Critical Commentary 1241 seem less relevant. nevertheless codes or declarations of ethics have been developed, sometimes taking the form of a pledge (e.g. South African Black Social Workers' Association, no date: Tata Institute of Social Sciences Social Work Educators' Forum, 1997), or existing codes have been modified to take account of indigenous values as in New Zealand bi-cultural and bilingual code of ethics(Aotearoa New Zealand Associ ation of Social Workers, 2008) Form: beyond the code and textbook Professional ethics is traditionally associated with codes of ethics and text books designed for use on professional education programmes. Codes of ethics usually comprise statements of purpose and lists of values, principles, standards and rules for the implementation of principles in practice. Text books vary, but the majority offer some kind of overview of ethical theories followed by analysis of difficult cases in terms of principles derived from these theories and/or from codes of ethics and sometimes structured around ethical decision-making models. This approach presents a picture ethical principles to practice, tackling difficult cases(often described as dilemmas) and making decisions. The titles of many of the North American textbooks reflect this focus(Rhodes, 1986: Reamer, 1990; Congress, 1999: Linzer, 1999; Dolgoff et aL., 2005). However, this construc tion of social work ethics is being challenged and broadened, not only by scholarly academic articles, but also by empirical studies of social workers' perceptions, attitudes and actions Rossiter et al.(2000), in their study of Canadian social workers, report that codes of ethics are not used in practice and practitioners are often only dimly aware of their existence. Similarly, they did not find social 5望9 workers using ethical decision-making models. This is not a surprising finding. For, in many cases, there is no time for the professional to consult a step-by-step model. Furthermore, despite the textbook rhetoric, hese models are not designed to be used on a daily basis mainly a way of encouraging students (often in a classroom or supervision setting) to reason and reflect systematically on ethical issues in practice, some aspects of which may then become intuitive or 'second natures they practise social work. There is, however, a surprisingly large body of literature focusing on the development, perfection and use of such decision making models, which inevitably contributes to the construction of a particular kind of discourse about social work ethics(for recent thinking on ethical decision making in social work, see McAuliffe and Chenoweth 2007: Harrington and Dolgoff, 2008) For our purposes here, the interesting feature of the study undertaken by Rossiter et al(2000)is that it comprises empirical research designed toseem less relevant, nevertheless codes or declarations of ethics have been developed, sometimes taking the form of a pledge (e.g. South African Black Social Workers’ Association, no date; Tata Institute of Social Sciences Social Work Educators’ Forum, 1997), or existing codes have been modified to take account of indigenous values, as in New Zealand’s bi-cultural and bilingual code of ethics (Aotearoa New Zealand Associ￾ation of Social Workers, 2008). Form: beyond the code and textbook Professional ethics is traditionally associated with codes of ethics and text￾books designed for use on professional education programmes. Codes of ethics usually comprise statements of purpose and lists of values, principles, standards and rules for the implementation of principles in practice. Text￾books vary, but the majority offer some kind of overview of ethical theories, followed by analysis of difficult cases in terms of principles derived from these theories and/or from codes of ethics and sometimes structured around ethical decision-making models. This approach presents a picture of professional ethics as a rational process involving the application of ethical principles to practice, tackling difficult cases (often described as ‘dilemmas’) and making decisions. The titles of many of the North American textbooks reflect this focus (Rhodes, 1986; Reamer, 1990; Congress, 1999; Linzer, 1999; Dolgoff et al., 2005). However, this construc￾tion of social work ethics is being challenged and broadened, not only by scholarly academic articles, but also by empirical studies of social workers’ perceptions, attitudes and actions. Rossiter et al. (2000), in their study of Canadian social workers, report that codes of ethics are not used in practice and practitioners are often only dimly aware of their existence. Similarly, they did not find social workers using ethical decision-making models. This is not a surprising finding. For, in many cases, there is no time for the professional to consult a step-by-step model. Furthermore, despite the textbook rhetoric, these models are not designed to be used on a daily basis. They are mainly a way of encouraging students (often in a classroom or supervision setting) to reason and reflect systematically on ethical issues in practice, some aspects of which may then become intuitive or ‘second nature’ as they practise social work. There is, however, a surprisingly large body of literature focusing on the development, perfection and use of such decision￾making models, which inevitably contributes to the construction of a particular kind of discourse about social work ethics (for recent thinking on ethical decision making in social work, see McAuliffe and Chenoweth, 2007; Harrington and Dolgoff, 2008). For our purposes here, the interesting feature of the study undertaken by Rossiter et al. (2000) is that it comprises empirical research designed to Critical Commentary 1241 at Fudan university on January 6, 2011 bjsw.oxfordjournals.org Downloaded from