From the Editor–Taking Action During Challenging Times

How the world has changed since our last issue. The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has touched every aspect of life in multiple ways and exposed and further exacerbated the deep racial, economic, and gender inequities that have long existed in our country and around the world. This pandemic has also marginalized older adults in many ways given the consequences of this disease. By now, most of us know someone who has become sick or lost their life to this pandemic. My deepest condolences to those who have lost a loved one. Then, in early May, we watched with horror as Ahmaud Aubery, a young 25-year-old Black man, was followed and shot by armed White men while taking a jog. The men who killed him had not been arrested for months, and if the video had not emerged and resulted in public outrage, they probably would have never been arrested. Then, on May 25 of this year, another video, of the killing of George Floyd, over an alleged counterfeit 20 USD bill during which he was tortured inhumanely for 8 minutes and 46 seconds by the police. These videos, and many other stories, like that of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was sleeping in her home in the middle of the night when undercover police officers broke into her home executing a no-knock warrant and ended up killing her. The list of names goes on, and on, and on—Philando Castille, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice (12 years old), Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Atatiana Jefferson, Stephon Clark, and Botham Jean, to name a few. The emergence of these tragic video accounts of the killing of Ahmaud Aubery and George Floyd have resulted in widespread outrage and large, multicity protests against police violence and structural racism across the United States (and across the world). In response, legislation, such as The Justice Policing Act (H.R. 7120), has been drafted by Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), and the Trump administration has recently released an executive order (EO) on police reform that raises important questions about the role of social workers in police reform and public safety. This EO requires careful discourse within our profession and in social work education about how and where social work will engage with public safety systems. Urgent discourse is also essential in social work education that helps us to better understand, respond to, and improve our teaching about both public health crises—systemic racism across all systems (including our own higher education systems) and the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on Black and Brown communities in the United States.

Our National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics clearly calls us to eliminate racism (NASW, 2017) as does one of our new Grand Challenges for Social Work (https://grandchallengesforsocialwork.org/eliminate-racism/) led by Michael Spencer and Martell Teasley. This Grand Challenge notes, “Social work has provided considerable leadership in the civil rights and race equity movements, but has much more work to do, internal to the profession and for society as a whole.” It is essential that we make more rapid progress toward the following charge, introduced more than 13 years ago by the NASW Presidential Task Force Subcommittee on Institutional Racism:

Although acknowledging the existence and pervasiveness of the forms racism may take, the emphasis here is not on whether individual social workers are engaging in biased or racist practices. The assumption is that people enter the profession with good intentions and the desire to help. Rather, the focus is on the societal, institutional, structural maintenance of racism and the social worker’s role in reference to this macro-level issue. What is key is that the social work profession and the systems through which the profession has evolved historically, into the present, is part of a larger society in which policies, resources, and practices are designed to benefit some groups significantly more than others, while simultaneously denying the existence of racism as a variable, except in its most extreme forms. The responsibility of individual social workers is to recognize that structural racism plays out in their personal and professional lives and to use that awareness to ameliorate its influence in all aspects of social work practice, inclusive of direct practice, community organizing, supervision, consultation, administration, advocacy, social and political action, policy development and implementation, education, and research and evaluation. Furthermore, individual social workers have a responsibility to promote change within and among organizations, and at the societal level. (De Silva & Clark, 2007, p. 3)

We indeed have much more work to do, and I hope we are all up for the challenge. We must join together, reflect on this charge, and commit to the deep learning and anti-racist actions that will dismantle the disease of racism from our communities, and the social systems within we work, teach, and do our research. As social work educators it is our job to prepare our students for anti-racist practice and to engage in anti-racist education, mentorship, and scholarship. These changes are long overdue. As the editor, along with the Journal of Social Work Education (JSWE)’s editorial board, we are interested in manuscript submissions that chart a clear, well-informed path to truly accomplishing anti-racist social work education—both with regard to teaching and creating anti-racist academic settings for our Black and Brown colleagues. We are particularly interested in elevating the voices and perspectives of Black and Brown colleagues, and well-informed allies, who propose ideas for change. The JSWE will be highlighting and offering new open-access articles over 3-month periods that highlight anti-racist educational or higher education approaches, ideas, and leadership for our profession. To keep on top of these as they emerge, please follow CSWE on Twitter or Facebook, and look for our new Journal of Social Work Education Twitter handle, which will be coming out soon.

I would also like to highlight our call for proposals for a special issue titled, “Teaching, Field Instruction, and Administration in the Time of Pandemic or Natural Disaster,” which will be published Spring 2021 (https://www.cswe.org/Publications-and-multimedia/Journal-of-Social-Work-Education/Call-for-Submissions-Teaching,-Field-Instruction). The due date for this special issue is August 3, 2020. We hope to capture useful, well-reasoned recommendations, as well as emerging best educational and administrative practices learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. I encourage those submitting to carefully consider issues of racial and economic disparities that have been so pronounced in our society during this pandemic.

