Critical Commentary 1239 idly growing. There are several reasons for this expansion, including the continuing professionalization of social work and the establishment of new and longer higher education programmes in many countries across the world. This is resulting in a growth of social work literature generally and the emergence of specialist areas of knowledge for research, teaching and practice, of which social work ethics is one Social work ethics is also being influenced by the same global trends that are creating applied ethics'as a topical subject area. High-profile environ- mental, medical, scientific and socio-political issues such as climate change, developments in genetic technologies and global terrorism are bringing to he fore new versions of perennial ethical questions about human respons bilities, the nature and value of human and animal life and social justice in the recognition of diversity and distribution of scarce resources. These factors influence the context in which social work is practised and theorized The'postmodern turn in sociological and philosophical thinking has ributed to a questioning of universal values, all-embracing foundational g heories(including ethical theories) and the legitimacy and roles of "expert professional practitioners in relation to service users. There has also been a heightened concern to monitor and manage risk in social welfare work; a restructuring of welfare systems in many countries; the ntroduction of mechanisms for surveillance and control of citizens and service users, and increasing regulation of the work of professional practitioners. These factors are contributing to a continuing concern with professional power, legitimacy, credibility, conduct/misconduct and a questioning of the traditional professional-client relationship-all themes that fall within the scope of social work ethics This expansion in the field of social work ethics clearly involves an increase 9569 in quantity of literature published and in the amount of time spent on the a subject in professional education. There is also an expansion in the form of literature comprising the corpus of work on social work ethics-going beyond the traditional professional codes, ethical guidelines, textbooks and scholarly articles, to include empirically based articles, with signs of potential for more specialist texts and research monographs. Finally, the expansion includes a broadening of the substantive content of the social work ethics literature and teaching curricula to include not just principle based theories of ethics but also virtue. care- and narrative-based approaches; to include descriptive as well as normative ethics; and a focus on ethics in social work research as well as in social work practic In this paper, I will discuss briefly the expansion of social work ethics using the three headings identified above. I will not specifically cover ethics in social work research(although this is certainly relevant, particu- larly with the growth of practitioner research), as this is a rapidly expanding and complex area, worthy of consideration in its own right(see, e.g. Antle and Regehr, 2003; D'Cruz and Jones, 2004)rapidly growing. There are several reasons for this expansion, including the continuing professionalization of social work and the establishment of new and longer higher education programmes in many countries across the world. This is resulting in a growth of social work literature generally and the emergence of specialist areas of knowledge for research, teaching and practice, of which social work ethics is one. Social work ethics is also being influenced by the same global trends that are creating ‘applied ethics’ as a topical subject area. High-profile environ￾mental, medical, scientific and socio-political issues such as climate change, developments in genetic technologies and global terrorism are bringing to the fore new versions of perennial ethical questions about human responsi￾bilities, the nature and value of human and animal life and social justice in the recognition of diversity and distribution of scarce resources. These factors influence the context in which social work is practised and theorized. The ‘postmodern’ turn in sociological and philosophical thinking has con￾tributed to a questioning of universal values, all-embracing foundational theories (including ethical theories) and the legitimacy and roles of ‘expert’ professional practitioners in relation to service users. There has also been a heightened concern to monitor and manage risk in social welfare work; a restructuring of welfare systems in many countries; the introduction of mechanisms for surveillance and control of citizens and service users; and increasing regulation of the work of professional practitioners. These factors are contributing to a continuing concern with professional power, legitimacy, credibility, conduct/misconduct and a questioning of the traditional professional–client relationship—all themes that fall within the scope of social work ethics. This expansion in the field of social work ethics clearly involves an increase in quantity of literature published and in the amount of time spent on the subject in professional education. There is also an expansion in the forms of literature comprising the corpus of work on social work ethics—going beyond the traditional professional codes, ethical guidelines, textbooks and scholarly articles, to include empirically based articles, with signs of potential for more specialist texts and research monographs. Finally, the expansion includes a broadening of the substantive content of the social work ethics literature and teaching curricula to include not just principle￾based theories of ethics, but also virtue-, care- and narrative-based approaches; to include descriptive as well as normative ethics; and a focus on ethics in social work research as well as in social work practice. In this paper, I will discuss briefly the expansion of social work ethics using the three headings identified above. I will not specifically cover ethics in social work research (although this is certainly relevant, particu￾larly with the growth of practitioner research), as this is a rapidly expanding and complex area, worthy of consideration in its own right (see, e.g. Antle and Regehr, 2003; D’Cruz and Jones, 2004). Critical Commentary 1239 at Fudan university on January 6, 2011 bjsw.oxfordjournals.org Downloaded from