according to Fazian Nurtdoufter.
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: What does it mean?
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: Tacit acceptance means that far right influences are often met with silence rather than open confrontation in social work practice.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: so silence appears less as a lack of awareness from the side of social work but more as a pattern response shaped by political pressure for example.
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: So silence is a strategy rather than open confrontation in social work.
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: In this part, this part analyzes how social workers perceive forward influences across these three national contexts that we have.
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: so Austria-Germany and Hungary entail the limited public visibility of professional resistance when those countries can be explained.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: Drawing on the initial findings from the SOFIT project, we will dive into first findings of the qualitative and quantitative data.
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: And it shows that professionals are indeed widely aware of far-right positions but respond mainly in individualized and nonpublic ways.
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: So let's have a look at the data... ...and first on the quantitative data.
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: As Julia said, we asked social workers online questions about their understanding and how they perceive far-right influences in the daily workplace.
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: And among other questions at our institution where I work there is an awareness of extreme right or right wing extremism.
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: So all social workers were asked got this question from three countries.
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: You can see the responses from Hungary in green, red and blue from Germany.
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: And you'll see that those responses are indeed quite similar!
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: In Hungary we see a difference of data – one third of social workers saw no awareness at all about their workplace.
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: Awareness of extreme right or right-wing extremism.
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: That is kind of surprising for us.
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: We explain this gap in the data with a normalization of the far right, and hungry from the last sixteen years of Victor Orman's governance The influence can in some cases not longer be identified by social workers.
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: Next slide?
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah thanks!
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: And we also asked on the Social Workers If you have noticed such awareness in your institution, how do you think it manifests itself?
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: We see here a domination and informal strategies of all three countries but mostly in Hungary.
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: The social workers tend to internal exchange among colleagues as the most preferred strategy.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: So, if they are facing forward influences at the workplace.
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: They tend to discuss this among themselves.
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: strategies like organizing campaigns or publicly speaking out used less frequently in all three countries.
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: now let us have a look into their interviews.
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: so when we Ask the social workers to participate in quantitative research.
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: We also ask them, if they are willing give us a qualitative interview about their experiences.
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: It allows just have deeper dive into strategies facing powered influences of three countries.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: In Germany we have a situation where diverse range of mission statements guidelines and guidance guidance documents by German welfare organizations.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: So we see that the German welfare system is quite well informed about far-right influences, plus we have various researches on this topic.
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: as Julia said in the beginning In practice or in theory I should say We know how to oppose the far right and racism and social work, anti-Semitism discrimination and professional practice.
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: But our empirical evidence suggests that this has not yet translated into widespread, institutionally embedded professional practice.
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: And this gap also becomes apparent in our first qualitative findings.
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: This is illustrated on the following interview excerpt from a social worker In The Context of Foster-Kern and I read this quote It's about the people I visit and talk to, sometimes at a random location that I would assign in this spectrum.
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: The extreme right-wing spectrum!
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: I don't usually go deeper into it but focus on the advice in context of duty.
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: From these first fine links we also have them.
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: other interviews We call for now an intervention paradox.
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: according to Gönnisch It means that we have an increased scientific knowledge, institutional debate and awareness.
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: But this does not automatically enhance professional capacity or willingness to intervene as you could all see here in the interview.
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: So research consistently reveals considerably uncertainty among professionals In Germany about how to respond confidently And appropriately to perceived far-right influences.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: Responses
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: often take the form of a more spontaneous, we would say exploration of spaces or possibility in social work rather than an organized answer.
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: In Austria the findings and qualitative data show that social workers face a normalization on the far right because the far-right is part federal states by now.
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: The result is a big dependence of social work institutions and this dependent as primarily financial one, so financial dependence One of the main counter strategies we have identified in Austria Is the silence as a professional practice And I will also show you this on quote Also reading it in German language.
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: And the word gender has not been used either.
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: But that was a self-censorship, so to speak in front of everyone.
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: The project application itself remained the same.
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: So silence does not reflect the lack of knowledge or competence here but the form of strategic non positioning.
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: It is an anticipated political and budgetary sanction role.
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: here, especially publicly funded organizations try to avoid political positioning.
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: And this dynamic becomes visible in practice as we call it a tacit resistance where language is strategically adjusted while the practice remains unchanged –as you could see like removing politically sensitive terms from project applications.
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: Vicky or Mike?
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Okay, sorry now it's okay.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: thank you for that.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: so no it is my turn.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: good evening to everybody.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: as you may noticed from the introductory part of Julia and the outline we tried somewhat a stronger emphasis on the Hungarian material in this workshop because of the very recent parliamentary elections held on April, just exactly one month ago.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: And these election attracted a very considerable international attention but not because of domestic political significance rather because Hungary's often have been discussed internationally as an example for long-term and exceptional illiberal transformation within European Union.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: So, meanwhile the political context is very important in all free countries.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: It seems to be especially explanatory on the Hungarian sample.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: so maybe at this presentation I wouldn't like to introduce the whole Hungarian scenario with transformation from a liberal to illiberal democracy, but give you some contact to be able better understand the Hungarian results or the first insight of these results.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: And maybe it's going with some extent.
