Critical Consciousness In Social Work

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The definition of social work has undergone many changes throughout history; upon creation it started off with an era of moral reform, following that an era of social reform and then an era of applied social science, which is still present today (Hick, 2010). The following paper will use the works of Steven Hicks “History of Social Work”, A. Rossiters “Innocence lost and suspicion found: Do we educate for or against social work?”, S. Raheims, D.C. Whites and C. Denboroughs “An invitation to narrative practitioners to address privilege and dominance” and lastly Lynn Mannings “The Magic Wand”. These works will be used to define Critical Social Work as the practice of using critical consciousness and critical thinking when viewing the social construction of …show more content…
Through critical consciousness one can look at “the relations and practices of power that influence our lives [and realize they] are often invisible to us. If we do not proactively look at how relations of power operate to create advantages for some and deny these advantages to others, it hinders our work” (Raheim, White & Denborough, n.d.). This allows one to have a critical awareness of their surroundings and understand the effect their being has on others, this is important in social work as it can prevent a power domination occurring between patient and helper. Critical Social work uses critical consciousness to break down the socially constructed reality and bring real problems of oppression and injustice to light. Doing this helps social workers to begin creating solutions for these problems, while still keeping in mind the negative effect they can have on the problem. Being Conscious of not only the role of society in a social issue but also your own role in a social issue helps to eliminate the possibility of ignorance of privilege and leads to a better understanding of the social issue from the point of view of the