Reflecting On 50 Years of the CSWR/RCSS: Reflecting on Canadian Social Work

In 2024, the Canadian Social Work Review/Revue canadienne de service social can look back on 50 years of publication — a major achievement. The journal in 1974 was titled the Canadian Journal of Social Work Education / Revue canadienne d’éducation en service social, changing to its present name in 1984. To mark this anniversary, rather than focusing on how the journal has changed over time, we find ourselves reflecting on where we are now and where we need to get to — and so this editorial is future-oriented. Undoubtedly, the journal has followed the same path as Canadian social work and what social work practice, education, and research have meant. This movement likely also mirrors broader socio-political developments. Indeed, the social work project has shifted in important ways over the last 50 years in the Western, Anglophone world. For example, researchers have interrogated what constitutes social work theory and practice. As such, the emphasis on the individual and their adaptation to their environment stands in every-increasing tension with the recognition of the structural impact of systemic discrimination, repression, and oppression. Individualized social work, with its focus on the psychological, continues to be taught; casework approaches prioritized; greater attention paid to group work and community work methodologies; and greater consideration given to the meso and macro alongside the micro. Qualitative research methods, including participatory approaches, have become acceptable and are seen as complementary to quantitative work. The understanding of the relationship between social work and Indigenous communities has undergone change. The drivers of such change include feminism and lawsuits, made possible through the Constitution Act in 1982; moreover, enquiries such as the Royal Commission and the Truth and Reconciliation process have facilitated truth-telling, so that it is now evident where social work has been complicit in colonialism and perpetuating coloniality, and also where it might offer opportunities for reconciliation and transformation. Articulations of critical social work, anti-oppressive practice and Indigenous social work — in conjunction with notions of intersectionality and critical race, gender, and (dis)ability theories — are being consistently inserted into the dominant narrative. These profound changes have advanced social work’s ability to serve equity and justice. Simultaneously, however, it is clear that an increasingly entrenched neoliberal environment is transforming practice from relational, effective, and service-user-centred responses to technocratic, risk-informed, bureaucratic, efficiency-oriented intervention. Questioning of the political purpose of social work and its use in controlling and governance of service users has also revealed ongoing tensions in social work. Indeed, the complicity of social work in Canada has been highlighted in recent years, particularly regarding its actions in supporting government initiatives regarding residential schools. Social work has perpetuated such harm in the disciplining of Indigenous bodies through child welfare, but also in the fields of corrections, healthcare, and mental healthcare. There are therefore diverse visions of social work. Looking to the future, new questions have to be asked about the use of artificial intelligence, the options available for online services, more nuanced understandings of identity and gender development, and our discipline’s attunement to injustice. Such shifts all demand that social work be differently conceptualized — new questions requiring new approaches. We are thus able to track shifts in the (Canadian) social work landscape. To what extent might these shifts reflect developments in the only journal in Canada that explicitly supports Canadian social work scholarship? This anniversary allows us to critically assess our current position and what might be required for the future. The Board has done major work to strategically position the journal. For example, we can point to the mission and mandate of the journal as a progressive …