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: explain the gap between data being pointed out by Christina?
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: Why is it absolutely different than why?
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: so I mean that number of the Hungarian sample regarding the questionary as much smaller.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: But let's start with the parliamentary analysis.
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: So, the empirical part of the parliamentary discourse analysis focused exclusively on the Hungarian Parliamentary bills and another debate only between twenty eighteen and twenty-twenty five.
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: but The final report itself situates these findings within a much broader historical and political trajectories especially the transformation that followed the two thousand ten governmental shift in Hungary.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: That was a date when the urban regime getting government.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: methodologically, The parliamentary study applied qualitative discourse analysis combined thematic and keywording context approaches And try to identify changing narratives ideological frames and policy orientation connected to social work, migration gender drugs homelessness or every kind of socially constructed problem groups within departmental discourse during this period.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: Because the given time is limited I'm not going into all relevant milestones and reframe legislation just rather briefly introduce The long-term tendencies our analysis suggests and being particularly relevant for understanding the professional environment of the Hungarian social work.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: So one important aspect is the increasing centralization of political power, and the growing overlap between the state nation and governing party with some scholars describe as a form of so called patronal autocracy.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: A second very important development concerns that constitutional and ideological transformation after two thousand eleven, and that include the explicit shift toward a concept of illiberal democracy combined by a very strong nationalist and Christian conservative narratives.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: The parliament analysis also observed the gradual reframing of social issues through these moral and political categories in the parliamentary discourse.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: topics such as poverty, gender equality, LGBTQ plus issues or child protection increasingly appear within these very polarizing narratives structured around morality security and national identity rather than professional approach.
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: And finally, the COVID-nineteen pandemic and later the war in the neighboring Ukraine further strengthened the exceptional governance mechanism including this kind of prolonged ruling by the Cree which contributed to a further institutional uncertainty.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: and centralization.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: So for us these developments are very important but not primarily as political events in themselves, because they shape the institutional and discursive environment with social workers operating on a daily basis We can move to next slide Thank you.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: increasingly visible during the analysis of the everyday experiences being described by social workers in The Questionary and also in interviews was that the parliamentary narratives, institutional practices are not separated as phenomena.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: rather they appear to reinforce one another.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: On the left side we summarize some of the dominant political narratives identified.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: Several of these are connected to more conditional and moralizing understanding of the welfare.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: This includes a very strong emphasis or workfare logic, distinction between deserving an undeserving poor family-centered welfare approach based on traditional and extremely heteronormative ideas.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: We also identified a recurring anti gender anti LGBTQAA plus discourses, as well as the narratives that individualize somehow structural inequalities.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: For example framing Roma.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: poverty primary is a problem of personal responsibility rather than a structural exclusion.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: another very important element Is the increasing emphasis on loyalty order and social conformity with this political communication.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: In the same time at the institutional level, these narratives are accompanied by broader political moods of operation such as the centralization.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: The strengthening church actors in welfare provision deligimentation of critical NGOs and political reframing of professional language itself's.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: many political patterns also appear in the everyday professional experiences being introduced by practitioners during the interviews and the questionary.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: In the preliminary qualitative and quantitative findings, professionals frequently refer to political pressure within the institution force them to self-censorship conflict avoidance the depoliticized professional language.
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: By depoliticalized, professional language we refer to a tendency that translates structural or political problems into more neutral rather technical or administrative language in order to avoid any kind of conflict or political exposure.
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: for example instead of structural poverty they prefer to use disadvantaged clients.
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: or instead of the term of discrimination, they use communication difficulties.
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: Several interviews also describe neutrality but not as a genuine political neutrality rather as survival strategy within this increasingly polarized institutional environment.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: so politics simply interferes with social work from the outside, it's rather that findings suggest that political logics gradually become embedded within the institutional and structural functioning of social work itself.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: And these embeddiness is one of the key contacts for interpreting survey and interview results On the next slide, actually if you talk directly about the questionary or the findings of the questionaries.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: Instead of repeating the numerical data which partly being presented by Christina in The Country Comparison I would like to briefly highlight some of these structural patterns emerged specifically from the Hungarian material
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: although
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: Some of them are very similar with German and Austrian Foundings.
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: So the first major pattern concerns deprofesalization.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: Many of the respondents referred to the shortage of qualified social workers, lack of institutional resources increasing workload low wages a gradual region professional standards.
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: so these kind general patterns can be clearly identified in other countries too.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: But taking together these responses describe not only a labour crisis but a weakening of the professional capacity and autonomy of social work.
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: A second important pattern in the Hungarian material relates to political pressure within institutions, respondents frequently mentioned expectation of institutional loyalty, culture of silence politically sensitive issues.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: Of course, these not necessarily mean direct political intervention in every case.
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: more often it appear as a diffuse institutional atmosphere in which professionals learn which topics are safe and which topics better to address openly.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: The third pattern can be described as selective solidarity.
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: several responses reflected distinction between deserving and undeserving clients particularly in relation to poverty, Roma communities or again the LGBTQA plus issues.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: So again this suggests that these broader political and moral narratives may gradually shape professional perceptions and institutional practices.
