Is "good social work" anti-oppressive practice?: The mainstreaming of critical discourse

Anti-oppressive social work practice (AOP) has been advanced as a key progressive methodology for some decades. Standing in critical social work, it is founded on clear assumptions and includes several key strategies for implementation. At the same time, however, two factors, namely the alignment of the discourse of good (dominant) social work with social justice, and AOP theorists themselves not consistently distinguishing differences, has led to a blurring of what constitutes good social work versus AOP. In this article we rely on a critical perspective to remind of these essential distinctions. We also establish that this failure to clearly distinguish the essence of AOP has allowed for the disciplining of AOP, thus rendering it largely without any force. We encourage social work educators, students, and practitioners to reclaim the progressive, critical edge of AOP to become effective agents of social change.