Social justice beliefs, practice behaviors of social workers and the social work mission

The social work literature documents a historical and contemporary debate about social work's social justice mission to the poor and disenfranchised and the practice of clinical social work. Segments of the social work literature suggest this debate is representative of a practice bifurcation, and consequentially, an ongoing problem for the mission of the profession. Critics allege that social workers practicing in clinical settings may be less committed to the profession's original mission of social justice for the poor and disenfranchised with a preference for practice with the middle class.;This randomized study created a cross sectional, mail and Internet survey research design to measure the social justice beliefs and the practice behaviors of 236 social workers and any connection between social justice beliefs, practice behaviors, practice setting (clinical or nonclinical) and any gap between belief and practice. The results of this study address a gap in the social work literature and the practice of the social work profession by providing an initial assessment instrument and new empirical knowledge to help bridge the distance between the profession's philosophical debate and the reality of practice.;Study findings indicate a statistically significant correlation between social justice belief and practice behavior. There is no statistically significant relationship between a social worker's choice of practice setting and the mean total Social Justice Survey score. A substantive and unexpected finding indicates social workers practicing in clinical settings actually achieved higher mean total social justice survey scores (89.01) than social workers practicing in nonclinical settings (86.06). Data analyses indicate there is a quantifiable and expanding gap between the social justice beliefs and related practice behaviors of social workers as measured by the Social Justice Survey and the Epstein (1969) and Reeser (1986) studies. This investigation requires replication by the research community to further establish the reliability and validity of the survey instrument and the study findings.