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: at the same time Finally many respondents describe weak institutional protection.
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: This includes limited professional advocacy low trust in institution, lack of social recognition and the feeling that professionals are being left alone with their structural problems.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: So it means they feel helpless and cannot meaningful influence these problems.
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: so overall the quantitative findings suggest many professionals perceive a narrowing professional autonomy an important to this perception strongly resonate both in the parliamentary analysis and in the qualitative interviews too.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: At this point I would like to highlight, or note that unlike in Germany and Austrian cases In Hungary the respondents often associated far-right or authoritarian influences not primarily with marginal political actors but with broader governmental and social policy transformation been implemented at a national level.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: So in this sense, social work was not only influenced politically from outside but also gradually reframed at the institutional and regulatory level.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: On the next slide I would like to have few words about the qualitative results.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: The qualitative interviews added a very important layer on the interpretation of the Hungarian findings, because besides revealing the same institutional patterns like the questionaries it also give us some kind of expression about emotional and professional dilemmas experienced by the practitioners.
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: One of the strongest impressions emerging from interviews was the coexistence resistance and adaptation.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: Professionals very rarely describe themselves as either fully oppositional or fully compliant, instead most of them seem to navigate between these two positions simultaneously.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: on the one hand many participants strongly emphasize professional ethics critical thinking solidarity among colleagues so basically and of course the importance of protecting democratic and humanistic values.
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: Also referred to informal protection strategies, mutual support within the teams, awareness-raising activities or even occasional forms public engagement like for example participating in protest or march against the government.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: at the same time however adoption strategies were equally visible in the sample.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: These included just like indeed the German and Austrian sample conflict avoidance, self-censorship, strategic silence, depoliticized professional language been mentioned already.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: what some participants explicitly described was again the neutrality as a survival strategy to reduce institutional vulnerability.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: One particularly important specificity of the Hungarian interviews was the recurring atmosphere of institutional insecurity and this kind of learned helplessness.
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: Proactioners also expressed a feeling that structural problems are so deeply embedded, that individual professionals have very limited capacity to influence them And it's often been combined by logic better not talk about especially regarding politically sensitive issues.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: And at the same time, and I think it's equally important The interviews did not simply depict passivity of resignation because democratic professional identities ethical resistance let say an informal solidarity remained clearly present through the material.
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: so perhaps the most important qualitative findings in this is this kind of tension itself.
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: So Hungarian social workers appear simultaneously vulnerable and resistant, critical and adaptive professionally committed yet institutionally very constrained or even paralyzed.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: And these kinds of ambivalence may be one of the defining characteristics of the current Hungarian social work landscape In the next part of this webinar, my colleague Yishchansky will reflect more specifically on the border political and social environment surrounding the Social Work profession in Hungary.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: And also try to outline possible future directions and opportunities what social policy or social work can have after more than a half decade of illiberal transformation.
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: So finally I would like give some space to the voices of the depractioners themselves, from the field.
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: The following quotes are from the interviews captured many of the dilemmas uncertainties and survival strategies that emerge throughout the research.
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: Of course because of the limited time I'm not going to read them out loud.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: Maybe just one which i guess is a strongest message We don't stand up we don't stick together we just wait for someone else to do something.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: So it's perfectly described the Hungarian social workers' perceptions regarding their opportunities among these kind of circumstances and on this final slide, an image that again in many ways symbolizes the forms of professional resistance.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: So, the people in this room we can see are social workers and other social policy professionals who contributed the expertise, critical reflection or commitment to social justice.
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: To help design a social policy programme of reform for the opposition to support before elections.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: and meanwhile they were absolutely active and engaged.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: They attempted to preserve their anonymity in public until the very last moment, so that's why you can see them only from the back and haven't been taken a photograph from the front.
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: As a quotation illustrates many participants fear potential professional institutional even personal retribution if they political engagement would have become publicly visible.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: So I think this image captures particularly well what how ambivalent position described throughout the interviews.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: and this tension between democratic commitment, an institutional fear is one of the most important lessons emerging from the Hungarian material.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: Thank
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: you.
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: This part... The second part now.
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: so um You could see that our findings revealed kind of a shared paradox between all three countries, although we have also seen the differences between the countries.
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: There is ethical concern and critical reflections among social workers that are quite widespread with this name difference in the country.
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: but this really translates into collective organizational or public form of resistance from the side of social work.
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: And from a perspective of deprofessionalization, this shows that forward influences on social work manifests less through an ideological alignment but much more to an indirect constraint and professional agency in discretion.
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: So the professionalization is not only imposed from above as Vicky pointed out though political organizational pressure so also reproduced from within through practices of silence, avoidance and adaption in social work itself.
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: So across all three contexts or countries we can see there is clear perception of forward ideologies and policies as they are relevant to the field of Social Work.
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: But the engagement with private influences remains fragmented, individualized and more confined to informal or internal settings for social workers.
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: So silence in avoidance emerged as a dominant but not only professional response under very different political conditions that we have within three countries.
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: In Germany We Have A Strong Discourse.
