‘What good is anti‐racist social work if you can’t master it’?: exploring a paradox in anti‐racist social work education

Abstract

Anti‐racist pedagogies, pedagogies built around the idea of self‐reflexivity and the examination of white privilege, confront enormous obstacles in a profession such as social work that defines its mandate as the practical and benevolent treatment of society’s marginalized and ‘unfortunate’ individuals and groups. Pedagogy about race and racism within soical work education is structured to fit within the accepted parameters of how practice is defined. Yet the day‐to‐day practices on which the profession rests, and which sustain the profession, reproduce whiteness. Thus ‘doing’ race following this same formula functions to reproduce whiteness and race as one more skill at which to be competent. As long as social work practice is synonymous with diversity management and the development of competencies, we remain unable to reconcile being a ‘good’ social worker with anti‐racist practice.

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