This is a list of open access books curated by Matt DeCarlo and Anne Marie Gruber in October 2021. This collection is geared towards social work education in the United States. The vast majority of these books are published by commercial publishers, and the authors pay extra to share their work openly.
We provide the copyright license for these books, as many of them carry a restrictive No-Derivatives license, which allows you to download and redistribute the book for free…but does not allow you make public the derivative resources professors use to teach (like slideshows, video lectures, translations, excerpts, remixed and revised editions of the book, etc.) publicly available (though it is fine to put these resources in a Learning Management System or other private platform).
For additional resources, consult our list of open textbooks for social work provides a list of textbooks with more open licenses from which faculty can engage in transformative use.
Child welfare
Adoption from Care: International Perspectives on Children’s Rights, Family Preservation and State Intervention
Policy Press
CC-BY-NC-ND
Selling Transracial Adoption
Families, Markets, and the Color Line
Temple University Press
CC-BY-NC-ND
The Children of Looked After Children
Outcomes, Experiences and Ensuring Meaningful Support to Young Parents In and Leaving Care
Policy Press
CC-BY-NC-ND
Disability
Digital Youth with Disabilities
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
Ethics
Gerontology
Human Behavior in the Social Environment
Framing Social Interaction: Continuities and Cracks in Goffman’s Frame Analysis
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents
Policy Press
CC-BY
Sexual Consent
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
Social Thinking and History: A Sociocultural Psychological Perspective on Representations of the Past
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
The Psychology of Learning: An Introduction from a Functional-Cognitive Perspective
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
International Social Work
Global Social Work: Cutting Edge Issues and Critical Reflections
InTechOpen
No copyright license specified
Mental Health and Social Withdrawal in Contemporary Japan: Beyond the Hikikomori Spectrum
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
Social Work in Africa: Exploring Culturally Relevant Education and Practice in Ghana
University of Calgary Press
CC-BY-NC-ND
Introduction to Social Work
Management
A Handbook of Management Theories and Models for Office Environments and Services
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
Hidden Attractions of Administration: The Peculiar Appeal of Meetings and Documents
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
Innovating Healthcare: The Role of Political, Managerial and Clinical Leadership
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
Policy
Debtfare States and the Poverty Industry: Money, discipline and the surplus population
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
Adoption from Care: International Effective Advocacy: Lessons from East Asia’s Environmentalists
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
Gender Equality and Work–Life Balance: Glass Handcuffs and Working Men in the U.S.
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
Inclusive Consumption: Immigrants’ Access to and Use of Public and Private Goods and Services
Scandinavian University Press (Universitetsforlaget)
CC-BY
Progress and Confusion: The State of Macroeconomic Policy
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
The Nordic Economic, Social and Political Model: Challenges in the 21st Century
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
What Have We Learned? Macroeconomic Policy after the Crisis
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
Transformational Moments in Social Welfare: What Role for Voluntary Action?
Bristol University Press
CC-BY-NC
Practice
Defining Mental Disorder: Jerome Wakefield and His Critics
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
Schizophrenia: Evolution and Synthesis
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
Research
Civic Media Literacies: Re-Imagining Human Connection in an Age of Digital Abundance
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
The Politics and Ethics of Representation in Qualitative Research Addressing Moments of Discomfort
Routledge
CC-BY-NC-ND
Social Justice
Sustainability
Flint Fights Back: Environmental Justice and Democracy in the Flint Water Crisis
MIT Press
“This content is available without a subscription. It may not be altered in any way and proper attribution is required.”
Transformative Pathways to Sustainability: Learning Across Disciplines, Cultures and Contexts
Taylor & Francis
CC-BY-NC-ND
Open Social Work 