Perspectives on Social Work, Religion, and
Spirituality
By Roland Meinert,
Ph.D.
An increased emphasis
on religious and spiritual diversity is
a recent development in both education and
practice as measured by curricula in schools
of social work and by articles in social
work journals. Even though specific courses
in religion and spirituality are not required
in the curricula of social work education
programs, they are appearing more frequently
as electives. Religion and spirituality
conceptually fall within the broader category
of cultural diversity, and all social work
education programs must include content
about them in the curriculum as an accreditation
requirement.
Books and articles in
professional journals on these topics have
increased significantly in the past few
decades. Christian social workers in particular
have institutionalized the movement by creating
both the North
American Association of Christians in Social
Work and a professional journal.
Since 1990 there has been a Society
for Spirituality and Social Work
emphasizing the non-religious aspects of
the topic. The Council
on Social Work Education (CSWE),
the national accrediting body for social
work education, recently published a comprehensive
bibliography with over seven hundred entries
on the topics of religion, spirituality,
and cultural diversity (Canda, et al., 2003).
While it is true that professional social
work as it took shape in the beginning of
the twentieth century traced its philosophical
foundation to Judeo-Christian principles,
this influence was not strong and certainly
by mid-century it began to shed them in
favor of a secular humanist orientation.
In a somewhat conceptually unbounded fashion,
this article discusses several perspectives
related to social work, religion, and spirituality.
Religion
and Social Welfare in the Past
In the first quarter
of the seventeenth century as the colonists
established permanent settlements in the
United States, their energy and effort was
directed toward survival and adaptation
to the wilderness more than it was toward
the role of religion in their lives. Concern
about the welfare of others was low on the
list of individual and community priorities.
It is true that the colonists had incredible
opportunities, but they lacked an organizational
and institutional infrastructure to deal
with social and health problems. The population
was sparse, and natural resources were abundant,
with opportunities to acquire land as Native
Americans were displaced. As communities
and towns formed and some degree of social
stability emerged, persons with serious
needs began to appear. There were health
problems, orphans, poverty, the aged, vagrants,
criminals, and the "distracted" (mentally
ill). In response to these needs the colonists
turned to "models" from their countries
of origin, with the major influence coming
from England. These influences were a blend
of both compassion and punitiveness. People
in distress were first expected to help
themselves, then to turn to family, and
as a last resort to seek community resources.
It was not until after
the time of the American Revolution that
the country began to define a social welfare
institutional structure different from that
in the Old World. However, the achievement
of sovereignty and the adoption of a constitution
did not bring about revolutionary changes
in the approaches to social welfare. Alexander
Hamilton wanted the new constitution to
be interpreted loosely and broadly, which
might include a role for the federal government
in the area of social welfare. On the other
hand, Thomas Jefferson argued for a strict
interpretation and a limited role for government.
The Jeffersonian view prevailed and local
towns and counties, and not the federal
government, assumed the major role in social
welfare. County poorhouses, orphanages,
and correctional institutions were established
at the local level and administered by political
appointees with little conception of what
they were expected to accomplish.
In the post-revolutionary
period the population considered to be poor,
disenfranchised, and in need of assistance
were primarily viewed as possessing moral
defects. There had been a dramatic increase
in the number of immigrants, many of whom
were Catholics from Ireland and Germany
who settled in Eastern cities and lived
in neighborhoods with poor housing and unsanitary
conditions. The dominant Protestant majority
believed they were being overrun by ragged,
uncouth, different, un-Christian, and seemingly
immoral newcomers. Thus the underlying philosophy
for social welfare during the post-revolutionary
period included both a moralistic and punitive
orientation. Social welfare agencies, both
public and private, were infused with mainline
Protestant principles, and religion and
social welfare commingled. Evangelical Protestants
believed in "moral treatment" for those
who had fallen into a "sinful" life characterized
by crime and alcoholism. At the dawn of
the Civil War the concept of "moral treatment"
prevailed throughout social welfare. Illustrative
of this approach were institutions for delinquents
which emphasized education for employment
and religious training to instill improved
moral character. As a carryover from colonial
times, persons in need were categorized
as either "worthy" or "unworthy" to receive
help and services, a cultural dichotomy
that remains to this day.