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: In Austria, we see a normalization of the far-right and dependence especially financial dependence on social work.
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: And in Hungary they have seen an outcome of authoritarian pressure for more than decade now.
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: Organizational public critique remains exceptional.
• 51:23
  Speaker 5: that is same to all three countries.
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: And we would say that the silence in social work reflects... ...the interaction between the far-right politics, the welfare state structures and professional mandates of social work.
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: That is a conflict here but it's rather than an ignorance or passivity from social workers.. ..that is mostly not the case.
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: Thank
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: you for this insight.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: So now we have seen that while there are national differences, the patterns of influence and responses are disturbingly similar.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: However one country is a particular focus on our research because conditions for independent social work has been severely restricted here in Hungary.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: In our third
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: part,
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: we want to take a closer look at the situation there.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: And I'm very honored to introduce Istvan Siklayi.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: Istvan supports our project as critical friend and member of our advisory board.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: He will discuss challenges for democratic re-professionalization
• 52:39
  Speaker 0: in Hungary.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much Eva!
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: We
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: would like say hello from Hungary or Budapest just a couple of hours, we have new government
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: and
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: actually it's quite good news that we have an independent ministry responsible for the social affairs.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: so this is something fresh start happening here.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: In my presentation I would like to raise first of all, some reflections on the social policy of the last more than a decade and also to have briefs in this social work how we experience it.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: And talk about at third part talking about possible futures or as you would like thinking strategically, strategic pillars we well tried to figure.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Okay what do you experience living in an illiberal welfare society or work for a society?
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: The first we faced is that the re-definition of this social and meaning had a connotation refers to something with the socialist party, even with the communist era which is in our part of Europe have different and negative connotations.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: So it was devaluation of this social... Even the wording!
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: At last period they invented new wording for their profession a new phenomenon on that issue, which is rather refers to the caring side.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Someone cares and looks after somebody else... That was somehow what I mean.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: it's not so easy to translate into English the original Hungarian word in this sense.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: So we had to move from structural issues to an individual status just as my colleague Vicky referred.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: also more moralization or even victim blaming in case for example of the child children at risk and their abuse against them was partly refrained by this which is definitely hard to see, hear as a social professional.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: That kind of moralization and victim blaming replaces this structural analysis.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Even, that is also I guess important connotations for the other countries started to weaken.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: the approaches coming from international, UN or EU documents in these conventions and so on was marginalized out of the public speech, even could have a negative connotation.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: The next one is this state or the central government redrawal as as a funder of the social services, welfare policies.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: What we saw and data's reflected coming from the Eurostat or OECD strong massive cut on these social expenditures happened but not just only cuts for yearly budgets.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: by reorientation money.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: how it is spent We can call it as a perverse predistribution, which means that from the smaller cake spent on social issues.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: It was a redirection of the funds for poverty and those in need towards the middle or even to high income class of Hungarian society.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: In many ways, we can see by the administrative or legislative regulations and so on all of these happens.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: So what you can't see is that social policy became a tool for political control.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: The ruling party, the liberal government used the social policies for the legitimization process and so on, but definitely not for their redistribution.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Okay please Eva thanks.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: The consequences we had in case of social work or social profession strong de-professionalisation.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: de-professionalization could mean that the educational level or different curriculums used for social workers, social pedagogues and so on was degraded.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Almost any kind of profession, pedagoguers, lawyers
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: etc.,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: could have a social work job.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: No need for specialized or professional training in a sense, so as we understand it and also loss of autonomy In many ways.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: as professional alliances those leading non-governmental organizations even the universities We faced all around Hungary having social work, social policy, social pedagogy programs faced these problems.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: The next is the fragmentation.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: I wrote means that and it's some of maybe just for me but i don't think so... It is the hardest part when we could see that, yes there IS that kind of solidarity Vicky referred in her speech.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: but still there is a fragmentations.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Having ethical tensions... The church and non-church based provisions organizations have real differences In terms of financing by the way which means that if you're having the same service, I don't know for homeless people.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: For example... You as a church-based organisation allowed by the law and central government an extra money for the same job or goals under the same legislation around more than thirty years ago I'm sorry, thirty three zero percentage more given to the church-based provisions.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: So that is a strong incentives in that sense which definitely means kind of hidden or sometimes visible problems and tensions between the organizations among their organizations.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Also, we faced with a vacant partnership.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: With the other public human services like healthcare working for health care or education and labour sectors which is not just only because of changing the terminology on social.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: it's more general experience that we have in Hungary.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: But we faced as a social workers, the more in the difficulties of their teamwork.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: We are quite so devoted to the team work and that became much harder than previously.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: have it.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: We had growing dilemmas under these anti-democratic pressures.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: And all together means an increasing frustration And by the way, in many ways other colleagues found it.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: A burnout is more frequent and we have a much limited work working on empowerment issue with clients.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: The outcome all together means that more than one and a half decade, is the more or increased social needs.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: More complex problems raised but at the same time experience worse conditions for ethical practices.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks Eva please next one.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: so let's see future.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: we hope Here you can see that we try to think about the three strategic pillars.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: First, first of all might say that We
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: should
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: have a professional autonomy again which means an enforced ethics standards To
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: use
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: gain and evidence-based policy instead of moralization bad stories to share or individual responsibility issues.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: I think in practice, not just in theory we should have a social work public professional body recognized by the law as a profession.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: also We need to rebuild and strengthen this institutional resilience which definitely needs a more sustainable funding.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: with the indexation, we do fair salaries.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Fair could means that compared to national average or compare to professionals working in health sector and also need strengthen our quality education how the social professionals educated at university or middle level as well.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: We have to rebuild our cross sector partnerships and need supportive organizations in terms of methodology, analysis Of course, for the right policy making or decision-making supporting.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: The third level is at this societal level, the societal recognition of social professions.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: We are not just volunteers we're not just people with a big heart you know?
