Professor Michal Krumer-Nevo

Small Group Project 2017

Using critical reflection to develop poverty-aware professionals

With Anna Gupta & Jan Fook

This project aims to address the need for better poverty-awareness in social workers and teachers. It focuses on what is a problem for many socially-oriented professions: the conceptual gap between analysis and practice. In the case of poverty the gap is between societal levels of analysis and: 1. understandings of the personal experiences of poverty and 2. Resultant strategies applied at individual levels in teaching and social work practice. The project will develop pilot projects (using critical reflection) to uncover professionals’ hidden assumptions about people in poverty, and to help them devise changed practice strategies.

More information

Cohort

FG3

Biography

Michal Krumer-Nevo is Professor of Social Work at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where she holds the David and Dorothy Schwartzman Chair in Community Development and serves as Honorary President of the Israeli Center for Qualitative Research of People and Societies. A leading scholar in critical social work and poverty studies, her research focuses on poverty, social injustice, qualitative methodologies, and the politics of welfare and social policy.

Originally trained in Hebrew literature and later in social work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Professor Krumer-Nevo worked as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist before entering academia. She joined Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 2000 as a postdoctoral fellow and became a faculty member in 2002. She has also held visiting and research appointments at institutions including the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and several universities across Europe.

Professor Krumer-Nevo is internationally recognised for developing the Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP), an influential framework for social work practice that understands poverty as a violation of human rights and emphasises solidarity with people living in poverty. Combining critical social work, social activism, and relational approaches to practice, the paradigm has been implemented nationally through the Israeli Ministry of Welfare and Social Services and has had significant influence on social work education and policy.

Biographical details correct as of 13.05.26

Copyright © 2025 Independent Social Research Stichting | Registered Head Office: WTC Schiphol Airport, Schiphol Boulevard 359, 1118BJ Amsterdam, Netherlands