ABSTRACT
Educators have sought to develop a metatheory that would simultaneously explain human behavior at the intrapsychic, interactional, and sociocultural levels. A metatheory goes above and beyond a specific theory. Metatheories are at a higher level of abstraction than behavioral theories or theories of specific client problems. Lister was one of the first social workers to develop a metatheory for organizing all social work knowledge. His metatheory made central use of systems theory and role theory, and conceptualized social work practice as the differential implementation of a set of roles to achieve varied system tasks. Fourteen major theoretical frameworks are integrated into the overarching metatheoretical framework on the assumption that each theoretical framework has an explanatory strength in relation to the person-in-environment (PIE) configuration. Metatheories are important tools that help social workers to learn, select, and use scientific theories from a large knowledge base.
