Identifying and addressing white supremacy in social work education

Abstract

The social work profession adheres to the values of social justice and equity, yet extensive literature suggests that anti-racism education in social work has room for growth. Research demonstrates that social work practitioners and educators often fail to recognize (a) how structural oppression creates racial inequities and (b) how social workers maintain and reproduce hegemonic power structures. Therefore, this dissertation employs theoretical and empirical approaches to identify and address white supremacy in social work education. Study 1 lays the theoretical foundation for this dissertation by proposing the incorporation of critical whiteness theory (CWT) in social work education. As a subject area, critical whiteness studies emerged in the late 1990s as an expansion of critical race theory. A variety of disciplines have incorporated critical whiteness studies as a framework for anti-racism education; however, CWT remains relatively absent from the social work literature. As a theoretical approach, CWT seeks to reveal the invisible role of whiteness in constructing racial inequities. In Study 1, I use CWT to interrogate social work education through the lens of white normativity, white ignorance, and white complicity (Hafen, 2024). Engaging with the concepts of white normativity, white ignorance, and white complicity allows social work educators and students to acknowledge and interrogate the formative ways in which social work pedagogy maintains and reproduces white supremacy. Findings from this study suggest that incorporating CWT in social work education can facilitate critical self-reflexivity and combat structural racism within the profession. Study 2 employs a collaborative autoethnography to interrogate our experiences as racially diverse co-instructors seeking to interrupt harm in the classroom. Using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022), we analyze our dialogic processing sessions in which we discuss student feedback as related to the social construction of whiteness. Our findings suggest that, when white students felt uncomfortable–i.e., sad, guilty, angry, ashamed–they lashed out in an effort to re-establish white comfort. These findings align with literature demonstrating that instructors and students of color regularly experience retaliatory discourse and behavior denying the existence of racism. This white backlash–or whitelash–against anti-racism education harms BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and further entrenches the sociopolitical system of white supremacy. We found that contesting whitelash required embracing discomfort and emotional engagement, resituating ourselves as learners, and centering BIPOC learning. This counter-narrative highlights the importance of attending to and disrupting white emotional hegemony in the classroom. Findings from this study suggest that framing white resistance to learning as a form of racialized emotion allows anti-racist instructors and researchers to more effectively identify and dismantle the reproduction of whiteness in the social work academy. These efforts to address whitelash are crucial given the ongoing harm to BIPOC. Study 3 is a principles-focused evaluative case study (Patton, 2017) on the planned change process at the Colorado State University School of Social Work. Drawing on feminist standpoint theory, this participatory evaluative case study analyzes how social location influences participants' perceptions of a multi-year anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI) planned change process in the Colorado State University School of Social Work. Using principles-focused evaluation methods (Patton, 2017), we assess the ADEI planned change process in the context of the Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) Educational Policy Accreditation standard 2.0.2, which requires that social work programs "[engage] in specific and continuous efforts within the implicit curriculum related to anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion" (p. 16). We conducted a qualitative content analysis (Assarroudi et al., 2018) of anonymous participant survey responses (N=28) and strategic planning and implementation documents to evaluate the degree to which our school adhered to the guiding principle and the impacts of adherence. We then discuss the meaningfulness of the ADEI accreditation standards through the lens of critical whiteness studies. Using standpoint theory, we found that participants with privileged roles and identities reported increased understanding of ADEI and awareness of harm within the department, however, participants with oppressed identities perceived a rift between ADEI discourse and actual implementation of ADEI policies and practices. We discuss these findings in the context of critical scholarship that frames performance ADEI as a form of whiteness. When considered together, these three studies underscore the importance of identifying and addressing white supremacy in social work education to interrupt racialized harm, cultivate authentic anti-racist practice and education, and advance accountability. This research seeks to center Black, Indigenous, and People of Color to combat the insidious nature of whiteness.