Blending Voices: Autoethnography as a Vehicle for Critical Reflection in Social Work

Abstract

Critical reflection is important to vital process issues within social work practice; thus, it warrants attention in teaching and supervisory contexts. Autoethnography is a newer qualitative research methodology that uses the experiences of the author/researcher to extend social science understanding (Sparkes, 2000). In this article, the authors use autoethnography to frame critical reflection as a process of exploring social work knowledge and its potential implications, given that such knowledge is situated within fragmented and diverse selves and identities. Thus, good autoethnography is a unique way of accessing knowledge within intersubjective realities, which simultaneously generates a form of critical reflection (the comparison and assessment of emergent knowledge situated within selves and identities). Purposely incorporating an autoethnographic strategy, the authors draw from their experiences to show how personal narratives, the core of autoethnography, might be used to infuse critical reflection into social work education and practice.

Keywords:

• autoethnography
• critical reflection
• personal narrative
• reflexivity
• social work practice