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Just Practice - Second Edition
A Social Justice Approach to Social Work

Janet L. Finn
Maxine Jacobson
University of Montana

Second Edition
500 pages
8.5 x 11
Paperback
©2008
$74.95

ISBN 978-1-57879-072-2
 
Features
•Just Practice introduces a new framework for social work that builds upon five key themes: meaning, context, power, history, and possibility. How do we give meaning to the experiences and conditions that shape our lives? What are the contexts in which those experiences and conditions occur? How do structures and relations of power shape people's lives and the practice of social work? How might a historical perspective help us grasp the ways in which struggles over meaning and power have played out, and better appreciate the human consequences of those struggles? We argue here that meaning, power, and history are key components to understanding the "person-in-context." It is from that culturally, politically, and historically located vantage point that we appreciate constraints and imagine possibilities for justice-oriented practice. Just Practice prepares social workers to engage in new forms of collaborative assessment, planning, intervention, and institution building that 21st century practice demands.

•Just Practice is based on pedagogy of popular education that envisions knowledge development as a collaborative teaching-learning process. We argue that a participatory process, grounded in dialogue and critically attuned to questions of power and inequality, is fundamental to social justice work. The text is designed to facilitate participatory learning in the classroom and to prepare students for participatory approaches to engagement, teaching/learning, action, accompaniment, evaluation, reflection, and celebration, the seven core processes of the Just Practice Framework. Linkages among practice, research, and policy are integrated throughout the text. We pay particular attention to the diversity of social work practice and to the possibilities of transforming spaces of inequality, oppression, and marginality into spaces of hope, places of connection, and bases for action.

Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Imagining Social Work and Social Justice
Chapter 3: Looking Back
Chapter 4: Values, Ethics, and Visions
Chapter 5: Just Thinking: Theoretical Perspectives on Social Justice-Oriented Practice
Chapter 6: Just Get Started: Engagement
Chapter 7: Just Understanding: Teaching-Learning
Chapter 8: Action and Accompaniment
Chapter 9: Evaluating, Reflecting On, and Celebrating Our Efforts
Chapter 10: Just Futures: Social Justice-Oriented Practice in the 21st Century
Appendix A: United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Appendix B: Social Justice Film Suggestions