Dismantling White Supremacy in Social Work Education

Abstract

We are excited to share this special edition of Advances in Social Work with you. When we distributed a call for abstracts, we were inundated – in a good way – with proposals. The need for social workers to discuss the role that white supremacy occupies within our history, education, and practice was obvious. Because of the number of abstracts received, we made the decision to publish a double edition so that the important information contained in these articles can be widely shared. The submissions fell into three general themes--historical, instructional, and institutional examinations. Each set of articles offers much for us to reflect and act upon moving forward. There is a reckoning happening and we are thrilled that this special edition is part of that reckoning. In all, we hope that this special issue will help advance our conversations in social work education around white supremacy and how it influences our practice, research, and education. Recognizing that our Code of Ethics calls us to “pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups”, we believe it is important for social work as a profession to consistently evaluate its own institutions for ways we can practice what we preach. As social work educators, we have the ethical and moral responsibility to learn, grow, and challenge ourselves. We can do better. We must do better.

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“…As noted, the social work profession has a history of supporting oppressive systems (Yearwood et al, 2021). Operating with a groupthink mentality prevents social work educators from reappraising the profession's role in perpetuating unjust ideologies and reconciling the profession's history with its current ethical mandates and values.…”

Integrating Critical, Engaged, and Abolitionist Pedagogies to Advance Antiracist Social Work Education

“…We believe that social workers cannot engage in ethical social work or solve Grand Challenges for Social Work (AASWSW, 2022) unless we use an intersectional, critical analysis (Ahmed, 2016;Collins, 2019;Collins & Bilge, 2020;Crenshaw, 1991;Fook, 2003) to confront the complex legacies of colonialism and white supremacy in the society and the profession (Jacobs et al, 2021;Yearwood et al, 2021). This approach includes 1) a structural analysis of personal problems; 2) a focus on the role of social work and social welfare in social control; 3) an ongoing social critique that emphasizes power analysis; and 4) goal of personal liberation and change (Fook, 2003).…”

Back to ‘things themselves’: breaking the cycle of misrepresentation when serving African Canadian youth

“…This already-known-people paradigm produces an unfortunate social condition in which system professionals 2 prejudge African Canadian youth and discount first-hand narratives regarding social justice. This has greatly affected the nature and the quality of services received by these historically marginalised communities (Chapman and Withers, 2019;Yearwood et al, 2021). In addition to legacies of slavery and colonisation, service provision to these youth has also been affected by neoliberal policies in recent years (Macias, 2015;Hyslop, 2016;Strier, 2019).…”