Toward the last quarter
of the nineteenth century, the Charity Organization
Society (COS) movement began to appear in
major cities. This was one of several developments
that eventually led to the establishment
of the profession of social work. These
societies functioned to provide both relief
and the coordination of effort between other
organizations. The staff was comprised of
volunteers and mainly affluent, white, Protestant
women called "friendly visitors." Although
not as pronounced as in earlier times, there
remained the belief among the cadre of friendly
visitors that people found themselves in
need because of moral defects and not necessarily
because of social conditions or poor economic
times. In another development the settlement
house movement recognized the effect of
environmental conditions that led to human
misery and complimented the focus on the
alleged individual defects.
Although not strongly
embedded in the political culture, the Hamiltonian
view for an increased role for the federal
government in the lives of citizens was
gaining favor. By the end of the nineteenth
century the two tracks of private and public
social services were well established. The
early years of the twentieth century ushered
in a progressive era in social welfare and
the advancement of social work as a profession.
Also during this period organizations under
the auspices of several religions began
to provide social and health services on
a broad scale. This has continued to the
present time. Catholic, Protestant, and
Jewish agencies as well as the Salvation
Army operate social and health service institutions
numbering in the thousands across the country.
In recent decades as ethnic populations
have increased, particularly Muslims, ethnic
groups have established agencies and organizations
to provide support for members who find
themselves in need.
Both long-established
as well as newer agencies expecting to function
in a non-controversial political and cultural
environment now find that they face new
challenges because of contemporary social,
political, and economic changes. A central
problem for agencies under religious auspices
is raised by social work's recent adoption
of a postmodern epistemology (Hutchison,
1998). Hutchinson points out that religions
include sets of shared beliefs or practices
and interpretations of reality that exist
over time within the tradition of the institution
itself. This is in contrast to postmodernism,
in which reality is solely interpreted by
the individual within the immediate experiential
context without reference to external systems
of belief. In the postmodern perspective
an adherence by the individual to a traditional
belief system should be ignored because
it blocks the path to authentic self-actualization.
The two perspectives could not be in greater
conflict. In the religious, the highest
level of spiritual attainment comes through
organizing one's behavior and living within
a set of institutionalized beliefs or practices,
while in the postmodern these beliefs must
be deconstructed in order to achieve the
same goal.
Social
Work Rediscovers Religion and Spirituality
Approximately in the
mid-1980s information about religion and
spirituality began to appear in a more pronounced
fashion in social work education and practice.
However, it did not appear without a struggle
and this was more apparent in the field
of education than in that of practice. Prior
to the 1980s a small but very vocal contingent
of social work educators and some practitioners
advocated for the inclusion of information
about religion and spirituality in social
work education programs. They presented
a two-pronged rationale for their position.
First, because social work was unambiguously
committed to the preparation of culturally
sensitive and competent practitioners, content
about religion and spirituality should be
included in social work education programs.
They argued that to ignore this content
would deprive practitioners of the ability
to understand the cultural context of the
clients they served. The second rationale
argued from the position of findings in
the social and psychological sciences. Earlier
social workers had believed that a holistic
view of personhood only included the dimensions
of physical, psychological, and social.
Evidence became available that a truly holistic
perspective of the person must also include
the spiritual. Therefore, schools of social
work were required to teach about personhood
along the dimensions of a bio-psycho-social-spiritual
frame of reference. Spirituality thus became
one component of the holistic conceptualization
of personhood. Those who were writing about
social work and spirituality also began
to explore perspectives that were closely
related to it such as transpersonal psychology,
deep ecology, and cosmic consciousness (Besthorn,
2001).
Religion
and Spirituality in the Social Work Literature
Books about the topic
of religion and spirituality in social work
began to be published mainly in 1988 and
thereafter. A search revealed one book in
the 1930s (Niebuhr, 1932) and another in
the 1950s (Johnson, 1956). Then, beginning
in 1988 they became more frequent. There
is no distinct focus in the books on either
religion or spirituality and many of them
address both religious and spiritual issues.
Of the book titles reviewed, most focused
on spirituality and not religion. If there
is any general pattern among the books,
it is that information about religious and
spiritual issues is necessary if the clients
of social workers are to be understood holistically
and within the clients' unique cultural
backgrounds and contexts. Along with this
theme, many believe that in order to be
competent in practice the social worker
must explore with clients the religious
and spiritual aspects of their lives. Religion
and spirituality oftentimes are an integral
part of the constellation of problems being
presented for help.
