Dual pandemics awaken urgent call to advance anti-racism education in social work: pedagogical illustrations

ABSTRACT

In 2020 racial justice uprisings and COVID-19 and the push for institutional responses created pressure within social work to answer decades of calls for anti-racism action. CSWE responded and formed the Task Force for Anti-racism. As members of the Task Force, we call on CSWE to continue this anti-racism work. We describe a path forward to promote racial justice and dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy within social work education. We interrogate social work’s complicity in white supremacy, provide examples of social work anti-racism pedagogy, and call for centering BIPOC voices to move social work toward its anti-racism future.

KEYWORDS:

• White supremacy
• racism
• social work education
• CSWE

Socio-political factors propel the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in outsized impacts on Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities who are at greater risk for infection, hospitalization, and the likelihood of death. BIPOC are doubly or, in some cases, triple times over-represented. The disproportional ratios by race and ethnicity are magnified when comparing risk for infection, hospitalization, and the likelihood of death for Indigenous 1.7, 3.5, 2.4, Blacks 1.1, 2.8, 2.0, Latinos 1.9, 2.8, 2.3, and Asians .07, 1.0, 1.0 respectively, in comparison to Whites (Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 2021b). The convergence of the positionality of race, experiences of racism in the United States, and the disproportionate rates of COVID-19 present significant risk for dismal physical results, psychological trauma, and economic instability for BIPOC communities. Hence, the dual pandemics of racial justice uprisings and COVID-19 in 2020 and the ensuing push for institutional responses created pressure within social work to answer decades of calls for critical self-examination and change (Maylea, 2021).

The disproportionate pandemic related illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths of BIPOC parents and caregivers underscore a sense of urgency to advance anti-racism in social work education and practice with BIPOC children, youth, and families. The dual pandemics exacerbate the following existing social inequities: parents working in essential low wage employment positions (Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 2020; Hawkins, 2020; Waltenburg et al., 2020), placing them at risk for exposure with limitations on preventative strategies such as social distancing or mandatory wearing of masks, uninsured or underinsured health care coverage (EPI, 2020), institutional racism (Khazanchi et al. (2020), social determinants of health (Karaye & Horney, 2020; Okoh et al., 2020; Rodriguez-Lonear et al., 2020), underlying and predisposed health conditions (CDC, 2021a), the digital divide in telemedicine (hotspots; Moore et al., 2020), interface with other institutional settings such as immigration or correctional facilities (Tobolowsky et al., 2020; Wallace et al., 2020) and overcrowded geographic areas (Millett et al., 2020). Furthermore, BIPOC children grieving the loss of a parent or caregiver are at a heightened risk for long-term physical and mental health concerns (Hillis et al., 2021).

The National Association of Black Social Workers in 1968 (Brice & McLane-Davison, 2020) and the 1973 report from the CSWE Black Task Force (Harty, 2021) voiced the first demand to address racism within social work. Spurred by the dual pandemics, the mounting pressure of BIPOC and other marginalized voices and their allies renewed demands for social work education and practice to move from individualistic non-racist stances to actions that eradicate white supremacy and systemic racism within social work. The Council of Social Work Education (CSWE, 2021) responded to this pressure and formed the 2020 CSWE Task Force for Anti-racism. As a subgroup of the 2020 CSWE Task Force for Anti-racism, we call on the profession and CSWE to examine the historical and current perpetuations of racism within social work (Beck, 2019; Corley & Young, 2018; Dominelli, 1997), eradicate manifestations of white supremacy within social work education and practice, and honor the contributions of BIPOC social workers and activists who have led this work from the inception of the profession.

The pandemic disproportionately impacted BIPOC children, youth, and families and magnified inequities in education, health, housing, and immigration. This paper describes a path forward to promote racial justice and dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy within social work education. First, we introduce operational definitions for white supremacy, anti-racism, and anti-racism pedagogy to create a shared understanding and counter controversial, misaligned interpretations. We utilize the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT) as an anti-racism theoretical framework to inform a shared understanding of anti-racism social work pedagogy and to move anti-racism in social work beyond reflexivity to action. Second, we critique social work practice and policy with children, youth, and families to examine the impact of white supremacy in our profession’s history. Third, we employ pedagogical examples to provide social work educators tools for explicit anti-racism pedagogy. We also highlight the leadership of BIPOC social work scholars, educators, and practitioners to counter the impact of racism through practices grounded in the strengths of BIPOC families, children, and communities. We conclude with pedagogical recommendations for advancing anti-racism in social work education.