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Or kind warm persons.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: it IS a profession Definitely, we have
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 0: to
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: put back into the political agendas social problems and give them a public accountability.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: Because even it could be surprised that many of the members in Hungarian society don't really understand or no-have proper information on the characteristics of the Hungarian poverty or what is happening in a social service, etc.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: So we need that public accountability and also you have to reach out.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: We have this community engagement And again reframe the social issues.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: how Think how we name, How We Define etc.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: So what you can see and What You Would Like To See Is This Multi-Action Level Actions Yeah Which is needed at the Policy level Called National Level Also Needed The Local Community Level And Within The Social or a professional organization level because definitely it is, these are needed.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: And by the way at the same times we should have okay thanks yeah.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: um what we... What we have as a key message from our
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: past
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: It's glad to say that From Our Past Is That The Illiberalism reshapes the welfare priorities and narratives.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: The question is do we have enough voice, enough power not to let it happen?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Second is that this language defines who's deserving And because of these languages of deserving or not deserving help the support, there is a higher risk of exclusion.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Even it's not so easy to analyze because yes we experience in Hungary for example that data on poverty based on the Eurostat methodology isn't the correct one.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: The third issue was social work must reclaim ethics Unified
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: Ethics
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 0: both
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: applied for the faith-based organizations and non-faith based.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: We have to reclaim the solidarity,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 0: AND
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: the voice!
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: It is quite so important.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: let us again have a voice at the public and use our terminology... Use our profession as we used it.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: In that sense, the key strategy is the repoliticizing of social issues.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe it could be strange.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: so in one hand we have to go and... We have to use our language to use narratives or values etc.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: but also at the same time re-politizising.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: We should gain back our professional autonomy and voice, even the self-regulation.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: In order to have all of this we need to strengthen our professional alliances...
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: ...and
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: still it will not change one day or another but the future is hopeful by the way….
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: …the meaning of these everyday ethical practice!
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: We should maintain this practice under constraints because we have it.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, thanks.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: And yes here is the last picture.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: It's just... I don't know who wants to speak about it?
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: This was a picture from the last year's Pride in Budapest which has a very, very interesting story.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: how it organized the government at first do not want to happen.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: And then it became a very massive protest against everything that is against social problems and tolerance etc.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: So I like this picture
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, thank you very much.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: so Thank You for these important insights into the situation in Hungary.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: Wait wait wait want to stop it?
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: okay now we are back In The Planner.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: So We have Now Seen The Entire Panorama of Our Project from Theory To Empirical Data to the Situation in Hungary.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: Their Analysis is Still ongoing.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: It's Advanced but It's still ongoing.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: We'll finish our project in the end of January next year, and after that we're going to publish an anthology in English language.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: so there you will find all our findings.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah And I think now it is a great priority for us to engage in dialogue with you because it is very important to exchange across national borders and across different professions.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: So now you have the opportunity to ask questions, I'll hand over to Amelie.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: Yes thank you very much!
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 0: I will switch to German because majority of the question has been put in German And the highest rated question probably does not speak to their focus of this study, but since you are a research team looking at all sorts different things within social work.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 0: The questions is what can students at universities do when professors propagate far-right politics.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 0: How do you actually counter those people even if you meet them in academia?
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 0: I wonder who would like to reply to that, Julia Thank You very much!
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 0: question and it is certainly a focus for us too because it exerts influence.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 0: And this kind of influence at your own university should not be looked as an individual event or happening, you really have to look at it from a societal perspective.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 0: And perhaps our group should be built in the university itself... ...to deal with questions like that and to look anti-discrimination and such tendencies.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 0: So there must be a clear structure of governance in this respect, I think it is also up to the leadership look at such tendencies and to perhaps prohibit certain political activities.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 0: But there are a number of universities in Germany who have already encountered such tendencies, offer interesting results on the management of such political tendencies.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 0: Because we should not forget that education is a human right and nobody blocked or barred from finishing his university degree, for example.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 0: Nobody should be excluded from education.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 0: that would be my take and I'd like to pass the floor to Christine.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 0: The rules, how to cope with that should really be followed.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 0: And I think it's interesting to look at the rights of students because they have a right for free discrimination in their education.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 0: And I think with our experience in Germany, we should be able to even co-opt the associations active... ...in the field of social work.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 0: To counter such tendencies.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: Victoria István do you have anything from your context?
