Modeling Cultural Humility: Listening to Students’ Stories of Religious Identity

Abstract

To foster development of cultural humility in social work students, educators must listen carefully to students to uncover and disrupt implicit biases about other groups. This study was a narrative analysis of undergraduate social work student papers about identity and intersectionality where most students wrote about religion/spirituality and how it was important to their identity development and early experiences with empathy and advocacy. Students wrote about identity development, early experiences with empathy and advocacy, and implicit biases they held about religion. Religion and spirituality are important to clients and social workers, and yet are rarely addressed in the classroom. Discussion of shared religious experience and bias could serve as a catalyst for more difficult discussions of race, gender, sexuality, and ability bias. Better understanding of implicit bias and how empathy happens are crucial aspects of cultural humility.

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