Social Work Theories and Practice with Battered Women: A Conflict-of-Values Analysis

In the 1970s, wife abuse became a concern of sociologists, feminists, and family theorists. The new perspectives they brought to the problem, which focused more on social factors than on individual pathology, challenged social workers to examine how their practice and assumptions perpetuated the problem. This article investigates how the social work literature has been affected by new theories of domestic violence and analyzes the impact that these theories have had on practice with battered women.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67024/2/10.1177_088610998700200205.pd