The devolution of social work knowledge

I am interested in the conditions under which practice knowledge can be used and developed in social work. I argue that the images we tend to have of how social workers apply theoretical knowledge, or appeal to practice wisdom, are misleading because they exaggerate the epistemological significance of individual experience. The concept of ‘practice theory’ is not of much help here because its attempts to codify implicit knowledge, quite apart from begging several questions, illegitimately confer paradigmatic status on the individual's relationship with a text. Instead, we need to begin with a collective analysis of experience, an example of which is offered in the second half of the paper. In effect, this illustrates a systematic process of induction which subjects both personal impression and encounters with theory to some stringent intellectual tests.