In this issue

This issue of the JSWE starts by highlighting several articles focused on race and social justice. The first article, by Danforth, Hsu, and Miller, “Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Among Social Work Students: Exploration of Individual and Social Network Correlates,” reports on a study of the personal and social network correlates of a sample of White students’ racial attitudes. Next, Gatenio Gabel and Mapp describe the results of their survey of MSW and BSW program directors on the ways social work programs were teaching about human rights and social justice in “Teaching Human Rights and Social Justice in Social Work Education.” They conclude with a recommendation for additional resources to inform social work educators about human rights and its relation to social justice. In “What Does Social Justice Look Like When Sitting With Clients? A Qualitative Study of Teaching Clinical Social Work From a Social Justice Perspective,” Asakura, Strumm, Todd, and Varghese present the ways that Canadian social work educators are teaching clinical social work from a social justice perspective and suggest concrete ideas for strengthening direct practice students’ commitment to social justice. Next, Unrau, Sherwood, and Postema describe the financial awareness and educational hardships experienced by BSW and MSW students in a large midwestern public university in “Financial and Educational Hardships Experienced by BSW and MSW Students During Their Programs of Study.” Hurst and Hrostowski, in “Creating Macro Social Work Field Placements Through a University Campus Social Justice Issue,” describe a social work placement setting developed on a university campus in the Deep South that addressed the needs of underserved students, staff, and faculty experiencing food insecurity or shortages of other vital resources.

The next two articles identify ways in which social work educators can improve safety and inclusivity in the classroom. Byers, McInroy, Craig, Slates, and Kattari report their findings from a mixed-methods survey in “Naming and Addressing Homophobic and Transphobic Microaggressions in Social Work Classrooms.” Their findings suggest that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+ undergraduate and graduate students experience a range of microaggressions in social work classrooms, and they provide a tool, grounded in their data, to guide educators in recognizing and more effectively addressing microaggressions in the classroom. Next, Kim and Sellmaier highlight the need for social work curricular content to better reflect the ability framework and the ways social work education recognizes and responds to disabled students, faculty, and staff in “Making Disability Visible in Social Work Education.”

In “Demarginalizing Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in Graduate Social Work Education,” Fuld discusses the use of Critical Disability Theory to better prepare social work students to work with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Next, McGuire and Lay describe the application of reflective pedagogy and related teaching strategies in “Reflective Pedagogy for Social Work Education: Integrating Classroom and Field for Competency-Based Education.” Sousa, Yutzy, Campbell, Cook, and Slates then describe the results from practitioner interviews in a large, urban area regarding their views regarding the knowledge, skills, and attributes necessary for macro social workers in “Understanding the Curricular Needs and Practice Contexts of Macro Social Work: A Community-Based Process.” Next, Eaton, Katz, McKee, and Russell describe the use of panel presentations as a way to prepare MSW students for field placements in “Connecting MSW Students to Community-Based Practicum: Feasibility and Accountability of Panel Presentations.” Grady, Rich Glass, Lechner, and Naylor report on the qualitative results of a mixed methods study exploring the views of students regarding the implicit curriculum in “What Do MSW Students Say Matters in MSW Programs? Results From a Qualitative Study of the Implicit Curriculum.” The final article in this issue, “Understanding Simulation in Social Work Education: A Conceptual Framework,” by Roberson, describes a conceptual framework for simulation and offers strategies based on prior simulation-based teaching in social work and allied fields.

This issue closes with several teaching notes. The first note, “Enhancing Social Work Education in Mental Health, Addictions, and Suicide Risk Assessment,” by Kourgiantakis, Sewell, Lee, Adamson, McCormick, Kuehl, and Bogo, describes a simulation-based learning activity designed to build MSW student competency in mental health, substance use, and suicide risk with standardized clients. Deichen Hansen, Holland, and Munn describe the implementation of the Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program, which was used to promote interprofessional collaboration between schools of nursing, medicine, and social work, in “A Call for Social Work Education Modification: Moving Toward a Model of Interprofessional Education.” The use of group role-play to teach advocacy skills to social work students is then described by Hasson and Sellers in “Using Group Role-Play Exercises to Build Advocacy Skills and Achieve Equal Opportunity and Justice for All.” The next note, by Fantus, describes the use of Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and related techniques for teaching social work ethics across areas of social work practice in “Theatre of the Oppressed and Social Work Ethics Education: An Innovative Teaching Module.” In the final note of this issue, “Nonprofit Websites and the Engagement Competency of Social Work Education,” Twis and Hoefer describe a study of nonprofit websites and their potential for stakeholder engagement. They conclude with a discussion regarding the implications of these findings for teaching social work administration.