Science and Social Work

Stuart A. Kirk is Marjorie Crump Professor and chair of the Ph.D. program of the Department of Social Welfare, School of Public Policy and Social Research at UCLA. William J. Reid is Distinguished Professor of Social Welfare at the State University of New York at Albany.

This is a landmark book in the history of the relationship of social work research, as a science, and social work practice. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare [Kirk and Reid's] thoughtful new treatise is a significant contribution to the history of ideas in social work...well written, engaging...Science and Social Work should be required reading for graduate social work students and those of us who, by dint of age, do not have the long view of social work acquired by these two prominent scholars. -- Matthew O. Howard, George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University Journal of Social Service Research Kirk and Reid offer a clear eyed, empathic, yet sobering history, analysis and evaluation... of social work's failure to vigorously engage in the process of developing theories of practice and effective interventions. Social Thought

• 1. Knowledge, Science, and the Profession of Social Work 2. Science and Social Work: A Historical Perspective 3. Client Problems as Organizing Foci for Knowledge 4. The Scientific Model in Practice: The 1960s and Beyond 5. Engineering Social Work Intervention 6. Computer-Assisted Social Work Practice: The Promise of Technology, by Stuart Kirk, William Reid, and Carrie Petrucci 7. Research-Based Practice 8. Research Dissemination and Utilization: Spreading the Word 9. Knowledge for Practice: Issues and Challenges