Social Work Knowledge — Revisited

Abstract

Social work knowledge is problematic for many reasons. One reason is that social workers’ use of aspects of such knowledge may have contributed to the discrimination against lesbians and gay men with whom they came into contact. The relationship between knowledge and values is a complicated one; the use of knowledge is, not surprisingly, subjective. It is much more likely that we will seek out knowledge retrospectively to justify our practice and decisionmaking, than that we will acquire knowledge beforehand, to inform our intervention. Social workers sometimes use selective knowledge to reinforce decisions that have already been reached, based on their belief system or value base (Brown, 1992b). This tendency has led to discriminatory practice (Brown, 1996).