Values play an important role in the construction of social workers’ professional identities. However current accounts of social work ethics can have difficulty in providing an account of social work values in practice that incorporates the complexity and reflexive nature of much value talk in social care. Direct research in this area has been very limited. Where it has been carried out quantitative research using vignettes has been an important approach. Vignettes have many advantages when used to examine ethical dilemmas. Their increasing use in qualitative research offers new possibilities in exploring values that might generate more complex and sophisticated understandings of social work ethics.
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