Transformative Disruptions and Collective Knowledge Building: Social Work Professors Building Anti-oppressive Ethical Frameworks for Research, Teaching, Practice and Activism

ABSTRACT

Starting from the idea that many social work professors exceed the traditionally defined ‘service’ requirements of their university and are actively involved in social change and justice initiatives, this article aims at critically reflecting upon our own experiences as three social work educators. In the article, we address the question of how social engagement may influence the development of our social work ethical consciousness. If a growing body of literature is available around social work education, teaching and ethical learning and decision-making of social work students, little is yet known about how educators articulate those processes in the context of their work. To achieve this task, we have each undertaken an autoethnographic reflection where we describe one of the most significant situations in the development of our ethical consciousness and examine how they contributed to challenging our pre-existing ethical frameworks in social work. We conclude by discussing how to develop adaptive and pluralistic anti-oppressive ethical frameworks for social work research, teaching, practice and activism.

KEYWORDS:

• Insider
• outsider
• anti-oppressive
• ethical framework
• activism
• autoethnography
• transformative disruption

Notes on contributors

Roxane Caron is an associate professor at the School of Social Work of Université de Montréal. Her work focuses on the fields of refuge, life in refugee camps, and transnationalism. Her research interests centre on the experiences of refugees and displaced persons as well as the transformations engendered by processes of migration and displacement on the identities, strengths and values of refugees. Dr. Caron’s research is part of a decolonial and transnational framework. Her recent work focuses on the realities of Syrian refugees and the issues, challenges and intervention needs of Syrian refugees as they navigate integration processes in Canada (Quebec) and Lebanon.

Edward Ou Jin Lee is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work at the Université de Montréal. Edward’s interests include critical, anti-oppressive and decolonising social work and field education. Edward’s current research is focused mostly on queer and trans people of colour and migrants, engaging with critical, intervention and participatory research methodologies.

Annie Pullen Sansfaçon is an Full Professor at the University of Montreal’s School of social work and the Canada Research Chair (tier 2) on Transgender Children and their Families. Her work focuses on trans-affirming approaches to work with children and their families, ethics and anti-oppression. She is a one of the co-founders of Gender Creative Kids Canada, a charity working with gender-diverse children and their families. She is a researcher at the Public Health Research Center (CReSP), and at the Institut universitaire Jeunes en difficulté and Associate Researcher at the School of Social Work of the University of Stellenbosh, in South Africa.

Disclosure statement

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