Reviews of the social
work journal literature reveal that there
are about 700 articles that fall within
the domain of religion, morality, ethics,
spirituality, and cultural diversity that
have appeared since the mid-1950s (Canda,
et al., 2002). When reviewing the titles
of the articles from 1921 through 2000,
a total of 120 were identified as pertaining
specifically to religion and/or spirituality.
Table 1 shows the number of articles in
each decade in this category since 1921.
Clearly the social work literature confirms
that the last two decades of the twentieth
century contain the corpus of writings on
this subject.
TABLE
1. Religious/Spiritual
Social Work Journal Articles 1921-2000
Decade
No.
of articles
% of
articles
1921-1930
3
2.5%
1931-1940
0
0
1941-1950
0
0
1951-1960
5
4.2%
1961-1970
4
3.3%
1971-1980
3
2.5%
1981-1990
40
33.3%
1991-2000
65
54.2%
TOTAL
120
100%
Three reasons explain
why nearly 90% of the articles have appeared
during the past two decades.
First, after the mid
1970s there was a dramatic increase in the
number of social work journals, particularly
after commercial publishers such as Haworth
Press and Sage entered the field. Since
that time the number of social work journals
has doubled. Also since that time several
journals began publication under the auspices
of schools of social work and social service
organizations. With the increase in the
number of social work journals there was
a concomitant rise in the number of articles
about religion and spirituality.
Second, as noted earlier,
in the 1980s there was a concerted and sustained
effort on the part of some social work educators
to introduce religion and spirituality into
the educational process. These were mainly
educators from Christian and Jewish traditions
who argued that social work had limited
the holistic understanding of personhood
by only including bio-psycho-social dimensions.
After much organizational infighting the
spiritual dimension was added. The foundation
philosophy of early social work was based
on a set of Judeo-Christian principles which
became anathema in the late 1960s and early
1970s when secular humanism began to replace
it. At that time religious influences were
submerged — or actually denigrated
— until the fear that practitioners
might proselytize clients was overcome.
The realization also emerged that spirituality
was much broader than adherence to a religious
tradition.
The third reason was
the commitment of social work to the goal
of educating students who would be culturally
informed, sensitive, and competent in their
practice. This could not be accomplished
unless students were exposed to content
about a variety of cultures, ethnic and
racial groups, and religious traditions.
Students would also need to learn how to
remain open and sensitive to the individualistic
ways in which their clients sought to enrich
their lives in a spiritual fashion.
To a large degree the
journal literature about religion and spirituality
tends to dichotomize the two foci. As indicated
in Table 2, the 120 articles in social work
journals were examined to determine whether
they focused solely on religion, solely
on spirituality, or on a combination of
the two. An examination of the articles'
titles showed that 55% were related to social
work practice issues, 13.3% to educational
issues, and 31.7% to generalized issues.
TABLE
2. Religious,
Spiritual, or Combined Focus
Number
Percent
Religion Only
58
48.3%
Spirituality Only
45
37.5%
Both Religion and
Spirituality
17
14.2%
TOTAL
120
100%
Defining
Religion and Spirituality
The relationship between
religion and spirituality can be viewed
in two different ways. On the one hand they
can be seen as overlapping in that the person
seeks a higher level of meaning about life
through participation in a shared religious
activity that supports and provides pathways
for an intensely individualistic spiritual
quest. The other view is that religion and
spirituality are distinctly different. A
comment frequently heard in everyday conversation
is, "I'm spiritual but not religious." Indeed,
agnostics, atheists, and non-religious persons
can and do lead rich spiritual lives. There
also appears to be more definitional consensus
about the essence and meaning of religion
than there is about spirituality.
Some of the defining
characteristics of religion that are not
possessed by spirituality include: activities
within an institutional structure or community;
an integrated system of beliefs; systematic
practices and rituals of worship; a roadmap
for right or holy living and dieing; identification
with persons who share the same set of beliefs
and practices; and explanations of the universe
and ultimate reality, among others. Many
religions include belief in God or a higher
reality that is responsible for the universe.
