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Social Work vocabulary · Practice Approaches

Anti-oppressive practice

Meaning in social work, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In social work, anti-oppressive practice means: An approach that recognises how power, discrimination and inequality affect people's lives and works to challenge them, both in the system and in the worker's own practice.

In Turkish: baskı karşıtı uygulama, ayrımcılık karşıtı uygulama

How it is used

A key value in UK social work education, often shortened to AOP. It asks workers to think about race, gender, class, disability, age, sexuality and other identities, and about the power they hold as professionals. Anti-discriminatory practice is a related term.

Example sentences

  1. Anti-oppressive practice means asking why so many families from one area are referred.

  2. Her essay discusses anti-oppressive practice in work with disabled parents.

Common collocations

  • anti-oppressive approach
  • anti-discriminatory practice
  • AOP
  • challenge oppression
  • social justiceThe idea that everyone should have fair access to rights, resources and opportunities, and that unfair structures in society should be changed.
  • empowermentThe process of helping people gain more control over their own lives, decisions and resources, and the confidence to act for themselves.
  • reflective practiceThinking carefully about your own work, feelings, assumptions and decisions in order to learn from them and improve future practice.
  • social exclusionBeing shut out, fully or partly, from the economic, social and cultural life of society, for example from work, services, housing or community activities.

More terms: Practice Approaches

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