ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how critical theory is relevant for critical social work and for those working in, and studying, welfare organizations more widely. It introduces readers to critical theory as founded by the group of Marxist sociologists known as the Frankfurt School. The chapter outlines critical theory as method and as a way of looking at society. It looks at critical theory’s influence on the scholarly field, and practice, of critical social work, and as an additional tool for understanding working life in welfare organizations under neoliberal regimes. The chapter examines the points of intersection between critical theory and critical social work, showing how the perspectives of the Frankfurt School can inform emancipatory theory and practice around welfare organizations. The socially excluded live an ‘inhuman existence’; they are ‘the outsiders and the poor, the unemployed and unemployable, the persecuted colored races, the inmates of prisons and mental institutions’.