Spirituality, in contrast,
does not possess the tangible characteristics
of religion. Spirituality can be considered
an intensely individualistic and ephemeral
search by an individual to make sense of
and to find meaning along the pathway of
life. There is no tangible structure for
spirituality because there is a transcendental
fluidity about it. Because it is individualistic
rather than social or institutional, it
defies any one definition. Nor does spirituality
contain a shared paradigm of what constitutes
morality because this is left up to individual
interpretation. In an analysis of 100 articles
on leadership and spirituality in the workplace
(Hicks, 2002) there were 40 words that were
identified as elements of spirituality that
ranged from attributes of the person to
social connectedness to transcendental characteristics
such as life force, harmony, holism, and
integration. In the main, the words associated
with spirituality were of an abstract nature.
Spirituality moves outside the domain of
psychology and the ego because it is transpersonal,
transegoic, and at a level involving the
universe at large.
Much of the literature
about religion and spirituality has a binary
focus (Henery, 2003). Whereas religion is
communal, grounded, and dogmatic, spirituality
is individualistic, transcendent, and fluid.
In some instances, religion is a product
of a specific culture, whereas spirituality
is not. Many writers in the field of spirituality
seek to provide a more concrete understanding
and definition of spirituality through the
use of diagrams, models and illustrations.
Four of these are depicted in Figure 1.
Figure
1. Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual
Depictions
Depiction A
represents the position held by the official
social work education establishment. Students
are taught to visualize and relate to clients
in a holistic fashion that includes bio-psycho-social-spiritual
dimensions across the lifespan. The spiritual
dimension may or may not be based on adherence
to a set of religious beliefs and practices
or a dogma. Typically, content from the
biological, social, and psychological sciences
is included in the curriculum toward developing
a holistic view of the person. Programs
are free to present content about how religions
foster spirituality, but it is not required
that specific religions be covered. It is
assumed that because spirituality is highly
individualistic, less is said about it,
while material about the biological, social,
and psychological sciences is covered thoroughly.
As far as the author can determine there
has been no study of curricula in social
work education programs that measures the
extent to which educational content about
the four dimensions is presented to students.
It is assumed that more is presented about
the social and psychological dimensions,
some about the biological, and little about
the spiritual. Depiction B
illustrates four levels of awareness and
consciousness of increasingly higher order
(Vaughan, 1995). Moving from the innermost
circle, representing biological needs, and
outward through psychological, social and
then the spiritual requires a degree of
comfort and adaptation at each level. There
is some amount of independence between the
levels, but the holistically healthy person
will have a sense of well-being at each
of them. This conception resembles the formulation
by Maslow of the hierarchy of needs. In
the depiction the spiritual dimension at
the highest level is maximized if the dimensions
at lower levels are healthy and fulfilled.
Depiction C
places spirituality on a higher order than
in depiction A, and similar to depiction
B, it elevates spirituality to the top of
the hierarchy compared to the other three
dimensions of self (Ferran, et al., 1989).
It possesses a unifying function in that
spirituality embraces and integrates the
other three dimensions. The outer circle
of spirituality is also in touch with the
outer world and the universe at large. This
is consistent with the general belief that
spirituality has a transcendent quality.
It is assumed that the concept illustrated
in depiction C represents the understanding
of spirituality held by most persons who
consider themselves as spiritual persons.
Depiction D
(Canda & Furman, 1999) reflects the presence
of spirituality at three positions within
the person's life space. Spirituality in
the inner circle represents the core essence
or basic groundedness of the person, known
only by the person, and which influences
the other dimensions of selfhood. Spirituality
in the middle circle represents the modes
of spirituality that complement the biological,
psychological, and social dimensions. Spirituality
in the outer circle represents the person's
wholeness in relation to all reality, both
inner and outer. It is spirituality in its
transpersonal form in which the search for
the ultimate purpose and meaning in life
is sought. In religious persons it is that
aspect of spirituality that relates to God,
one's place in the universe, and the sacred
rather than the secular. Social
Work Education and Practice
The profession of social
work has moved through several eras in which
it has turned to a specific philosophy or
theoretical formulation to provide the foundation
to understand the concerns brought to practitioners
by clients. The profession has never developed
a systematic and integrated framework to
organize the approaches and interventions
for practice. Lacking such a framework the
profession has jumped around from framework
to framework as it was influenced by fads,
special interest groups, and theories utilized
by other disciplines and professions. To
some extent social work has been a profession
in search of a theory. Throughout these
theoretical vacillations four periods stand
out in particular that are similar to those
in psychology.
