Unchanging Values?

Abstract

In this book, the word ‘profession’ has sometimes been used to describe the occupational group known as social workers. It has been used to convey a sense of shared attitudes and values common to that occupational group. Its use reflects the writer’s belief that there is a broad consensus justifying this use of the word, but it has to be conceded that this belief is by no means universally shared. The justification for use of the word in its narrower sense as a clearly-defined, self-regulating group with its own code of ethics is even more open to challenge, for the debate about the legitimacy of social work as a profession has been a recurrent theme over the past forty years.