From just doing research to doing just research: research paradigms for emancipatory social work research

The social work profession has always prioritized working toward social justice, yet how research can accomplish that aim has been conceptualized in diverse ways. Now, problems such as the implementation gap that renders much evidence-based knowledge unavailable for high-burden communities, the ways scientific research can be unwittingly infused with racism, gender bias, homophobia, ablism and colonialism, and demands for participatory knowledge (“nothing about us without us”) urge scientists to strive to ensure scientific research can serve emancipatory aims. Yet contemporary social and behavioral science paradigms differ in priorities for defining valuable science and approaches to advancing social justice. What can social work researchers make of those differences? This paper addresses that question by describing how seven contemporary paradigms of social and behavioral research define emancipatory scientific knowledge, each in their unique socio-historical context. The paradigms are: logical positivism and logical empiricism, phenomenology, social constructionism, critical realism, neo-pragmatism, critical theories, and indigenous approaches. After delineating key ideas of each paradigm in context, implications are drawn about advancing emancipatory knowledge for the social and behavioral sciences. Awareness of the alternatives made available by seven different paradigms can enrich social work researchers’ creative imaginations for fulfilling both scientific and emancipatory aims.