Note: This is not a digital scholarship project. Rather, I was looking for a list of social work theories to provide to my students in 2A06D at McMaster, and could not find one. I chose to create a reference list, and wanted it to be publicly accessible. This list is in no way exhaustive nor prescriptive, and is meant to serve as a starting point for further research and reading. Neither this list, nor the web resources listed here, should be cited or seen as academic resources.
Theories Used in Social Work
- clinical theories (largely based on psychological models)
- modern social work theories (from Payne)
- psychodynamic
- crisis intervention/task-centred
- cognitive-behavioural
- systems and ecological
- social constructionism
- humanism, existentialism, spirituality
- social and community development
- anti-oppressive practice (called anti-discrimination), see Carniol)
- empowerment and advocacy
- some classical sociological theories applicable to social work
- conflict
- symbolic interactionism
- some contemporary sociological theories applicable to social work
- anomie
- engaged
- grounded
- interpretivism
- positivism
- phenomenology
- feminisms
- there are a wide array of feminist theories. Wikipedia provides a list of 18 different branches of feminist thinking that can serve as a good starting point, although this list should not be seen as exhaustive.
- some branches of critical theories applicable to social work
- Marxism
- postcolonialism
- structuralism
- poststructuralism
- deconstruction/reconstruction
- postmodernism
- psychoanalysis
- queer theories
- semiotics
- mad studies (consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement, see LeFrançois, Menzies, Reaume)
- critical race theory
- critical disability studies (see Kafer)
- posthumanism (see Wolfe and Braidotti)
- affect theory (see Boler)
- embodiment (from feminist tradition, see Davis)
- Indigenous knowledges
- Sinclair, Hart, and Bruyere is a good starting point for learning about Indigenous knowledges for social work