Anti-racism in social work pedagogy

The amplified calls for justice provoked by COVID-19 and racial injustice (CSWE, 2021) require that we interrogate the racism underlying many theories driving social work practice and our approaches to instruction as a profession. Race as a social construct has been historically used to create and justify laws, policies, and practices that dehumanize children, youth, families, and communities and harm them through state-sponsored violence and separation from each other (Aldana & Vazquez, 2020). Historically, the social work profession and social workers have been complicit in these acts (Ioakimidis & Trimikliniotis, 2020; Maylea, 2021), and the profession has ignored and silenced the voices of diverse groups of social workers, including BIPOC–in essence, racialized populations who have contributed theory, practice, and movements to humanize, heal and liberate oppressed people. Dominelli (1997) challenges the profession to recognize “the epistemological base and political philosophy of social work education endorses the status quo, of which racism is an integral feature” (p. 43).

The Anti-racism Task Force adopted a definition of anti-racism as an active practice, process, and policy contesting racial inequality and dismantling white supremacy that involves the unlearning and challenging of the myth of white supremacy and understanding how it drives other forms of oppression. It rejects the inferiority of BIPOC to center multiple ways of being and knowing. In addition, “anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably” (NAC International Perspectives: Women and Global Solidarity [NAC], n.d.) through collaborative efforts inside and outside the profession to build networks of solidarity (IFSW, as cited by CSWE, 2021). White supremacy is defined as a political, economic, and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread; relations of white dominance and nonwhite subordination are reenacted daily across a broad array of institutions and social settings (Ansley, 1989, as cited by CSWE, 2021).

Anti-racism in social work education requires a pedagogical commitment to social transformation inside and outside the classroom, starting with intensive critical thinking and self-reflection by students and instructors regarding their social positions and working toward building anti-racism networks of solidarity inside and outside the profession to eliminate racism. Anti-racism action requires that social work education examine social work’s historical and contemporary narrative. Mainstream social work education erases the contributions of BIPOC social work scholars, educators, practitioners, and organizations, and we must counter this impact through policy, practice, and interventions that are grounded in the strengths of BIPOC communities, families, and children (Brice & McLane-Davison, 2020). Though seemingly benign, this epistemological erasure is an assault on racialized communities.

Integrating critical race theory into anti-racism pedagogy

One of the goals of anti-racism pedagogy is to proactively work toward “transformation by challenging the individual as well as the structural system that perpetuates racism” (Blakeney, 2005, p. 20). The emphasis of anti-racism pedagogy includes:

challenging assumptions and fostering students’ critical analytical skills; developing students’ awareness of their social positions; decenter authority in the classroom and having students take responsibility for their learning process; empowering students and applying theory to practice, and creating a sense of community through collaborative learning. (Kishimoto, 2018, p. 546)

Kishimoto’s ideas support the anti-racism pedagogy principles described by Hassouneh (2006); students’ assumptions are challenged as they are educated in ways that make racialized power relations explicit. In addition, critical analytical skills are fostered as students deconstruct and analyze interlocking systems of oppression.

Aligned with these anti-racism ideas and principles, Critical Race Theory (CRT) offers social work education a pathway to anti-racism pedagogy. Moreover, CRT’s origin in American legal scholarship provides a conceptual understanding of how race and racism intersect and inform the law and social policies; this is particularly relevant to anti-racism in social work practice and policy (Razack & Jeffery, 2002). Employing the work of thought leaders such as Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. Du Bois, bell hooks, and Toni Morrison, in the 1980s critical legal scholars Derrick Bell, Alan Freeman, Richard Delgado, Kimberle’ Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, and others generated a theory that interrogates the centrality of race and the pervasiveness of racism in systemic social inequities (Bell, 1995; Crenshaw et al., 1995). While tenets of CRT have been coopted and parts of the theory used without centering race and racism, the historical struggle of BIPOC and anti-racism action formed the foundations of CRT and have lessons for social workers. For over a decade, scholars have argued for the applicability of CRT to social work pedagogy (Kolivoski et al., 2014; Razack & Jeffery, 2002). CRT provides a robust theoretical framework for anti-racism pedagogy by focusing on the interrogation and analysis of institutional racism, power relations, justice, and equity in teaching.