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: or if not, we can also move on to the next question.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: There's enough other questions as well and maybe I'm also too connected a bit to this question.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: um We had another one by Sofia And it's about strategies for communication.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: so yeah what kind of?
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: uh So you in your presentations were heard a lot about um You know depoliticizing or kind of self-censoring?
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: The communication is there any?
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, any sort of guideline for communication to prevent the spread of far-right ideologies in social work?
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: In the Hungarian case we couldn't find... I mean in the sample practitioners being asked haven't reported any kind of existing guidance or standardized guidance for institutional organization.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 0: Some
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 4: of the managers, or it's up to their leadership kind.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: What is the commitment and engagement?
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: Of top manager in institution some strictly forbidding colleagues using stigmatizing language or discriminative language but its rather about this kind ethical norms being followed by all social workers or respecting the general values of social work.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 4: So unfortunately, there's no guidance.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 4: I mean... There is no institutional level standardising language used in institutions and this is the Hungarian case.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: Anything to add from the German context?
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 0: I would like to add that we have a number of fora and publications where, actually appeal to the European powers that be.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 0: To have a monitoring body which would give us an overview make it easier to counteract such influences.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 0: If, um... It became more visible how far the influence actually goes because for many practitioners in this social work is a question of existential importance.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 0: Let us not forget that democratic standards need to be defended every single day in your everyday workplace.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 0: And some of these professionals really suffer daily attacks on their democratic rights, and I think that the attacks should actually be registered and monitored because sometimes they cause bodily harm.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 0: They are physical attacks, some of them would come under penal
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 6: law.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 0: so they're existential in their importance for the practitioners, and it would be very helpful to have an overview within Europe of these attacks.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 0: And create such a monitoring structure or observatory the profession against such attacks, that would be a very good move.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 0: Thank you very much.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 0: we have many additional interesting questions.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: We had one question from Tim and it He starts with the situation in Hungary, and I think this is a very interesting question because he asks for the reason.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: why did the Fidesz government prefer church-based institutions and services.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: So they're very crucial.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: role of The Church And he compares it or makes a difference sees a different to Germany where there are plans to defund the churches ended services.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: So maybe you can share both perspectives on the role of churches in far-right politics.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: Thanks for that question!
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: Actually, in Hungary prioritizing church based social services is much earlier started than the Fidesz government's in twenty ten years ago.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: Well, it really had a historic root because yes in the Hungarian society just as well and others.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: In the very past you know actually before the second world war social services run maintained built by the traditional, so-called traditional church is just like a Catholic Church or the Protestant churches.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: So in that sense conservative government for right wing government it's quite natural and common to how should I say, to rely on that historical actor.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: So in one hand it is coming from the restoration or just to that continuity which the government, the Fidesz government taught
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 0: under
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: social issues roots back into the Christian morality And that was actually easily accepted by rather the Hungarian society.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, it is an easy-to use position to moralize even to misinterpret at least some of the elements of Christian ethics To moralise over the poverty used.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: And the third element of it is that in this way, it's very good to use by government to avoid blaming on why the government withdrew and cut.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: Why did they step back from social responsibility?
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: We had serious debate just a couple of years before on who is responsible for the social problems.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: And, meaning that new proposed legislation by government would like to change this chain responsible for the social issues and talking about, The government has only a limited marginalized role in that sense when the individual, family, local community or churches failed.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: That is also in that logic.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: And third one it could be seen as pure technique to divide the social professionals.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: Vicky?
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: I just would like to
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 4: strengthen Ishtan's argument because yes it is...I think its very important that you see a kind of pseudo-Christianity.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 4: what government followed in one slide regarding parliament analysis line that the government or the governing coalition, not just government.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: The governing coalition is not followed by used the ideology of Christianity.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 4: so it's very important to see that emphasizing Christian values even in social services and social provision It's another real commitment to Christian values but its giving opportunity for governments to step back, as Isfand mentioned.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: So now it's already an international debate and discuss of the retrenchment of the welfare state And this step is completely fit to this tendency, then yeah the state doesn't have to spend that much on welfare provision if there's the church.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 4: In The Hungarian case –the trick is– Then government spent a lot just through churches because again as S.K.O.H.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 4: once mentioned in his presentation There was an extra donation for Christian or Church-based service provisions in Hungary.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 4: and yes It's about how they can extend or strengthen their voting box among Christian voters, actually.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 4: So this is the explanation of the Hungarian scenario I guess.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: Yes!
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: One more question and i will adopt it a bit.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: Spios is asking whether the answers vary depending on this specific field of social work, or a field where people are working in.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking different forms of influences from far right.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: so maybe... Today we talk more about the responses of social work on indirect pressure from the far right.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: But I think especially in Germany you have very interesting findings and threats, violence which aim at certain fields can
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 0: see differences in the fields of activities, or social work.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 0: In all cases we deal with democratic rights and more danger particularly in the field of integration and solidarity.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 0: Social workers are being put under pressure, they become victims of violence.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 0: we can also see that There is always the danger that radicalization will be pushed and therefore social workers are confronted with such a tendency.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 0: And there's a lot of political influencing in place in certain areas of social work and the question from politicians is often put whether financing should be cut or stopped.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 0: In Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania for example it concerns schools should be administered by the Lender government, but influence is also at play.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 0: Therefore, it really varies quite a lot whether that's just the political influence at government level or whether its local physical violence.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 0: That is actually exerted.
