This article is a comprehensive review of the research on the supervision of practicing social workers published in peer-reviewed social work journals over a forty-year period （1970-2010）.Eighty-six articles were located and analysed by decade，location，research design，research participants，research focus and findings.Following this analysis，the current state of knowledge is discussed in relation to the foundation it provides for theory and practice in social work supervision.It is recommended that future research efforts should focus on the development of empirically based supervision models，the evaluation of the impact of supervision on client outcomes，as well as comparative cross-national studies on supervision.