Teaching Note—Integrating a Social Justice Assignment Into a Research Methods Course

Abstract

Although social justice is a core value of social work, it can be more difficult to integrate into a research methods class. This article describes an assignment developed for a BSW one-semester research class that served the dual purpose of educating students about social justice as well as qualitative research. Students were instructed to identify a social norm and then breach it for 1 hour. They then wrote about their experience and their insights in a paper using thick description, analyzing themes and reflecting on insights into social justice.

Social justice is one of the core principles of social work (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2008) and is included in the 10 competencies established by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE; 2008). NASW (2008) stated that an essential piece of social justice is to have “knowledge about oppression,” and one of the practice behaviors for this standard in CSWE's latest Educational and Policy Accreditation Standards (2008) is to “understand the forms and mechanisms of oppression.” Whereas many students can intellectually identify these forms and mechanisms, they may have difficulty truly understanding them if they themselves have not experienced such incidents. To develop students into advocates for social justice, they must first have this deeper knowledge.

Educating students about issues related to social justice has long been a goal of social work education. Research has found that MSW education strengthens students' commitment to social justice advocacy (Van Voorhis & Hostetter, 2006). However, it has been unevenly integrated across the curriculum, and academicians have developed different strategies for different courses (e.g., Snyder, Peeler, & May, 2008). Rountree and Pomeroy's (2010) recent editorial in Social Work called for social work researchers and practitioners to work jointly to help promote social justice. Research courses, especially introductory courses, have been among the most difficult in which to develop smooth integration of this principle. Though faculty supports this concept, departments have not made a systematic attempt to integrate content relating to social justice into research courses (Longres & Scanlon, 2001; Vincent, 2009). Most faculty members who do introduce it do so through classroom instruction, including lecture, discussion, and the use of readings (Vincent, 2009). However, qualitative research is conducive to the development of knowledge that can be used to promote social justice (O'Connor & O'Neill, 2004) and offers opportunities for a deeper, richer understanding.

According to Rountree and Pomeroy (2010, p. 293), “the conception of social justice can differ on the basis of level of practice, [and] the meaning of this term may change depending on whether one is working directly with clients or in an administrative position.” Social injustice focuses on macro-level concerns of how society divides its opportunities, rewards, and burdens, but individuals often make micro-level decisions on whether someone is a member of a group that has access to the rewards and opportunities or to the burdens. These decisions are then felt by the individual affected on the micro level. Wiener and Rosenwald (2008, p. 126) put it thusly:

In our work as social workers and social work educators, we interpret social justice as a vital expression of human interaction that is deliberate and not merely natural because, according to the theory of symbolic interactionism, human actors behave interactively to create our experiences. Thus a choice to behave in a socially just way is made possible within this framework.

This focus on social justice and injustice on the micro level can also be seen in philosophy. Amartya Sen (2009) noted that whereas some philosophers, such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, focused on the idea of just institutions in examining justice, others such as Wollstonecraft, Marx, and Smith, examined people's “actual behaviour” and “social interactions” (p. xvi). Sen stated that “the focus on actual lives [as opposed to institutions] in the assessment of justice has many far-reaching implications for the nature and reach of the idea of justice” (p. xi). By looking at manifestations of social injustice as it manifests on the micro level, it can be examined in a manner that can be used in a course.

One way in which we can see the effect of social injustice on individual lives is how those who are perceived as varying from the norm are treated. The majority of social workers are members of the privileged racial and sexual orientation groups in our society (NASW, 2003) and thus typically have not personally experienced social exclusion based on these inherent characteristics. If future social work professionals are to develop insight into the perceptions of members of excluded groups, they must adopt the perspective of a member of one of these excluded, or stigmatized, groups.

