ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a discussion of social work and the critical or radical turn, an era when the theories and research findings from social science were being utilised and adapted so as to construct modern social work's knowledge base. It then turns to consideration of broad social work perspectives and related social work practice theory. This encompasses the move from radical to critical social work which occurred between the 1970s and the 2000s. The importance of theory and conceptual issues in social work cannot be overstated, simply because all our action, whether acknowledged or not, is guided by theory. The counterculture refers to the values and norms of behaviour of many young people during the 1960s and early 1970s which ran counter to the social mainstream. The counterculture refers to the values and norms of behaviour of many young people during the 1960s and early 1970s which ran counter to the social mainstream.