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: Sorry
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 4: I missed beginning of question because of translation!
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: there are differences in the influences and also in the responses of social work, depending on the field-of-action of social works.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: So maybe you can talk a bit about this?
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 4: In the Hungarian sample both indeed quantitative and qualitative data we couldn't identify such pattern.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 4: it's more about territorial or spatial differences so may be.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 4: segregated areas are more influenced or more targeted by these far-right influences rather than in urban settings, but no differences regarding the field of actions.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 4: It's a general integration question.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 4: yes some communities all group of society radically or aggressively by the government, like the LGBTQAI plus communities and Roma communities sometimes not.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 4: It's very interesting how they've been used as voting sources but it is nothing to do with the field of action or the social provision being given.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: I would like to invite everybody to vote for the questions and ask questions.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: And there are many question which come from Germany around the Neutralitätsgebot, so about neutrality as a duty of social work?
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: And she's in a working group, Aufstehen gegen Rassismus Stand Up Against Racism.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: She wanted to provide some information materials for her colleagues and their work space but the employer was asking not-to do it because of this duty to neutrality so that social work has been neutral In practice, in education.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: How can practitioners deal with this argument or is it narrative?
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 0: Thank you very much for the important question and I would like to give an empirical example from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania that there's a school where conflicts are vivid between right and left-wing students.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 0: And teaching them was no longer possible, so the director of this school decided that all symbols including their LGBTQIA plus a community and other symbols that actually carry, are carried to symbolize the certain group in society were prohibited at school.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 0: And everyone asked themselves
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 3: what should
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 0: think of it?
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 0: And in the practical example, that conflicts actually were reduced.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 0: On the other hand social workers put a question of whether this was perhaps also limiting their right to freedom of opinion?
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 0: And I think in the daily work situation, you actually have to ask yourself many times how to solve a conflict.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 0: actually useful?
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 0: We find, from our interview and questionnaires that the order to remain neutral does not mean people don't have their own opinion.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 0: is also based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which stipulates equality for all humans and you need to defend this basic right as a human rights.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 0: Therefore some very extreme activists go against it and they basically invert the rights, which is a well-known practical instrument of far right because they wanted to become visible by going visibly against equality for humans.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 0: So therefore, it is really important to create a platform... ...to overcome such conflicts.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 0: And social work in this context cannot be neutral or is not neutral.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 0: It simply has to offer the instruments to overcome the conflict.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 0: I would like add from from the perspective of The University, the fact that we need to talk about this order-to-remain neutral in itself shows how big the influence on the extreme right already is.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 0: We as universities must remain neutral with a view to treating all humans equal and remaining open to all religious beliefs, for example.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 0: And I have to admit that as a public servant, i need follow these orders but at the same time.
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 0: actually have my own opinion, and to demonstrate for my own opinions.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 0: But it is certainly a very controversial debate... ...to have within society.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 0: so we follow our own basic law and the human rights in this case Istvan
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: Thanks, I would just like to share the Hungarian experience not only in case of university but what we face and experienced that this neutralizing of social workers or their behaviour could mean for the youngsters.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: Or at least a part.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: basically they are minority of the social professionals radicalising talking about, well those who do not stand up for the rights and fight.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: And so on.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: they are just a pure social administrators instead of real social workers who stand out to fight for the right or value.
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: So therefore what we face but these are minors you know it's small group of professionals, but
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 3: it
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: could lead us to a radicalization or at least some social workers in that sense.
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: And there is a danger maybe because for the others would mean they are just simple administrators on this system and lose what's real social workers mean.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: It's not a real answer, I am afraid but just would like to share this experience.
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: so what we face?
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: thanks
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 0: yes.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 0: i'd like to add it that with respect to the neutrality there is another question from Miran then the one Dorothea Within the professional education or at university, what can you do if you want to practice a social work?
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 0: How can you prepare for this?
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 0: Perhaps perhaps you already have a system in place.
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 0: It is certainly very important to make some of the content mandatory in the professional education and it should be maintained.
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 0: There's a core curriculum for social workers, All the universities and all schools, professional institutes need to follow this curriculum.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 0: And it is important... ...to actually offer these contents….
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 0: …and also practice them!
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 0: and to take them up in the exams.
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 0: So, a comprehensive education is very important And I think it is equally important to create connections to the civil society, so as to make sure that a practitioner's actually unknowledgeable of this civil society and vice versa.
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 0: That way they can exchange on theory and on practical measures, because you need to prepare for your practical work.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 0: And it should be institutionalized this preparation from her experience to this.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 0: Yes, of course we prepare students especially for the social work but also other students in other fields at our universities and it is important.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 0: We can of course only prepare students when we are well prepared ourselves, when we're knowledgeable.