Goffman, a symbolic interactionist, is known for his work on stigma, defined in his words as “the situation of the individual who is disqualified from full societal acceptance” (1963a, preface)—known as social injustice in social work terminology. Goffman went on to state that the stigmatized individual was regarded as “not quite human” (1963a, p. 5). Goffman (1963a, 1963b) examined the concept of behavior in public places and how it helped the observer craft expectations of the person being observed. He stated that different social settings have certain expected behaviors and that these routines allow us to categorize people based on our initial impressions “without special attention or thought” (Goffman, 1963a, p. 2). However, when one's behavior varies from what is expected, that person is “reduced in our mind from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one” (Goffman, 1963a, p. 3), that is, stigmatized and not deserving of equal societal regard. Indeed, Goffman (1963b) stated that psychiatrists, in diagnosing mental illness, assess whether the patient's behavior is inappropriate for the situation.

Interestingly, these negative reactions to those who are different can be seen even if the behavior is altruistic. Babbie (2001) reported on an experiment conducted by his students in which they cleaned up public places and fixed problems in the public space. Not only did most students report feeling very uncomfortable breaking this norm, they all reported being sneered at and laughed at.

These societal assumptions and reactions to those who vary from the expected societal norm can be harnessed for student learning opportunities. Rountree and Pomeroy (2010, p. 294) asserted that to understand social justice, social workers must have “an awareness of differences.” Garfinkel (1967) developed the pedagogical approach he termed ethnomethodology to investigate the methods for achieving social order that are shared between members of a particular society. One way in which Garfinkel had his students learn these patterns was to disrupt the social norm in some way. These were teaching exercises for students and not intended as formal research in themselves (Rawls, 2002). However, the concept is a useful one for teaching qualitative research in an introductory research class due to its self-contained nature. Experiential learning has been noted as valuable in educating students about social justice issues, but the literature has been “limited on practical teaching assignments that incorporate experiential methods” (Negi, Bender, Furman, Fowler, & Prickett, 2010, p. 224, emphasis in original).

THE ASSIGNMENT

The author developed this assignment at a small liberal arts college with a medium-sized department of social work and has used it for the past 6 years. The class size typically ranged around 18 to 20 students; the students are primarily White, suburban, female, and of traditional college age. Thus, many of them have not experienced social injustice personally at this point in their lives. This assignment was originally developed simply to help students gain knowledge and experience with qualitative research in a fun manner, but in the first year the author noted the consistent theme of social justice throughout student reflections. Students noted that their experience of being the “outsider” made them understand the experience of oppression and social injustice on a whole new level. Therefore, in subsequent years, reflection on this concept has been an explicit requirement of the assignment.

The assignment requires only that each student must identify a social norm and then breach it for at least an hour. Similar to Goffman (1963b), students' behavior must be regarded as inappropriate for the situation, with the concept that that this action will lead to the experience of stigmatization by the student. How extreme the breach is considered is determined by each student because students differ in their level of comfort in violating social rules. If students are forced into a situation in which they are not comfortable, not only are ethics called into question, but students will not feel at ease enough to obtain the learning desired. The hour rule exists so that students may encounter a variety of people and have sufficient material to analyze for their paper.

Students may work singly or in pairs. Working with a partner provides students who may be somewhat uncomfortable with some social support, but it does not provide too much comfort, which would reduce the effect of the assignment. Over the years, the norm has evolved that students are not to tell anyone (except for a confederate) why they are behaving as they are, unless they need to gain permission (e.g., from a store owner) or if they are asked three times. This rule increases the effect of the assignment while maintaining safety. The institutional review board (IRB) at this school does not require submission for this class project. The assignment in the syllabus reads:

All cultures have unwritten social rules. For example, when we ride an elevator, we tend to face front and watch the numbers above the door. Your assignment is to identify a social rule and violate it, e.g., face the back of the elevator. Carry out this experiment for an extended period of time in order to gather sufficient data; an hour is suggested. All experiments must be safe for all participants. Your intent is to disrupt the mundane, not disrupt lives.

Your paper will identify the social rule, your perception of why that rule exists, what you did to violate it and people's reactions. This is a qualitative research project, so use thick description in detailing what occurred with specific examples. Analyze these occurrences to develop overall themes in your research findings. How did people react, and why do you think they did so? Discuss how it felt to violate these rules. How did you feel going against the norm? What insight does that give you to barriers that may be faced by your clients? How did it further your understanding of social justice? The word “I” is appropriate and expected in this paper. The paper will be 5–7 pages.

