The how of social justice education in social work: Decentering colonial whiteness and building relational reflexivity through circle pedagogy and Image Theatre

Abstract

Teaching courses on social justice are mainstays of social work education and are considered imperative for ethically responsible social work practice. Social justice education comes with many challenges, including white settler student resistance and difficulties translating social justice content into social work practice. We suggest a move from viewing social justice practice as a value or skill set - as part of the ‘professional self’ – to one that understands social justice as relational and as a politics of being and acting. In this article, we discuss methods for decentering colonial whiteness in the social work classroom by adopting relational reflexive pedagogies more congruent with social justice content. The first half of the article focuses on the white and colonial epistemological foundations of social justice education in social work and notions of the social worker subjectivity as ‘good’ and ‘moral’. In the second half of the article, we invite social work educators to reflect on congruency between social justice theories discussed in the classroom and the practice of how we teach these concepts. We then offer circle pedagogy and Image Theatre exercises as examples of practicing a relational ethic and politic of social justice in the process of teaching.

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