We present pedagogical examples highlighting the tenets, differential racialization, counter-storytelling, and intersectionality (Bell, 1995; Crenshaw et al., 1995). Counter-storytelling, as a CRT tenet, helps to decenter whiteness and highlight the contributions of BIPOC scholars, organizations, and institutions to U.S. history, the field of social work, and social justice achievements and struggles. For example, an explicit anti-racism pedagogy requires the acknowledgment and embrace of the contributions of Black social work pioneers whose perspective of social work centered an intimate understanding of the strengths and needs of the Black community and the commitment to advance social justice (Bent-Goodley et al., 2017). Embracing counter-narratives amplifies the voices of BIPOC social workers and communities. This counter-dominant approach to pedagogy works to center the empowerment and liberation of BIPOC and other marginalized students (Kailin, 2002). In addition, CRT’s tenets of differential racialization and intersectionality provide a lens for social work education to expose the saliency of race to interlocking oppressions and the discourse of racial justice and equity in teaching. CRT’s action orientation also answers the urgency of the CSWE Task Force on Anti-racism’s call to move social work education from analysis to anti-racism action.

Critique of social work practice with children, youth, and families

An initial step in advancing anti-racism in social work education is acknowledging social work’s complicity in harmful and racist policies and practices. Our profession’s history with children, youth, and families is fraught by a legacy of enduring racism in two ways: First, through explicit support and practice enforcement of social policies specifically designed to oppress and marginalize BIPOC (Ioakimidis & Trimikliniotis, 2020; Marcynyszyn et al., 2012); second, through adopting the conceptualization of the heterosexual biological, nuclear family resulting in the economic and social punitive effects on BIPOC families (Gerstel, 2011; Peterson, 2013; Trattner, 1999). The following section interrogates social work’s role in racially biased child welfare and school social work practices.

Since its inception, social work’s entanglement in harmful policies to nonwhite children is well documented. Family separations of enslaved persons were likely a source of inspiration for the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny,” which propelled the removal of Indigenous people who stood in the way of westward expansion (Miller & Miller, 2006). Thus, a “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” policy found its home in establishing the Indian boarding school system, whose primary purpose was to annihilate native cultures through forced assimilation. In this context, social workers played a key role in the process of children’s removal and separation from their families (Yellow Bird & Chenault, 1999).

Similarly, social work’s anti-Black racist practices were manifest in the exclusion of social services in social casework and settlement houses to Black families and the profession’s general acceptance of segregation in schools. The 1965 Moynihan Report became a central public discourse that identified and targeted Black families as “welfare” recipient families whose stereotype apex was President Reagan’s “welfare queen.” From the friendly visitors onward, social workers have consistently investigated which family members live in the home. Black families were particularly scapegoated and became targets for subsequent “welfare reform” (Levenstein, 2000). Social work has failed to address the institutional racism that promoted these stereotypes in child welfare services, which played a role in the early 1980ʹs war on drugs, subsequent child protection, juvenile detention, and school to prison pipeline (Alexander, 2012; Roberts, 2014).

Black children are 13.71% of the population yet account for 22.75% of children in foster care. Indigenous children account for 1% of the population yet disproportionately comprise 2.4% of children in foster care (Annie E. Casey Foundations, 2018). Kolivoski et al. (2014) assessed this overrepresentation of BIPOC children as a product of racial bias; the direct results of these practices have devastating impacts on BIPOC children, and social work cannot deny its complicity. Calero et al. (2017) estimates between 14–80% of children placed into foster care face early criminalization and end up in the foster care-to-prison pipeline.

In addition, recent family separations at the United States’ southern border constitute the latest racist and xenophobic travesties visited upon Latinx children who continue to be traumatized and held without family contact. These border camps have been continuously scrutinized for neglecting the public health of those detained and placing them at increased risk for contracting COVID-19. Social work’s absence of leadership and depoliticized stance (Maylea, 2021) is conspicuous considering the atrocities being perpetrated.

