Critical whiteness theory and social work education: turning the lens inward

Abstract

The social work profession adheres to the values of social justice and equity, yet extensive literature suggests that anti-racism education in social work has room for growth. Research demonstrates that social work practitioners and educators often fail to recognize (1) how structural oppression creates racial inequities and (2) how social workers maintain and reproduce hegemonic power structures. Critical whiteness theory (CWT) seeks to reveal the invisible role of whiteness in constructing racial inequities. As a subject area, critical whiteness studies emerged in the late 1990s as an expansion of critical race theory. A variety of disciplines have incorporated critical whiteness studies as a framework for anti-racism education; however, CWT remains relatively absent from the social work literature. This paper proposes the incorporation of CWT in social work education as a tool to facilitate critical self-reflexivity and combat structural racism within the profession. Engaging with the concepts of white normativity, white ignorance, and white complicity allows social work educators and students to acknowledge and interrogate the formative ways in which social work pedagogy maintains and reproduces white supremacy.

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