Applying critical race theory in social work education in Britain: pedagogical reflections

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on personal experiences of teaching white British and Black African students on a social work Master’s course in England. In this paper, I critically discuss the fire at Grenfell Tower in London (14 June 2017) and how it served as a pedagogical tool to open up critical discussions among students about racial in/justice, intersectionality and neoliberal racism. I also explore how Black students were enabled to share their experiences of immigration, racism, and racial inequality in Britain as part of these discussions. Inviting personal experiences of race in the classroom can be highly emotive; but, as this paper shows, these voices can also highlight institutionalized racism and provide a way for Black and ethnic minorities’ histories to be told and learned. These histories matter and can develop student consciousness about racial inequality for pursuing a social agenda. They also challenge claims that Britain is now a ‘post-racial’ society. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) provided a way to counter such claims and critique my ‘whiteness’ and socio-economic class in my teaching, as well as challenge the neoliberal ideologies and structures that reproduce and mask ‘white privilege’ and racial injustice in Britain today.

KEYWORDS:

• Social justice
• critical race theory
• white privilege
• neoliberalism
• Grenfell Tower
• pedagogies

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the reviewers for their invaluable constructive criticism, generous support and guidance. I would also like to thank my students from whom I continue to learn so much. I am also grateful to Prospera Tedam, Sukhwinder Singh, Jane Ellis and Alan Condon for their support and encouragement to write this paper, and to Hannah Knox for directing me to the article by O’Hagan (2018). Finally, I thank Ma. Jera Irish Sanchez and Helen Scholar for their support and guidance to make this publication a reality.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wendy Coxshall

Wendy Coxshall is a Lecturer in Social Sciences (Social Work) at Liverpool Hope University and she is a qualified social worker, registered with Social Work England. Wendy previously practised as a children and families social worker and is interested in family relations, narrative, migration and forced displacement, human rights and social justice. These were also key themes of Wendy's earlier doctoral and postdoctoral ethnographic research as a social anthropologist on reconciliation after political violence in Peru (1980-2000) and mining conflicts in Peru.