Early school social work practice began between 1906 and 1907, serving public schools with an increase of African Americans moving from the south to the north, immigrants, working-class, and poor children in schools (Bye & Alvarez, 2006; Tyack, 1974, cited in K. L. Phillipo & Blosser, 2013). School social workers face a significant amount of pressure when functioning as a part of a system that has been complicit over time with unjustly labeling BIPOC and low socioeconomic groups with academic and behavioral problems resulting from institutional discrimination (K. Phillipo & Stone, 2011). For example, during the pandemic, disparities in access to technology and reliable internet access disproportionately affected BIPOC families and students living in poverty. Vaughans and Spielberg (2014) emphasized the importance of systemic change by understanding the history of oppression for BIPOC groups; the pandemic demonstrates that social work must also address contemporary manifestations (e.g., anti-racism action in some locations meant getting children hotspots).

CRT a framework for anti-racism pedagogical examples

The critique discussed above demonstrates the importance of social work educators’ incorporating anti-racism pedagogy into their teaching practice. To date, social work education’s content on children, youth, and families has mainly focused on the psychological and behavioral dynamics of trauma, abuse, and neglect without critical examination of how racism structures the developmental context. Moreover, the social work curriculum does not adequately teach students how white supremacy has socially constructed views of BIPOC children, youth, and families. Nor does mainstream social work education build students’ capacity to critically analyze and dismantle policy, practices, and structures that uphold white supremacy or provide tools to build networks of solidarity inside and outside the profession to create policy, practices, and systems grounded in anti-racism.

The dual pandemics of racism and COVID-19 compelled the work of the Anti-Racism Task Force subcommittee to provide examples of how CRT approaches can be incorporated as a case for learning about anti-racism. The following section offers anti-racism pedagogical examples that illustrate strategies to employ an anti-racism lens to historical and current societal issues within elective and core social work courses. We start with a module using the CRT tenet of differential racialization to teach about family separation. Our second example demonstrates the integration of CRT into a school social work course. Next, we use CRT to examine the social construction of immigration as a racialized issue. Our final example illustrates the impact of counter-storytelling through a module addressing racial disproportionality in the Texas Child Welfare system. These anti-racism pedagogical examples critically interrogate the role of social work in perpetuating existing paradigms and practices and offer opportunities to change social work’s role.

Teaching about family separation using a differential racialization lens

The lesson on differential racialization described below occurs mid-way through a 15-week MSW course. The purpose of this lesson is to facilitate students’ ability to examine how the historical legacy of structural racism continues to this day.

Differential racialization suggests that different ethnic-racial groups – such as BIPOC – have been racialized (socially constructed and treated) in different ways throughout history according to the needs of the dominant group (Crenshaw et al., 1995). For example, COVID-19 fears paired with scapegoating tactics employed by the Trump administration have instigated a resurgence of violence against Asian Americans, despite longstanding depictions of the model minority myth. This rise in anti-Asian racism is reminiscent of historical “yellow peril” narratives and imagery (Li & Nicholson, 2021).

This activity involves students in co-creating a timeline of U.S. racial history. In a class of 21, students work in five groups of 4–5 students to conduct “research” and create “timeline entries” for their assigned racialized group (i.e., Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Middle Eastern/Arab). Using course readings, internet search engines, and personal/familial experience for their assigned racialized group, students create timeline entries of historical events, policies, or social milestones fueled by racism covering the entirety of U.S. history – from its colonial history to the present time – using a set of Post-it Notes. The instructor designs a “timeline” graphic to exhibit the student entries. Students take a 5-minute “gallery walk” of the timeline once it is completed and debrief their reactions.

