Silvia M. Staub-Bernasconi, 2010
This chapter contains a brief biography and transcript of an interview with Silvia M. Staub-Bernasconi, a leader in Swiss social work education, who was awarded the Katherine Kendall Award of the International Association of Schools of Social Work in 2010, for her contribution to international social work education. After studies in social work in Zurich and the USA, she became a street worker with gangs and with migrants. Developing ideas about social work as an action science, concerned with sources of power as well as individuals, she focused on social work as a human rights profession, and was involved in developing a European doctoral programme, INDOSOW. Her experience of students who had been oppressed in many countries led her to teach social work by connecting biography with sociocultural contexts. In the future, social work must separate itself and neoliberal ideas, meeting its triple mandate for a science base combined with individual care and political and social concern.