Ambiguous Advocacy
A Systematic Review of Advocacy in Contemporary Social Work Literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18060/28591Keywords:
Advocacy, Systematic review, case to causeAbstract
Advocacy is often identified as a necessary component of social work practice. However, both the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) Code of Ethics and the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) do not provide a uniform understanding of advocacy, leaving the understanding of advocacy ambiguous. Through a systematic review of forty-three articles published between 2000-2023, this study explores the conceptualization of advocacy within contemporary social work literature. While reviewing the articles, the authors utilized a case-to-cause paradigm to identify how advocacy has been applied throughout contemporary social work literature. While the findings indicate that contemporary literature confirms advocacy as fundamental to social work practice, it leaves the concept of advocacy vague. However, this study is limited to its understanding of advocacy in the social work literature base, and not how advocacy is understood by social work students, educators, and practitioners. This article provides a conceptual definition of advocacy as well as strategies for advocacy’s clarification.
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