The Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work brings together the world’s leading scholars in the field to provide a cutting-edge overview of classic and current research and future trends in the subject.

Comprised of 48 chapters divided into six parts:

• Historical, social, and political influences





• Mapping the theoretical and conceptual terrain





• Methods of engagement and modes of analysis





• Critical contexts for practice and policy





• Professional education and socialisation





• Future challenges, directions, and transformations

it provides an authoritative guide to theory and method, and the primary debates of today in social work from a critical perspective.

This handbook is a major reference work and the first book to comprehensively map the wide-ranging territory of critical social work. It does so by addressing its conceptual developments, its methodological advances, its value-based front-line practice and as an influence on the policy field. By offering a definitive survey of current academic knowledge as it relates to professional practice, it provides the first comprehensive, up-to-date, definitive work of reference while at the same time identifying emerging, innovative and cutting-edge areas.

Stephen A. Webb is Professor of Social Work at Glasgow Caledonian University. His research interests focus on social work and social theory, with a focus on ethics, power, politics and community. His article on evidence-based practice published in the British Journal of Social Work was the world’s most cited article and the most influential publication in social work over ten years. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.