Introduction

No one can deny the statement that social work is an ethical career (Ferguson, 2008). As the international definition of social work declared in 2000, social work is concerned with promoting human rights and social justice, something that is also accepted within the Japanese profession. Nakamura's book, for example, refers to ‘the ethics of social work: principles and standards’ and includes a translation of materials adopted by the International Federation of Social Work (IFSW) since 1994 (Nakamura and Japanese Association of Social Workers, 1999). It is clear that social work cannot exist without an ethical awareness.

It is curious and surprising, therefore, that nowhere did the term ‘social justice’ appear in the Japanese code of ethics, adopted by the four main associations of professional social workers in Japan, which was published as late as 1995 (Nakamura and Japanese Association of Social Workers, 1999). It is of course possible to read the meaning of ‘social justice’ into the code if you scrutinise it carefully enough but why was this crucial term not written explicitly into this code of ethics? In fact, it was as recently as eight years ago (2005) that the term ‘social justice’ was added in accordance with the international definition of social work approved by the IFSW in 2000. By contrast, Ferguson (2008) argues that social work's concern with promoting social justice has been present since its beginnings and has been enriched and encouraged through its contact with social movements.

One explanation is that, under attack from the ideology of New Public Management (NPM) or ‘managerialism’, it is no exaggeration to say that Japanese social work has been on the political defensive during the last 15 years. In spite of the fact that some social workers have personally engaged with clients in social action, it is concerning that all the professional associations of social work have been relatively silent regarding the political aspect of social work as a social movement or what the role of social work should be (Yokoyama et al, 2011).

This situation leads us to the next question: how many Japanese academics and practitioners really recognise the interdependent relationship between the notion of ‘social justice’ on the one hand and the notion of ‘ethics’ as the core value of social work on the other?