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.