Critical pedagogy to promote critical social work: translating social justice into direct social work practice

ABSTRACT

Critical pedagogy is grounded on a social and educational vision of justice and equality to promote humanity and democracy. Social work educators need to center critical pedagogy to promote students’ critical reflection and critical inquiry in all aspects of the curriculum during their social work training. Guided by critical pedagogy scholars Giroux and Morley, we identified three components of critical pedagogy in social work education, which we consider crucial: critical pedagogy as building transformative knowledge for social justice, critical pedagogy as social action, and critical pedagogy as a possibility and hope for a socially just future. Integrating critical pedagogy into the social work curricula, we are concerned about the ongoing dichotomy between the pervasive dominance of a biomedical perspective in direct practice and the application of a social justice-oriented framework limited to structural, policy, and macropractice approaches. This article thus aims to center on the three components of critical pedagogy in direct social work practice, focusing on the mental health field to exemplify our argument. Using a classroom example of assessment in a direct practice course, we discuss how instructors could integrate critical pedagogy into social work education to steer students toward a clinical approach which embraces social justice principles.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical pedagogy
• critical social work
• individual distress versus social disorder
• direct social work practice
• and social work education

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eunjung Lee

Eunjung Lee’s research focuses on everyday interactions in social work practice and education, immigration, and politics of multiculturalism and welfare state, using critical theories in language, discourse, and power.

Marjorie Johnstone

Marjorie Johnstone’s research focuses on critical feminist perspectives, the history of Canadian social work, community mental health, citizenship, immigration, and globalization.