Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Some terms and definitions
- Introduction: Race, racism and social work
- one Rethinking anti-racist social work in a neoliberal age
- two The growth of xeno-racism and Islamophobia in Britain
- three The catalysers: ‘black’ professionals and the anti-racist movement
- four “Same, same, but different”
- five Antisemitism and anti-racist social work
- six Anti-Roma racism in Europe: past and recent perspectives
- seven In defence of multiculturalism?
- eight Social work and Islamophobia: identity formation among second and third generation Muslim women in north-west England
- nine Institutionalised Islamophobia and the ‘Prevent’ agenda: ‘winning hearts and minds’ or welfare as surveillance and control?
- ten ‘Street-grooming’, sexual abuse and Islamophobia: an anatomy of the Rochdale abuse scandal
- eleven My people?
- twelve Twenty-first century eugenics? A case study about the Merton Test
- thirteen The role of immigration policies in the exploitation of migrant care workers: an ethnographic exploration
- Conclusion: Race, racism and social work today: some concluding thoughts
- Bibliography
- Index
twelve - Twenty-first century eugenics? A case study about the Merton Test
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Some terms and definitions
- Introduction: Race, racism and social work
- one Rethinking anti-racist social work in a neoliberal age
- two The growth of xeno-racism and Islamophobia in Britain
- three The catalysers: ‘black’ professionals and the anti-racist movement
- four “Same, same, but different”
- five Antisemitism and anti-racist social work
- six Anti-Roma racism in Europe: past and recent perspectives
- seven In defence of multiculturalism?
- eight Social work and Islamophobia: identity formation among second and third generation Muslim women in north-west England
- nine Institutionalised Islamophobia and the ‘Prevent’ agenda: ‘winning hearts and minds’ or welfare as surveillance and control?
- ten ‘Street-grooming’, sexual abuse and Islamophobia: an anatomy of the Rochdale abuse scandal
- eleven My people?
- twelve Twenty-first century eugenics? A case study about the Merton Test
- thirteen The role of immigration policies in the exploitation of migrant care workers: an ethnographic exploration
- Conclusion: Race, racism and social work today: some concluding thoughts
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In this chapter Moran and Gillett, both active practitioners in the asylum field, raise disturbing questions about the age-assessment test (the Merton Test) that many social workers will be asked to participate in. The PCF domain 2 is concerned with ensuring that social workers practise in an ethical way that reflects social work values. Yet Moran and Gillett suggest that the Merton Test effectively breaches social work ethical codes: it is, they suggest, a new form of eugenics. Their case is that the Merton Test has no basis in science, that questions asked are culturally insensitive, and that the test is only applied to those deemed as ‘other’ by institutional racist immigration and asylum laws. Given this, they argue, social workers, whose primary concern should be with safeguarding vulnerable children, should not engage in age-assessment ‘tests’.
Introduction
This chapter is about exposing and resisting the institutionalised racism (as defined by Macpherson 1999) that is practised through the test known as the Merton Compliant age assessment that, through its introduction into the field of social work practice, is an indicator of the advancement of the neoliberal agenda (Harman 2007).
The Merton Compliant is the general guidance to local authorities about how to decide whether a child seeking asylum who claims to be a child, is a child. It was included in the findings of Judge Burnton in the High Court in 20031 and, when it is used, it is applied by practising social workers to a child who is, in conjunction, being ‘processed’ as an asylum seeker by a United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) ‘caseowner’.
The authors textually analyse: policy and legal case documents; the guidance accompanying one local authority's Merton Compliance assessment tool alongside the empirical content of that tool as applied to a 15-year-old boy by a local authority social worker; and anonymised extracts from the audit trail of that ‘Merton Complied’ case study. Through this combination of sources and method, the authors explore whether and how this test, and in particular the guidance about the ‘tool’ used to apply it, offers a contemporary example of a judicially and medically supported operationalisation, by social workers, of an essentialist and deeply racist statutory policy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Race, Racism and Social WorkContemporary Issues and Debates, pp. 223 - 242Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2013