Resisting the new conservatism- Social work and the social justice imperative: A call for submissions

There are many threats to social work’s espoused mission and values, including ongoing structural inequities and hyper-managerialist approaches to social work and social services. These forces reinforce social work as an individualistic practice rather than a discipline that engages simultaneously at the micro, meso and macro levels. New technologies, AI, education paradigms and contexts, accountability processes and organisational constraints all delimit the boundaries of social work practice towards a new conservatism. This provokes serious questions about the growing disjuncture between values and reality.

The continuing downgrading of social work’s social justice agenda alongside increasing (limited) professionalisation has led to debates about the future of social work in its current form. At the same time, we see practitioners and academics building new practices and knowledge aimed at equity and social justice. This complex moment presents us with the opportunity to reimagine social work and how it can meet or respond to its own social justice agenda in new ways. In these fast- changing times, how can social work keep up? We invite papers that grapple with this theme in any field of social work or social policy.

Full articles 7000 words. Research briefs 3500 words. Viewpoints 2500 words

Please submit manuscripts by 15 March 2025.

Queries regarding this call for papers should be directed to  editors@anzasw.nz

Submission and Author guidelines at https://anzswjournal.nz/anzsw/information/authors

Please note the requirement for a structured abstract for full articles and research briefs. The journal requires in-text citation and references to be formatted in APA 7.

Editors

Liz Beddoe: e.beddoe@auckland.ac.nz Donna Baines: dbaines@mail.ubc.ca Emily Keddell emily.keddell@otago.ac.nz