‘You Can’t Say That!’: Critical Thinking, Identity Politics, and the Social Work Academy

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed an eruption of what have been termed culture wars, often converging around the messier aspects of interpersonal relationships and corresponding identity issues that are complex, sensitive, and contested. These are emotive topics that are often colonised by activist groups, and consequently have become enveloped in particular regimes of truth and assertive identity politics. They are often also, by their nature, the kind of issues that are central to social work practice. This can lead to pressure on social workers and social work students to think that these orthodoxies ought to underpin and define the profession, which in turn can lead to the silencing of alternative opinions and the closing down of dissent. This article seeks to locate identity politics in a political and cultural context. It goes on to set out classic arguments for free speech, viewpoint diversity, and for the need for social work to embrace and engage with such. It explores the notion that the closing down of debate about contentious issues, the disincentives that exist to expressing controversial opinions, and the uncritical adoption of ideological orthodoxies work against the development of the critical thinking skills that are essential for social work practice.

Pedagogical Methods of Teaching Social Justice in Social Work: A Scoping Review

“…Nevertheless, it is also telling that, despite social justice being a principal value of social work, there has been limited pedagogical research on how to teach social justice. Many researchers have argued that social work students tend to show less critical thinking after obtaining their social work degrees (Fenton & Smith, 2019; Sheppard et al, 2018; Whittaker & Reimer, 2017). These studies reject the taken-for-granted position wherein faculty members often assume that it is not necessary to cover social justice in their courses as it is covered in all courses and across the program.…”

“…While actively addressing priorities and challenges of social justice, critical scholars re-orient our attention to social work history and present where the social work profession has been complicit in working with different levels of government and institutions to execute and maintain inhumane, socially unjust policies and practices (Blackstock, 2009;Wahab, 2020). Furthermore, a pervasive dominance of neoliberalism has had a detrimental impact on the social 1 Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada 2 John P. Robarts Library, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada work profession and contributed to more measurable, costefficient, and outcome-focused services rather than training social workers to address systemic inequity and diversity in social work programs and practice settings (Fenton & Smith, 2019;Sheppard, Charles, Rees, Wheeler, & Williams, 2018;Whittaker & Reimer, 2017). Rather than assuming social justice values are implicitly embedded in social work education, a landscape where the profession has had ongoing tensions (i.e., professional positionality between complicity and resistance to social injustice and fostering effective neoliberal workers vs. social justice-oriented workers), we need to prioritize social justice training that is more impactful and transformative for the next generation of social workers.…”

Viewpoint Diversity at UNC Charlotte

“…These trends continue even though evidence mount that this limits the development of critical thinking (Fenton and Smith, 2019). Lack of political diversity can also limit progress in specific subjects, like psychology and sociology (Duarte et al, 2015;Haaga, 2020;Baehr, 2020).…”

The “Undeserving” Narrative in Child and Family Social Work and How It Is Perpetuated by “Progressive Neoliberalism”: Ideas for Social Work Education

“…These wholly positive developments were very important in reducing the pathologisation of service users within social work [20]. However, these group-based movements have, more recently, further developed their postmodern character and are often referred to as "identity politics" as they are concerned with the recognition of identity features as the political priority [21]. This postmodern framework constructs society as comprised of groups of marginalised people who share an identity feature and are positioned oppressively within social hierarchies [22].…”