Are Codes of Ethics Promoting Religious Literacy for Social Work Practice?

ABSTRACT

As codes of ethics play at least a symbolic, if not educational, role in highlighting and informing professional priorities, 16 codes of ethics for social work practice were examined for references to religion and belief and analysed against the four domains of Dinham’s religious literacy framework. Although religion and belief are mentioned in all but two of the documents, approximately half the surveyed codes only mention religion and belief in respect of either knowledge or skills. Some recognise the need for social workers to be aware of their own biases, but few recognise the need to explain what is meant by religion and belief, despite these terms being in flux. While codes of ethics can contribute to the development of religious literacy among social workers, this requires social workers who already have some religious literacy to actively participate when codes of ethics are being revised.

IMPLICATIONS

• It is an ethical imperative that social workers are able to engage with religion and belief.

• Social workers require religious literacy, including skills and knowledge of different religions, recognition of the fluidity of the concepts, “religion” and “belief”, and understanding one’s own attitudes towards religion.

• Codes of ethics can contribute to the development of religious literacy among social workers, but this potential is often not realised as fully as it might be.

对于强调专业性轻重缓急，伦理规范即不是教育，至少也起到了符号的作用。本文考察了社会工作与宗教及信仰相关的16条伦理规范，并对照丁海姆的宗教基本知识的四个方面做了分析。尽管这两个文件都谈了宗教和信仰，但大约一半的伦理规范只是从知识和技能的角度在谈。有些承认社会工作者需要对自己的偏见有所自省，但很少承认在宗教信仰词汇不断翻新的情况下有必要给予解释。伦理规范固然有助于增加社会工作人员的宗教基本知识，但那些已然具备了一些基本知识的社会工作者应该积极参与伦理规范的修订才好。

KEYWORDS:

• Religious Literacy
• Codes of Ethics
• Religion
• Beliefs
• International Social Work

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Beth R. Crisp http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7863-4482

Adam Dinham http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4029-4838