Post-Critical Social Work?

Abstract

Social workers and students are constantly reminded to employ critical thinking to navigate this world through their practise. But given how many of these challenges pose significant problems for the theories that social work has traditionally drawn upon, should we now be critical of critical thinking – its assumptions, its basis, and its aspirations – itself? This paper explores this question by considering the rise of ‘post-critique’ across the social sciences and humanities in the last thirty years, and how they might problematize what I call the atmospherics of critical thinking that dominate social work education. Drawing on the resonances between social work and philosophy, the paper explores what the implications of ‘post-critical thinking’ is to social work education.