After completion of the experiment, students turned in their papers and then discussed their experiences in classes. Students were typically eager to talk about what they had done and the stigma they had experienced. Because students were able to select their own method of breaching, they never seemed unwilling or reluctant to share their experiences. For most students, this was the first time they had varied from the accepted norm, and it was a surprising experience. Even students who visibly vary from the norm, such as by not being White, experienced new insights.

NORMS VIOLATED

The most common norm violated was that of appropriate clothing. Though this norm may seem at the outset to be a stretch from the types of injustice experienced in society, it is the simplest manner to be “inappropriate for the situation” for an hour, given that students are unable to change their race, for example. Indeed, the reactions and stigmatization students encountered support the concept that learning was still achieved from this manner of societal breach.

Students identified norms of what type of clothing was appropriate to wear to what type of event, how that clothing should be worn, and who should wear it. Some simple examples included wearing rain gear on a sunny day, shopping in Halloween costumes or pajamas, or violating gender norms, such as a male carrying a purse. Some students pushed the norms further and shopped wearing underwear on the outside of their clothes, dressed shabbily or in Goth attire in upscale stores, or dressed in “gang” clothing. One heavyset middle-aged woman wore a string bikini at a pool.

A second common theme among the social norms breached centered around expectations about helpfulness and friendliness and their limits. Similar to Babbie's research (2001), students identified ways in which to be unexpectedly helpful or friendly, such as holding open the door at the mall for other shoppers, pumping gas at a self-serve station, offering free hugs in the mall, acting as a waitress in the student cafeteria, and cleaning off tables at the food court at the mall.

The third theme was that of appropriate social boundaries about with whom and where certain activities are performed. Students chose to violate social distance norms by standing or sitting too close, by eating in a place they “did not belong” (i.e., a biker bar for a preppy student), and by painting one's nails in the cafeteria.

The fourth theme identified was that of appropriate relationships. One student who looked very young shopped with her 2-year-old nephew and simulated having a pregnant belly so people would assume she was a teen parent; some students paired up and shopped with another student of the same sex in a manner so that people would assume they were a couple, whereas a White student went to a nearby conservative community with her African-American male friend and acted as though they were in an intimate relationship.

Other experiments were conducted that could not be classified into a group, including riding an elevator backward, begging for money, shopping with a little red wagon instead of a grocery cart, and eating under a table in a restaurant.

WHAT THEY EXPERIENCED

For many students, starting the experiment was very difficult due to the fear of being the subject of ridicule. One wrote, “I thought I was going to pee my pants or throw up” as she prepared to exit her car while wearing her prom dress to go grocery shopping. As stated, because the vast majority of these students were White, middle class or higher, suburban young women, this experience was the first time they had been an outsider. Most students, even those doing what could be regarded as less daring experiments, experienced revelations, thereby supporting the idea that social workers do not have to endure the same social injustices as clients to understand rejection, stigma, and ridicule.

The two students who chose to ride the elevator backward found that some people refused to ride the elevator with them, whereas others became nervous and punched wrong floor buttons. The students ended the experiment when they saw five security guards from the hotel heading toward them. The student who held the door at the mall found that one man refused to walk through the door, and another, after learning about the assignment, stated that she should have picked something that did not “insult the men of the country.”

As the level of social norm being breached increased, so did people's reactions. The student who portrayed herself as an adolescent mother found that people pointed at her and talked about her within her earshot. She was portrayed as a bad example; one mother told her daughter, “If you wind up like her, I'll kill you.” A student who went to Wal-Mart while wearing a bra and underwear on the outside of her clothing found that other shoppers pointed and laughed at her, and one woman assumed she had a cognitive delay.

One pair of students who dressed shabbily while shopping found that, as opposed to not receiving help, they were excessively helped. No matter where they went in a store, a store employee offered to help them. In contrast, other shoppers, especially women, gave them angry glares. After their hour was complete, this pair decided to go out to dinner and forgot how they were dressed, because in their mind, the experiment was over. They were seated in the very back of an almost empty restaurant and received very poor service.