The second, most essential, part of the activity examines family separation using a differential racialization lens. The instructor selects students’ timeline entries that correspond with chattel slavery, “Indian” boarding schools, the War on Drugs, and the founding of ICE to practice using differential racialization as an analytic tool. Students discuss the following questions: 1) Who is the target group, and how were they socially constructed at the time? 2) What policy, institutional practices, or social dynamics were reinforced or informed by the social construction of this group? 3) What were the consequences for the families and communities affected? Collectively, the class identifies how racism contributed to family separation. Students give examples of current events depicting “children in cages” being detained at the Southern border. Some students connect personally to their families’ fear of immigration raids and deportations. If necessary, the instructor connects the establishment of ICE with the “War on Terror” rhetoric that racialized Muslims as terrorists after 9/11. The discussion explores how the trade of enslaved people strategically separated children from their parents. The instructor also helps students articulate how boarding schools coercively removed Indigenous children from their homes aside from enforcing assimilation.

Students often need assistance to critically examine how the War on Drugs may be another example of family separation. The instructor helps connect students’ remarks about the pervasiveness of mass incarceration in the U.S. and its racial bias toward Black and Latino men to family separation. If necessary, the instructor shares the recent rise in the over-incarceration of women of color. Students can better articulate how the mass incarceration of BIPOC ultimately results in family separation by unpacking gendered experiences of criminalization. The instructor ends by summarizing how “family separation” is both a tool and a result of white supremacy and underscores the utility of the differential racialization tenet in examining how structural racism manifests differently across social groups, time, and contexts.

Teaching school social work practice integrating critical race theory

In an elective 14-week course, students learn the historical and current working practices with children and families in public school settings. During the dual pandemics, school social workers were on the front lines as essential workers helping families meet basic needs and supporting students in virtual learning while observing Black men, women, and children being murdered. This “new normal” requires school social workers to be equipped with renewed strategies to lead anti-racism and social justice efforts within the school and community settings. CRT provides an entry place to discuss anti-racism and works to challenge institutionalized racism. The examination of intersectionality invites assessment and engagement on multiple levels. The ecological and data-informed practices offer opportunities for counter-narratives.

In the assignment, students review the state General Statutes regarding suspension and expulsion. They examine their field placement school district’s policies and the report on suspension and expulsion of students. Students interrogate the data, seeking the common circumstances resulting in student suspensions. Students report on the variance of the data among gender, age, and race. Students are challenged to develop and discuss hypotheses of contributing factors to the variances. They research alternatives to suspension in the school system and evaluate the effectiveness of the options in reducing suspension rates, including data or observations and reports from school staff. The final element of the assignment includes advocacy with sound recommendations for the school administration and board that would improve the current suspension policies and procedures.

The assignment and process are intended to illuminate the disparities in discipline and sound the alarm for improved policies and practices to increase children’s ability to graduate instead of entering the juvenile justice system and the school-to-prison pipeline. Social workers and educators must seek organizational change to address the structural inequities. These changes include equipping school staff with knowledge and context of the unique issues that BIPOC families face to guide how schools effectively support students’ academic success.

Using CRT to examine the discourse of immigration as a racialized issue

In an elective eight-week MSW course, CRT is used to discuss race as a forced social construct on immigrants and refugees in the U.S. In the course, discussions cover immigration policies in the U.S. from the end of World War I when the anti-immigrant sentiment started to grow to the present time with broad executive orders and actions targeting immigrants to discuss how the desirability of different groups has changed based on the dominant discourse. The class lectures and discussions focus on top origin countries of immigrants and refugees and specific populations of concern, including older adult immigrants, mixed-status families, queer immigrants and refugees, unaccompanied and separated children, and survivors of human trafficking. Our discussions highlight the centrality and intersectionality of racism.

As part of this course, students work individually or in groups to complete two assignments and a quiz. For the first assignment, “critical reflection on immigration policies,” students deliver a PechaKucha-style presentation about a specific group and discuss how immigration policies have impacted this group since 1925. By watching the presentations,

students see that while anti-immigration sentiment has grown over the years, governing policies impacted diverse groups of immigrants and refugees differently. In this context, after the presentations, students write a reflective discussion post about the role of race as a social construct governed by immigration law in the U.S.

For the second assignment, “taking a step,” students focus on a current oppressive immigration policy and write a letter or social media post addressed to the President (or local government officials if applicable), critiquing the policy and offering alternative solutions. This year students discussed the Trump administration’s weaponization of COVID-19 under U.S. health law, Title 42, allowing mass deportation of asylum seekers at the U.S.–Mexico border. Students criticized the current administration for extending the policy while other immigrants and refugees entered the country through the southern border or by flights and in the absence of convincing evidence that this policy will prevent spread of COVID-19. The alternative solutions discussed by students were providing access to COVID-19 vaccination, fair opportunity to seek asylum for every human being, and addressing the legality of using Title 42.

