This book is about the potential of social work, and in particular the potential of critical social work. It is about what social work is, what social work can be and, from a critical perspective, what social work should be. We use the word ‘potential’ quite deliberately, as it implies that there are elements of uncertainty in endeavouring to make social work critical that are yet to be fully realised and never guaranteed. Yet, in the current context, the values and vision of critical social work are perhaps more relevant and important than ever before.

In this and the following chapter we explore the importance of context for social work practice. Ife et al. suggest that context is vital because it impacts on how social workers understand the issues they are working with and how they will respond. Social work does not exist in a vacuum. Therefore, we focus on a number of powerful social forces that shape our social contexts. These consist of far-reaching (sometimes global) social structures and discourses. Social structures, as noted in Chapter 1, are the enduring social patterns, divisions and institutional arrangements that can give rise to inequality and harm. Discourses, on the other hand, are sets of ideas or language about a particular topic with shared meanings and assumptions that reflect and reinforce particular power relations. In other words, discourses are never neutral descriptions of reality, but actively justify certain asymmetric social structures; in turn, these structures promote discourses favourable to their maintenance.

This chapter will introduce you to some of the key formal social work theories that underpin practice. We begin with the individualistic and systems-based theories that originated in psychology and conservative sociology respectively. As was evident in Chapter 5 on the history of social work, these establishment theories generally dominated social work before the emergence of critical social work theories. We then shift our attention to the development of critical theories, such as Marxist, radical, structural, feminist and anti-oppressive perspectives that aim for social justice and autonomy, and discuss the more recent contribution of poststructural and queer theories to the evolution of critical theories and to critical social work. The newer critical theories developed out of critiques of the older establishment theories, so it is necessary to have some familiarity with the principles of both. Finally, we draw on research with our first-year students to demonstrate the application of theory in relation to a case study.