In addition to looking at how we as social workers understand and operationalize social justice, we must also come to agreement on its merit within our profession. The finding that 20 percent of the reviewed texts recognized the tension between the concept of social justice and the current practice of social work is evidence that we are still pushing back against an established connection via all guiding organizations and documents.

Social workers may banter about the term “social justice” without actually understanding all that it entails. This lack of connecting concept to practice can cause a myriad of harms to clients and students, who assume that social justice will be practiced in a certain way, but then have different and even discriminatory experiences with social workers. Ergo, I hypothesized that a better understanding of the different ways that the field of social work conceptualizes “social justice” can lay a foundation for a clearer and more unified definition of the term, in turn leading to a more effective and impactful praxis of social justice, both in social work education and in practice.

The second of the six ethical principles expresses the value of social justice by articulating that social workers are called to challenge injustice. More specifically, principle 2 affirms that social workers’ change efforts (e.g., advocacy, community organizing, and individual work with clients) are to focus on ending discrimination and other forms of social injustice (NASW, 2021, p. 5). The third principle calls on social workers to value the dignity and worth of the person, and states that social workers should actively consider individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity and treat each person with care and respect. Last, ethical standard 4, social workers’ ethical responsibilities as professionals, includes section 4.02, discrimination, which suggests that social workers should not discriminate “on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, political belief, religion, immigration status, or mental or physical ability”