Pushing the boundaries in social work: establishing the place of creativity in disciplinary knowledge creation

Though most social work scholars would agree that creativity is central to social work, creativity has yet to find its rightful place in social work theory and practice. Creativity is not explicitly expressed in social work education and practice. Similarly, there is no theory of creativity in social work practice. Furthermore, the creativity of the disciplines early pioneers is little discussed in the literature on the history of social work. This paper offers a re-reading of early social work history and examines it through the lens of creativity and the processes involved in the creation of disciplinary knowledge. Aided by two process-focused frameworks, the history of social work is reanalysed. Social work is considered first in light of the systems view of creativity developed by Csikzentmihalyi and then the propulsion model of creativity developed by Sternberg. The influence of creativity on the development of knowledge in social work is discussed and compared to the practice-based model of knowledge development advanced by Flaskas. The paper argues that creativity operates in a manner consistent with this process of knowledge creation suggesting a ‘pushing of’ and ‘pushing across’ boundaries in social work.