The knowledge base of social work: a citation analysis

Abstract

The knowledge base of the social work profession was studied. Previous research has generally taken into account only citations from social work journals. In this paper a broader view was taken. Consequently in order to determine the sources of knowledge in American and non‐American journals, citations from four sources for the year 1992 were counted and analysed: social work journals, journals from other fields, books and grey literature. The most frequent citation source was books, followed by non‐social workjournals, grey documentation and finally by social workjournals. Differential use of the four sources by American and British journals was noted and discussed in terms of structural and ideological restraints extant in the two countries.

Citation

Berman, Y. and Solomon Eaglstein, A. (1994), "The knowledge base of social work: a citation analysis", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 46 No. 9, pp. 225-230. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb051368