Knowledge/Ignorance and the Construction of Sexuality in Social Work Education

Out and Proud? Social Work's Relationship with Lesbian and Gay Equality

“…This provides an opportunity for social work to engage more creatively with LGB service users in contrast to services whose content or forms of delivery are standardised or determined solely by those who deliver them. Jeyasingham (2008) suggests that exclusion of certain knowledge about sexuality from social work literature, alongside the privileging of heteronormativity and heterosexuality within social work practice and education, has allowed certain ideas, behaviours and groups of people to be ignored or pathologised. The issues affecting LGB populations within adult services, for example, are constructed within discourses about sexual orientation as individual pathology.…”

“…The recent review of the roles and tasks of social work cited 'commitment to putting into practice equalities and diversity principles, recognising and dismantling barriers, and challenging discrimination against people using services, carers, families and fellow-workers' as key areas of knowledge and skills within social work 'that integrates individual, family and community dimensions in a creative balance ' (General Social Care Council, 2008). Jeyasingham's (2008) critique provides us with an imperative to address ways of 'not knowing' or continuing 'ignorance' within social work education, which fundamentally ignore the operations and consequences of homophobia and heteronormativity and fail to identify the day-to-day practices and social apparatuses through which homophobia operates in societal and social work contexts.…”

“…There are numerous challenges for social work education when explicitly considering and addressing anti-heterosexism in the academic or practice curriculum (Logan et al, 1996) as well as examining heteronormative models of care used to frame certain events such as puberty, cohabitation and parenthood (Jeyasingham, 2008). Learning strategies within social work education at pre and post-qualifying levels should assist in developing a more critical awareness of frames of assessment and how these impact on the personal lives and routines of LGB people (Hafford-Letchfield, 2009).…”

Queer, visible, present: the visibility of older LGB adults in long-term care environments

“…The third piece of this theoretical jigsaw is the work of Dharman Jeyasingham (2007) in critiquing the politics of knowledge and knowing about lesbians and gay men in the teaching of social work. Jeyasingham offers a critique of social work literature on sexuality which focuses on individuals and groups located at the social margins and their experiences of invisibility.…”

“…Jeyasingham offers a critique of social work literature on sexuality which focuses on individuals and groups located at the social margins and their experiences of invisibility. In relation to lesbians' and gay men's lives, increasing recognition and visibility is a well-versed recommendation for enhancing knowledge and awareness of antidiscriminatory practice and sexuality in social work teaching and practice (Jeyasingham, 2007). Jeyasingham argues that claims to make lesbian and gay lives more visible may be inconsequential in destabilising dominant beliefs and ideas about the construction of sexuality in human relations and can serve to reinforce othering practices in which lesbians and gay men are still positioned (and known) as the sexual other, separate from, and potentially less significant to, heterosexual relationships.…”