The first period was
that of Freudian psychoanalysis. It was
in the mid-twentieth century and immediately
thereafter that psychoanalytic theory served
as a template to guide social work practice.
With its emphasis on the inner psychological
dynamics of the person, including unconscious
motivations, it drew social workers to focus
on emotional issues and how they affected
social relationships. This emphasis turned
the profession away from a social justice
mission and fostered generations of caseworkers,
many of whom had the ultimate career goal
of entering private practice as psychotherapists.
The popular literature described this period
as a social work profession "chasing its
tail" (Sanders, 1957). In an attempt to
escape the designation of being considered
as a semi- or quasi-profession, social work
aspired to a level of professional status
occupied by psychiatry, though it was at
the bottom rung of the medical status hierarchy.
During the period of Freudian influence,
religion was not viewed in a positive manner
and to some extent was considered as a manifestation
of pathology. Persons who sought spiritual
insights in some cases were considered as
delusional. Thus during this period, with
some exceptions, religion and spirituality
were ignored by leaders and spokespersons
in both social work education and practice.
After the bloom faded
from the psychoanalytic perspective the
next major period was the behavioral one.
After it became apparent that psychoanalysis
was subjective in the extreme, a more scientific
perspective was sought. Whereas psychoanalysis
had focused on the inner psychological dynamics
of the person, behaviorists treated this
area as a black box to be ignored. The central
focus of behavioral-oriented social workers
was on changing observable and measurable
behaviors by manipulating the stimuli that
caused them or the resultant consequences.
Psychological dynamics, including the spiritual
dimensions of the person, were considered
as irrelevant. By definition, only behavior
that could be observed fell within the scope
of interventions, and spirituality fell
outside that category. Religious practices
and rituals might be manipulated and changed,
but the essence and non-observable beliefs
were relegated to the black box. Whereas
Freudian psychoanalysis treated religion
as a problem to be overcome, behaviorism
ignored it altogether.
Humanistic psychology
emerged as the third perspective to influence
social work. If psychoanalysis viewed the
human psyche as deterministic and neurotic
and behaviorism ignored the internal self,
the humanistic approach tended to celebrate
it. To some extent, humanistic psychology
was compatible with the counterculture movement
of the 1960s and the glorification of individualism
and the self. It also paralleled the emergence
of groups which were proclaiming their unique
identities such as feminists, gays and lesbians,
persons with disabilities, and others. The
approach brought back into consideration
the importance of the scope and expansiveness
of human consciousness, even though it did
not lead to a wide range of testable hypotheses.
Movements such as existentialism, postmodernism,
situational ethics, and the individual construction
of reality could fit into the humanistic
approach. A rejection of authoritarianism
and belief in the supernatural prevailed,
along with a commitment to reason and rationality
as a basis for ethics and morality.
In the fourth and current
era social work has continued the practice
of borrowing theories, conceptual formulations,
and practice frameworks from other disciplines
and professions. Doctoral programs in social
work have increased significantly over the
past quarter century with a concomitant
rise in social work research. However, this
has not resulted in the development of a
coherent body of theory that is generally
accepted by the profession at large. Social
work remains a profession in search of a
general theory or an agreement about a set
of theories. One of the perspectives that
has gained favor among a group of practitioners
and educators is called transpersonal, and
it is a logical extension of the previous
era of humanism (Leight, 2001).
Among the four models
of spirituality described above, the transpersonal
perspective is best represented by depiction
D. Transpersonalism focuses on the innermost
core and essential identity of the person,
the function of spirituality to integrate
the bio-psycho-social dimensions of the
person, and the search for meaning and wholeness
with others and the universe at large. As
the name implies it transcends the physical,
psychological, and social self in the search
for ultimate reality and meaning.
Religion
and Spirituality: Selected Issues and Concerns
Over the span of the
last two decades, the profession of social
work has officially embraced religion and
spirituality as important features in the
lives of the clients receiving service.
