Mission & Approach
The Mission of the School
The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice is dedicated to working toward a more just and humane society through research, teaching, and service to the community. As one of the oldest and most highly regarded graduate schools of social work, The Crown Family School prepares professionals to handle society's most difficult problems by developing new knowledge, promoting a deeper understanding of the causes and human costs of social inequities, and building bridges between rigorous research and the practice of helping individuals, families, and communities to achieve a better quality of life.
For more than a century, the Crown Family School has approached social work and social policy through rigorous inquiry, interdisciplinary scholarship, and a close connection between research, policy, and practice. These commitments shape both the knowledge we produce and how we prepare students to address complex social problems.
We believe meaningful progress begins with asking important questions and pursuing answers with rigor. Our faculty draw on a wide range of theories, methods, and disciplines to understand social problems and identify approaches that can improve policy and practice. Students learn to evaluate evidence, question assumptions, consider alternative explanations, and recognize the limits of what we know.
The Crown Family School is an intellectually diverse community. Our faculty come from multiple disciplines and bring different theoretical, methodological, and substantive perspectives to their research. We believe that serious engagement with different ideas strengthens scholarship, learning, and professional judgment. Students are encouraged to examine their own assumptions, consider multiple perspectives, and engage thoughtfully with difficult and sometimes contested questions.
The integration of research, policy, and practice has long distinguished the Crown Family School approach. Our scholarship is informed by engagement with practitioners, policymakers, organizations, and communities, while evidence and rigorous inquiry contribute to stronger practice and policy. In the classroom and through field education, students learn to connect knowledge with action and to understand social problems at multiple levels—from individuals and families to organizations, communities, institutions, and broader systems.
Chicago is an essential part of the intellectual and educational life of the School. Faculty and students work with communities, organizations, practitioners, and policymakers across the city and beyond, bringing different forms of knowledge and experience together to better understand problems and develop responses to them. Our scholarship and educational programs also extend globally, reflecting the increasingly interconnected nature of the social challenges we study. These relationships enrich our research and teaching and create opportunities to translate knowledge into practice and policy.
Crown Family School graduates pursue diverse paths as practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and leaders of organizations and communities. Whatever path they choose, we seek to prepare students to approach complex problems with intellectual curiosity, evidence, empathy, and sound judgment; to work effectively with people whose experiences and perspectives differ from their own; and to translate knowledge into thoughtful and effective action.