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 0: And I think it is important to always... have this connection to the practical activity.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 0: And also, it is important to prepare for... ...the conflict with extreme right.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 0: It should be mandatory that we are prepared in our country.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: Anything to add from the curriculum in Hungary?
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: Yes!
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 4: Yes, in our university actually.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 4: In the curriculum of social work we emphasize such courses than focus on ethics professional ethics mainly human rights and also students especially at a bachelor level.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 4: they have very or a high rate of these kind of seminars when they have this kind of simulation practices so that you can try different roles in society and the role of social worker, the role clients with different backgrounds also can be practiced.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 4: And we've got a great network with civil organisation now which is right to set up a science shop too to welcome or include organization, education and the practice of a student.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 4: And no surprise but most of these organizations are belonging to our network belong not even far right civil society.
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 4: so I think that many students have those values coming into this field with more leftist than them, right?
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 4: Sometimes it's not.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 4: We have former students now sitting or not know but in previous cycles we're sitting on the parliament and a far-right party.
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 4: so student of social policy in a university sometimes individual values and beliefs political beliefs are stronger.
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 4: you cannot influence maybe its not their role to change it to show the opportunities, possibilities and possible outcomes or consequences of certain political values.
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 4: Thank you very
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: much!
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, it doesn't work or does not support social work against attacks on the right.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: There is also the attempt to do practically differently an intervention towards a right-wing position and thereby use social work in order
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 6: to promote and
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: support.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 3: I have some points there as well.
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 3: academic and social work.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 3: On the twenty-sixth, for example, there is also a study day at the Hochschule Magdeburgstadt on this topic that is specifically aimed at students today .
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 3: There are various research networks to the subject institutionalized forms of processing.
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 3: I
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 2: would
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 3: like to highlight that for Germany, but this is different in the various countries.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 3: Maybe you also want to share your view on Austria with us?
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: Sorry!
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: But i'm with moderation
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 3: and full right now.
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 3: I'm so busy.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 3: That is very different in the three different countries.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 3: This might be something that, due to the engagement of Germany, a lot of various colleagues and also those who are already very early on their
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 6: problems...
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, so from now we have one last question.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: In part I We briefly touched upon the realities within social European governments at national and sub-national levels as well studies on values.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: This was two hours ago, we've covered a lot of ground today.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: Julia maybe can you go back over there to answer that following question from Claudia?
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 2: She says I have been telling people about this shift for few years now.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: most call it paranoid thinking.
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: I perceive a shift in the perception of democracy too, how can i or other people talk about without being perceived as weird and clearly out-of-mind?
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: And maybe you have some more ideas on how social workers describe this influence and reality to the far right?
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: what are good narratives arguments positions for the daily business.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 6: Well, thank you very much also for this very important and exciting question.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 6: We would like to contribute with our research work To this influencing becoming more visible And becomes individualized So that we reinforce perspective which shows that social problems are dealt with through social work.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 6: Right-wing extremism influences by the far right, for example and we do not perceive them only individually but as social problem also in transnational space a challenge and this is something which was part of our work.
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 6: Gin Adams for example, and Arthur's first woman in nineteen thirty-one who received the prize indicated that social problems have always an international dimension And she also had perspective on transnational space present in the work of Alisa Nolya Granz, that was really an area she focused on.
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 6: So what we need is a transnational networking effort and... And we have to practice forms of solidarity transnationally Fight this fight in a professional way.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 6: And the first step is to realize that one sometimes doesn't feel well when going this way, but we should not stop there.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 6: We should continue and Should look for other people who are ready to fight with us Who together with us already?
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 6: To form a movement.
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 6: So what we need is a new social movement against right against the right in Europe And I believe, or would like to advocate for the following.
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 6: Our success is possible if we manage to establish a sort of monitoring body and observatory.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 6: this could really bring much more visibility.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 6: Everybody's a feeling that the problem is now recognized generally, and you're not the only one who are seeing it.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 6: So... That we find others like-minded other students ready to do something against the far right or ready to build networks and become active?
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 6: Now I'd like to leave the floor for my colleagues And science could also be a possibility to communicate this perception you have in a different way after lectures or before internships with often her.
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 6: Here, yeah we know that there is this influence and it's not new for us but its difficult for me personally.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 6: because And now you've told me that what I perceive is true.
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 6: Others perceive it as well, this is helpful and i believe That um This will also maybe inside me to form networks with others With colleagues.
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 6: we need such structures.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 6: We can say for Germany that's certainly true Inside the EU too and wish that uh Can establish a science-based dialogue in this sense.
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, any last words to add looking at the time?
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 6: I'd like to add one sentence.
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 6: Christina inspired me in this sense that we can speak here In the face of political influence in Hungary something which is not Something normal anymore That we have This freedom Is very important as One Of The central challenges We Have and i would say that we have to defend this freedom with all the means we have at our disposal.
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 6: These are very strong words, uh... At the end of our meeting two hours have passed very fast.
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 6: thank you very much.
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 6: thanks to all the panelists.
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 6: it was very interesting to hear about your research project and then can only say Thank You to Hungary To Austria To Germany.
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 6: I wish y'all a nice evening and hope to see you at the next Europe calling.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 6: Thank you very much, bye-bye!