Social work students are trained to be sensitive
to these dimensions, and practitioners are
expected to explore them when clients seek
service with problems in living. There is
some question, however, about the extent
to which content about religion and spirituality
is systematically included in the curricula
of educational programs. A goal of social
work education is to prepare social workers
to practice without discrimination, with
respect, and with knowledge and skills related
to fourteen diversity areas. These are age,
class, color, culture, disability, ethnicity,
family structure, gender, marital status,
national origin, race, religion, sex, and
sexual orientation. Given that social workers
are also expected to practice with all levels
of human systems, including with individuals,
groups, families, organizations, and communities,
it is questionable that substantive content
in both these areas can be adequately covered.
Further complexity is added as students
must learn about a variety of populations
at risk, many forms of social problems and
welfare policies, and several different
practice methods. All this must be accomplished
in four semesters at both the undergraduate
and graduate levels.
Programs are free to
deal with the diversity issues and system
levels in their own fashion. Some infuse
content about the diversity topics throughout
the curriculum while others provide an array
of required or elective courses that focus
on a topic. Some have a diversity-specific
workshop. It is likely that students become
informed about several diversity areas,
but it is unlikely that they change their
attitudes or behavior or engage in efforts
to change the larger environment to respect
and appreciate diversity.
Within the context of
this subject, a review of social work courses
indicates that most combine "religion" and
"spirituality" in the title and that most
focus on practice within these perspectives.
All are electives within the social work
practice sequence, and they tend to be offered
at the graduate level. It is assumed that
instructors have no particular education,
expertise, or experience in the area of
religion, because the main requirement for
practice instructors is an MSW degree and
at least two years of practice experience.
Hodge (2002) argues
persuasively that bias against evangelical
Christians exists within the profession
and specifically within social work education.
Academic educators belong to a class that
wields influence over the "production of
culture" far in excess of their numbers
in the population. He says they also reject
traditional moral values and exhibit overt
hostility and intolerance toward evangelical
Christians. If this argument can be firmly
substantiated, then the ability of social
work education to understand, respect, and
affirm religious diversity can be questioned.
The profession of social
work remains ambivalent about the "Charitable
Choice" section of the 1996 welfare reform
act. This section of the act provided federal
funding for faith-based social service organizations
(Meyer, 2003). Opponents take the position
that it is a violation of the principle
of separation of Church and State (not specifically
mentioned in the Constitution) and will
lead to evangelizing and proselytizing clients.
Proponents claim that sufficient protections
have been built into the funding guidelines
to prevent this from happening. Opponents
tend to minimize the role that religious
organizations and agencies serve as mediating
functions. They serve as a liaison and connection
between the person and other societal sectors.
Many service consumers feel more comfortable
with an agency under religious auspices
than under a public one. These agencies
span the country under many religious banners
and, combined, have budgets well into the
billions of dollars. Agencies under the
auspices of mainline religious groups seem
to attract social workers with a higher
level of professional training than do public
social services, which are woefully unprofessional.
It has never been documented that explicitly
religious faith-based programs exhibit a
higher level of "compassion", as frequently
touted by supporters.
In social work
education perhaps one of the most contentious
religious issues centers on the conflict
between the nondiscrimination accreditation
standard and the values espoused by programs
in sectarian institutions. This conflict
reaches its apex in the areas of sexual
orientation, same-sex marriage, and reproductive
rights. Homosexuality, same-sex marriages,
and abortion clearly pertain to the social
work value about human diversity and freedom
of choice and clash with the beliefs of
several religions. A major objective in
social work education programs is for students
to learn to understand, respect and affirm
human diversity. Some programs under religious
auspices ban the hiring of faculty and will
not admit students who engage in lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender relationships
(LGBT). A large contingent of social work
educators and administrators maintain that
this violates the nondiscrimination standard
and these programs should not be accredited
and that those who have been should have
accreditation withdrawn. The religiously
affiliated institutions hold that the standard
is in conflict with beliefs central to their
identity and mission and violates the free-exercise
feature of the First Amendment. In addition,
they believe the standard calls into question
social work's alleged commitment to religious
diversity and actually trivializes it. The
programs in question do appear to provide
content for students to enable them to understand
and respect the LGBT lifestyle but do not
affirm or celebrate it. Programs with this
position have continued to be accredited
by CSWE although the two opposing sides
continue to disagree.
A blog about faith, values and spirituality in the media, from CORP faculty, staff and friends.
ReligiousLife@MU A blog about religious life at the University of
Missouri-Columbia.
Curious about how religion affects your profession? Click on your discipline for some ideas.