Students take a scavenger hunt style quiz for the last activity, reading through a series of hints to answer questions and write short critical reflection posts about working with immigrant and refugee children, youth, and families. In this activity and class lectures, students are encouraged to acknowledge the intersectionality and fluidity of immigrants’ and refugees’ identities and the centrality and intersectionality of racism. This course prepares social work students to work with a growing population of minoritized immigrants and refugees in the U.S.

CRT in action: addressing disproportionality in Texas child welfare, the Texas model

This application of anti-racism pedagogy in an MSW community practice course applies the CRT tenets of counter-storytelling and race and racism as endemic in society. The course hosted Joyce James, a Black social work pioneer. Joyce James developed the Texas Model to address disproportionality in Texas Child Welfare, an anti-racism policy-practice model grounded in community voice, solidarity, and accountability to improve outcomes for children and families. This example illustrates anti-racism as an “active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes” (NAC, n.d.) through the collaborative building of solidarity networks (CSWE, 2021).

In 2004, Joyce became Assistant Commissioner for Child Protective Services; she joined the state’s collaboration with Casey Family Programs. The resulting Texas Model uses a cross-systems approach linking child welfare, juvenile justice, education, health and mental health, workforce, and other systems to address disproportionality statewide (James et al., 2008). The model encompasses lessons from Joyce’s earlier work in developing Project HOPE (Helping Our People Excel) in collaboration with parents, youth, and allies from local churches, nonprofits, county, state, and federal agencies dedicated to health, welfare, and protection of children.Within the Texas Model, understanding and analyzing institutionalized racism and building solidarity to undo racism is a primary concern. Through the Undoing Racism workshop provided by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, CPS leadership and community partners learned to; 1) analyze power, 2) define racism, 3) identify manifestations of racism, 4) learn from history, 5) share culture, and 6) organize to undo racism within systems, institutions and at the community level (The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, 2007 as cited in James et al., 2008).

Community engagement strategies are used to enroll community members and build local allies by making the problem of disproportionality visible by sharing real numbers and stories through constituents’ voices. These strategies then move to community leadership which expands leadership to the appropriate community level and offers Undoing Racism training to reinforce the committee members as agents of social change. Community organization is grounded in the assumption that the community must lead the work in partnership with CPS. Community accountability is working toward desired outcomes and measurable results guided by the belief that communities are the “owners” of the solutions to achieve sustainable safety, permanency, and well-being for their children (Seymour, 2007).

Her core message to social workers resonates with the crises of the dual pandemics:

Without an analysis and understanding of institutionalized racism, we do harm. As all of our helping systems produce disparate outcomes that have a collective impact, there is a critical need for us to understand how all these systems create this harm. Once we have that analysis and understanding, we must become critical lovers of our systems to make change, and we must invite in the community to inform us of how systems can better serve us (J. James, personal communication, June 2, 2021). The impact of COVID on communities of color reflects the ongoing impact of institutional and structural racism on poor communities of color. It is not surprising that though all populations are susceptible to the virus, the conditions that have long existed for communities of color have become even more visible with COVID and the resulting continued oppression and community loss that emanates from the long history of racism and the collective impact of systems that come every day in the name of help. Yet, the data across all helping systems tell a very different story … the lack of a clear analysis of racism and the inherent nature of it in the distribution or absence of resources leading to the unnecessary deaths of Black and Brown people. This is not a new phenomenon! This is not a new experience for a different set of people. It is the same experience that the same people have lived with since the inception of this county (J. Joyce, personal communication, Oct 12, 2021).

After the presentation, students break into small groups to reflect on the communities their internships are in and discuss the following questions: 1) What are the organic strengths and resources within the community that your agency and other partners could support? 2) How do institutionalized racism and racial disparities across systems impact the ability of families and communities to protect and care for their children? 3) What are the action steps you can take to embrace anti-racism and become a critical lover of your internship?