An African-American male student who dressed in stereotypical gang clothing shopped in a department store he had shopped in many times before without incident. This time, he noticed that the manager was called as soon as he entered the store and that an employee followed him from section to section of the store. As he left one department, another employee entered it and visibly checked to make sure he had not stolen anything.

The heavyset middle-aged woman who wore the string bikini to a pool while on vacation in Florida found that she had to have it custom-made because she could not find a bikini in her size. She was also pointed at and laughed at; when she got in the Jacuzzi, people already in it left. Ironically, she found herself seated next to a social worker at the pool who continually tried to encourage her to buy another bathing suit in which she would be “more comfortable.”

The students portraying a same-sex couple while shopping faced even more harassment. Not only did other shoppers point and stare, but they were called rude names. In one instance, the two girls were followed by teenage boys. A male student who committed the same “breach” remarked, “Very seldom did we pass a pair or group of adolescent males without them sneering at us, laughing, or even yelling out ‘fags!' or ‘look at those queers!'” Some students reported receiving poor service in some stores. The student who portrayed herself as part of an interracial couple had to end the experiment early due to threats of physical violence against her friend.

However, even in these extremes, students noted that others treated them as any other person. Even the person who went to a national chain restaurant and ate under the table stated that he received the same service as anyone else. He saw his waitress conferring with the manager, but she served him as she would any other customer.

WHAT THEY LEARNED

The rubric for this assignment assessed the students' ability to report and analyze qualitative data—a total of 55% of the grade for the paper for these two sections. The first section looks at the quality of the assignment description. The students are expected to use thick description in summarizing their experience, with multiple specific, well-detailed examples. The second section looks at the analysis of these experiences. Students are expected to analyze across encounters and think about the types of people they met and the reactions they received to identify themes of reactions and to examine why they felt they elicited the reactions they did.

However, the impact of the assignment itself created interesting opportunities for the social work classroom. Even students who experience some structural oppression in their regular lives, as a result of their race or ethnicity, stated that they gained further insights as a result of the experiment. When processing the experience in the classroom, students were able to discuss the qualitative field research event, including identifying themes, altering initial protocol in response to preliminary responses, and coding and writing up research. Additionally, they freely discussed the knowledge development created by this experience and their deepened understanding of structural barriers within society.

Students noted the insight that this experiment gave them into the stigma and barriers that their clients might face. One stated, “I only had to do it for an hour and I knew that at the end, I could stop and go back to blending in. My clients don't have that choice.” One student who shopped with a friend of the same sex as a couple stated, “It is so easy for me to sit back and think that the prejudice and discrimination that homosexuals endure is terrible, and it needs to end. However, I am now more cognizant of what they endure on a daily basis through this assignment.”

Others reflected on past experiences with people in the same situation they were portraying, as illustrated by one student who shopped in shabby clothing in upscale stores. These thoughts illustrate the linkage made by Goffman (1963b) about how a person's public behavior is used to make assumptions about where he or she fits in society.

I have been guilty of dismissing these people as just another poor person, or just another homeless person, without really seeing their faces or thinking about their story. I have assumed automatically that they do not belong to a certain social class and, all the while congratulating myself on being an open-minded socially just person, I have found it convenient to categorize people based on their appearance.

The student who shopped with her underwear outside of her clothes wrote:

I absolutely hated this assignment. … Even though I didn't do anything outrageous and just tried to shop like everyone else, almost everyone I came into contact with gave me a strange look, pointed at me, or laughed. … I never really appreciated how hard it must be to never be able to just blend in when you want to or to have everyone looking at you when you're not doing anything. I can't imagine what it's like to go through your life knowing that, whenever people are staring, they're staring at you for no other reason than you're different from them.

Therefore, the preliminary evidence supports the idea that this assignment creates deep learning on social justice in a manner easily integrated into a research methods class. The assignment is able to accomplish the goals of helping students learn about conducting, reporting, and analyzing qualitative research, while also gaining insights into social justice and oppression. This deeper understanding can help create practitioners with a better sense of social justice and the inherent link between clinical (micro) social work and advocating for social justice.