Modern Critical Social Work Theory

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Anti-oppressive practice is an approach developed out of Modern critical social work theory (Healy, 2014). This paper will firstly provide a description, then an outline of Modern critical social work theory’s history. Additionally, it will consider a case study through an Anti-oppressive approach discussing the issues, interventions, how change is expected to ocurr, strengths and weaknesses.
Modern critical social work is the application of social work from a critical theory perspective. It seeks to address the impact of broad social structures in particular at the macro level as opposed to focusing on individual service user’s problems. In turn, it rejects any focus on psychological assessment and instead, assessment is done through a structural …show more content…
Modern critical social work was prominent during the 1960’s and 1970’s and was developed in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the USA (Baines, 2001). Modern critical social work grew out of functionalism, feminism, racism and conflict theories. (Watson & West, 2006). It refers to a broad range of practice approaches including feminist social work, anti-racist practice, anti-oppressive practice and anti-discriminatory social work (Healy, 2014, p. 185). However, Critical social work theory finds its historical roots in Karl Marx’s Conflict Theory (Rogowski, 2008; Baines, 2001). According to Baines (2001), Marx did not consider class as a descriptor but rather an illuminator of the strategic positioning of various groups of people, and how they can work to change the structures that result in their oppression (Baines, …show more content…
This critical assessment of the service user’s experiences assists the practitioner to understand the personal, cultural and structural processes that shape the service user’s experience (Healy, 2014; Strier & Binyamin, 2014; Baines, 2001). From the structuralist perspective, Lucy is facing various barriers. It is important to note at this point that many structures of oppression interlink and can reinforce each other (Raineri & Calcaterra, 2015; Healy, 2014; Baines, 2001). Firstly, Lucy was born and raised in Thailand which is influenced by a strongly patriarchal society, where women are regarded as inferior and do not have the same position and rights in society as men do (Atlantic Thai, 2013; Martin & Jones, 2012). It could be argued that Lucy was looking for a way to escape her culture’s discriminative and oppressive structures which are why she sought a husband from overseas. Antantic Thai (2013) and Martin and Jones (2012) state that many Thai women regard Australian, American and British men to be exceptionally wealthy and therefore seek these husbands to escape the oppression of poverty in their own country. Paul’s parents who are characterised by Lucy as directive and critical, reinforce the patriarchal
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