Discussion

In sum, the dual pandemics triggered the call for a greater emphasis and sustained awakening to advance anti-racism in social work education and practice with BIPOC children, youth, and families. Hillis et al. (2021) urges a holistic response, in congruence with the social work sphere of practice, policy, and support of children, youth, and families to include direct financial assistance, health coverage, mental health treatment, and enhanced resources to the foster care system. As we educate new social workers, our hope for anti-racism social work practice begins with anti-racism pedagogy. From the inequitable distribution of benefits, the disproportionate number of BIPOC children in the child welfare system, separating BIPOC children from their families to the erasure of BIPOC voices in the curriculum, social work has an explicit hand in the far-reaching consequences of racism. The current pushback against CRT by several states across the U.S. demonstrates that unseating white supremacy will not be easy (Abrams & Detlaff, 2021). Social work’s future depends on CSWE intentionally moving social work education beyond momentary pledges that carry an illusion of being on the right side of racial justice and embracing the hard work of active anti-racism in social work education.

Implications for social work education and practice

Forming the CSWE Task Force on Anti-racism was a much-needed first step for anti-racism within social work education. However, as evidenced in our critique and pedagogical examples, small incremental steps are insufficient given social work’s long history of complicity in racism. This paper echoes the suggestions of the Task Force for Anti-racism. Our recommendations for anti-racism pedagogy in social work include:

Atoning for social work’s complicity in structural racism

Just as it is essential for individuals to challenge their racism and biases, we must challenge our profession’s systemic racism for change to occur. Making amends for our profession’s historical and contemporary legacy of racism involves being intentional about recognizing and repairing past social work values, practices, and policies that upheld white supremacy or reinforced the racialization and oppression of vulnerable families and communities

Centering the policy-practice models used by BIPOC practitioners

In social work’s attempt to reckon with its complicity in racism, it is essential to center the contributions of BIPOC social work pioneers who provided services supporting diverse communities. To counter the dominant deficit-narrative, stop epistemic erasure, and move social work toward its anti-racism future, we must highlight the counter-narratives of BIPOC practitioners that have been pushed to the side. Social work educators can integrate this knowledge into class content through formal scholarly work, podcasts, music, blogs, art, poetry, comedy, guest speakers, and by incorporating assignments and assessments that include collaborative projects, oral presentations, blogs, podcasts, art, and the creation of media.

Building social workers’ capacity for critical race praxis

Social work pedagogy should develop the knowledge and skills necessary to put theory into practice (praxis) in ways that recognize, critically examine, and address the structural racism that creates social inequity. CRT can be one of many theoretical frameworks used to disrupt white supremacy in social work education. This intentional anti-racism action will transform social work education and create an impetus that changes social work practice to processes that oppose and challenge systemic and structural inequities.

Infusing anti-racism pedagogy throughout the curriculum

Social work education must move to anti-racism pedagogy throughout the curriculum to unpack its complicity in white supremacy and structural racism. Integrating anti-racism pedagogy in every class, not just “diversity” courses, is essential to advancing anti-racism in social work. Critical analysis of race and racism enhances curricular content and instruction irrespective of the course topic, as illustrated in the pedagogical examples offered in this paper. For instance, in developing this manuscript, one of the authors reevaluated the design of her course on critical refugee and migration studies to incorporate CRT.

Examining our institutional practices and policies

Anti-racism pedagogy requires social transformation inside and outside of the classroom. To effectively do this work, we must be willing to invite alumni, students, field advisors, and other constituents to share their experiences of racism within our programs and universities and join with us to build accountable institutions grounded in anti-racism. We need to develop intentional networks of solidarity within our universities and the profession, and our communities.

Conclusion

The history of social work’s complicity in white supremacy and systemic racism is hard to overlook, yet social work has failed to take anti-racism action that unseats white supremacy (Beck, 2019). Social work’s efforts fall far short of the Code of Ethics that it claims to embrace. Our call for anti-racism in social work joins decades of calls for anti-racism. This discussion offers social work a pathway to promote racial justice and dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy within social work practice. The dual pandemic highlighted the urgency; let the call for a sustained awakening of advancing anti-racism in social work education and practice be heard. It is no longer enough for CSWE and social workers to “claim” not to be racist – we must lead in anti-racism.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).