Environmental social work in the disciplinary literature, 1991–2015

Abstract

Despite increasing acknowledgment that the social work profession must address environmental concerns, relatively little is known about the state of scholarship on environmental social work. This study provides a scientometric summary of peer-reviewed articles ( N = 497) pertaining to environmental topics in social work journals between 1991 and 2015. We find that theoretical and empirical scholarship on environmental social work is growing, though this growth remains limited to specific geographical regions and topics. We note the need to clarify the relationship between environmental social work as a theoretical paradigm and as a research topic.

Integrating youth participation and ecosocial work: New possibilities to advance environmental and social justice

“…In this way, ecosocial work can be understood as a form of anti-oppressive social work (Dominelli, 2002) that also is consistent with the values and principles of the environmental justice movement (Bryant, 1995;Bullard, 1996) and critical youth empowerment (Jennings et al, 2006). Although social work research has examined interventions that can mitigate harm caused by environmental crises and natural disasters (Krings, Victor, Mathias, & Perron, 2018b;Mason, Shires, Arwood, & Borst, 2017), additional research is needed to develop methods that proactively engage people in critical reflection and action relating to their self-determination, health, and natural and built environments. In particular, youth of color living in communities with high levels of poverty, who are disproportionately impacted by environmental hazards (Evans, 2004), merit a seat at decision making tables relating to their communities.…”

“…Yet the perceptions of youth activists, and the role of youth participation within ecosocial work broadly, have received limited attention to date. A comprehensive review of social work literature addressing environmental topics found no title nor abstract including the words "youth," "young people," or "children" (Krings, Victor, Mathias, & Perron, 2018a).…”

Equity in sustainable development: Community responses to environmental gentrification

“…Scholarship relating to environmental social work is growing (Krings, Victor, Mathias, & Perron, 2018; Mason, Shires, Arwood, & Borst, 2017), and social work researchers have made important contributions to the first and second waves of environmental justice organizing. This innovative work has examined important issues relating to the application of environmental justice principles to social work practice (Dominelli, 2013; Hawkins, 2010; Hoff & Rogge, 1996) and education (Miller et al, 2012; Philip & Reisch, 2015; Teixeira & Krings, 2015); procedural justice concerns relating to environmental decision making (Rambaree, 2013); distributional justice issues, such as reducing exposure to toxins and contamination (Rogge & Combs‐Orme, 2003) and equitably providing environmental goods and services relating to food justice (Besthorn, 2013), and clean water (Akdim, El Harchaoui, Laaouan, & Soydan, 2012; Case, 2017; Mitchell, 2018; Singh & Singh, 2015; Willett, 2015).…”

Ecosocial innovations enabling social work to promote new forms of sustainable economy

“…Social work research that includes environmental sustainability has already claimed a remarkable space as an emerging area in the discipline, as seen in literature reviews (Krings, Bryan, Victor, Mathias, & Perron, 2018;Nöjd, 2017;Ramsay & Boddy, 2017). Several authors have even begun to use the concept of ecosocial work to describe this area (Bailey, Hendrick, & Palmer, 2018;Boetto, 2017;Crews & Besthorn, 2016).…”