While there is mounting research on the well-known white founders of social work, documentation of Black social work pioneers and their contributions is scarce -- in both social work education and the broader telling of the profession's history. Given the systemic exclusion of Black social workers in the dominant narrative of social work history,…

This article critically examines the fulsome embrace of Antiracist, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ADEI) rhetoric by social work institutions in the United States, identifying historic precedents and contemporary implications. We examine theories that captivated the profession in the last half century and the corollary political developments.…

Social work education is at a crossroads with the release of the 2022 Educational Policy Administration Standards (EPAS, 2022), which emphasize anti-racist practice. To teach anti-racist social work one must be prepared to use anti-racist pedagogical practices and be supported to do so institutionally. Freire (2020) proposes that education be a…

Across the United States, racist, hate-filled rhetoric, attitudes, and behaviors are daily occurrences. Events like officer-involved shootings of unarmed Black men, women, and non-binary individuals, along with the increase in white supremacist and nationalist groups, have cumulatively created a climate of fear and mistrust. This fear and mistrust…

Although the social work profession has focused on becoming an anti-racist profession, social work students report being insufficiently prepared to challenge and dismantle racism. Current recommendations for educating social workers on racism use findings from White students and omit the voices of individuals who experience racism. However, this…

The heart can care but be misled by fine sounding words that obscure harms. Discovering harms is often hard work, for example determining exactly what outcomes clients experience in agencies and how to improve these, what avoidable errors social work educators and practitioners make and how to minimize these, what students actually learn and use…

The 2022 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) definitively identifies anti-racism as a necessary component of social work education. This change supports an effort to ensure that coming generations of social workers are more than culturally competent, but rather actively anti-racist…

Social work education, practice and research is rightly composed of a wide variety of behavioral and social science theories, practice perspectives and models, and various ethical principles and values. Positions that lend themselves to empirical analysis will, over time and with appropriate research, sort themselves out into views that are…

The increased national focus on racism and white supremacy has encouraged social workers to look more closely at racism in the profession, which includes racism that occurs in social work education. This study specifically examines social work students' experiences with racism in social work classes. A convenience sample of current and former…

Debates over the nature of social work education are not new. What is new, however, comes from the Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) injection of critical pedagogy into social work education through "anti-racist" and "anti-oppressive" competencies laid out in the 2022 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards…

As the country continues to reckon with the historical and present-day realities of systemic oppression, particularly as it impacts Black individuals and communities, it is critical that human service organizations advance beyond statements condemning forms of anti-Black racism. Institutional efforts to address anti-Black racism must embody…

Field instructors are critical to enacting social work's signature pedagogy as they are tasked with providing agency-based learning opportunities and supervision for students. It has been well-documented that field supervisors are instrumental in students' learning and that the supervisory relationship is central to success in field education.…

The purpose of this philosophical liberal critique of the 2022 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) is to highlight the danger of using a single lens perspective in social work education in addressing discrimination, racism, inequality and other forms of injustices. A brief review of the concept of social justice illustrates how…

Racism is a pervasive system that permeates all social activity within U.S. society and for over four hundred years has constantly reproduced systems of inequality and disparate outcomes for Black people. Increasingly, attention has been given to integrating anti-racist content and methods into social work education and practice. By integrating…

Advocacy for social justice is a core duty of the social work profession. Social injustice, oppression, and marginalization in the United States demand that social workers critically evaluate and address systemic oppression, in the profession, society, and social work education. This study sought to explore the attitudes of social work students in…