What is critical social work? 

Modern critical social work pulls from many critical social science theories and practice approaches (Healy, 2014, p. 185).

While quite wide-ranging, as illustrated by Figure 1 below,  these critical social science practice approaches are rooted in the critical social science paradigm and, therefore, share common assumptions:

• Macro structures affect social relations and create inequities (Healy, 2014; Hick, 2005);

• There are material and intangible differences in power, privilege—and therefore irreconcilable interests—between those who are privileged by and oppressed within structures (Healy, 2014; Hick, 2005);

• Dominant discourses and ideologies function to maintain the status quo and normalize power relations (Healy, 2014; Hick, 2005);

• There should be a focus on working toward the elimination of “all forms of oppression and domination” through action achieved through “empowering oppressed people to act, collectively” (Healy, 2014, p. 186).

As Healy (2014) notes, critical social work practice includes all of the above assumptions. 

However, there still exists wide variation in the approaches taken by different critical social workers; one’s specific approach varies depending on, for example, one’s theoretical orientation (Hick et al., 2005, p. 4), as well as one’s own embodied experiences and social location (p. 15).

Critical social work practice may also vary depending on the discourses that are dominant within an institutional context—the possibilities for and modalities of critical social work practice within a large non-profit agency, for example, will likely look very different than within a small organization that is committed to radical practice (Healy, 2014; Hick, 2005, p. 15). Critical social workers may also choose to use some approaches that stem from “conventional” social science theories (Healy, 2014). 

While critical social work theories rose in popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, the field of social work has long included the presence of “critical” social workers (Healy, 2014, p. 186).  However, as Chapman and Withers (2019) note, it is important to resist the tendency to valorize historical or current social workers as “good” or “critical” social workers within a dichotomy of good/bad or critical/uncritical.

Even Jane Addams, who is often positioned as the seminal “critical” social worker in social work history, was not “cleanly radical”—she, for example, published eugenic arguments while promoting her work within the now-famous settlement movement (p. 50).

Today, many “critical” social workers remain both complicit and directly involved in perpetuating and upholding acts and structures of violence and oppression—consider, for example, that Black and Indigenous youth are disproportionately overrepresented in care within Ontario’s child welfare system (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2018), or that “critical” social work within Ontario operates on stolen land where the sovereignty of Indigenous nations is not respected.

Indeed, we believe that an essential component of critical social work theory and practice must be the ongoing commitment of critical social workers to challenge their personal beliefs and public discourses—including those that label their own positions as “critical”, “progressive”, or “good” (Chapman & Withers, 2019).