In the 2024 academic year, the number of students who exhibited school refusal exceeded 350,000, and addressing this has become a widely recognized urgent social issue. However, the tendency for the mothers of these students to be susceptible to gender-based oppression, by way of prevailing “Motherhood Norms,” tends to remain unrecognized. This paper analyzes the results of an interview survey of mothers with children who exhibit school refusal, specifically addressing the challenges faced in their relationships with family and school, using the Modified Grounded Theory Approach (M-GTA). It clarifies the process through which these mothers move toward empowerment, and attempts to present a model for supporting these mothers from the feminist social work perspective.

  The findings reveal that these mothers have needs that are difficult to recognize, but exist in the gaps between the distinct dimensions of the “Self as an Individual,” “Self in the Family,” and “Self Living in Society.” Furthermore, this study finds that these gaps also serve as a source of energy and concludes that through support delivered with gender sensitivity, mothers move toward empowerment.

  This study employed the classic grounded theory method to conceptualize the lifeworld of children in households receiving public assistance. By relating the identified lifeworld to prior research on children of public assistance households and public assistance caseworkers, the study examined how social work practice by caseworkers for these children could be improved.

  Analysis revealed the lifeworld of these children as characterized by “transforming from a passive environment to an environment where one takes initiative.” Based upon this domain-specific theory, the study examined how to improved social work practices by caseworkers towards children of welfare recipient households by caseworkers. It high-lighted the need to build a “helping relationship” grounded in “anti-oppression practice theory” between welfare case workers and these children, as well as the importance of support informed by “mediation practice theory” aimed at fostering the children’s own “connections.”

  This study examines how client agency is understood and linked to practice decisions in Chinese society, where family culture plays a central role. Drawing on vignette-based interviews with 18 social workers, the study found that two tendencies coexisted in practice decisions: one respected the family values and care norms held by the client and family members while exploring the possibility of home-based care; the other emphasized maintaining the family’s overall living conditions and reducing caregiving burdens, thereby presenting institutional care as a realistic option. These tendencies did not simply represent a contrast between respecting and denying culture. Rather, they reflected differing frameworks through which social workers balanced the client’s wishes, family relationships, filial piety, caregiving burdens, and living conditions in the decision-making process. The findings suggest that client agency in the context of Chinese family culture should not be understood solely as independent individual decision-making, but as “relational agency” formed and adjusted according to family relationships and living conditions. The study also highlights the importance of assessing whether cultural values support the lives of clients and families or lead to excessive burdens and the suppression of rights.