Diversity and Social Justice: Critically Examining Social Education

Introduction. The Council for Social Work Education (CSWE) requires that diversity be addressed explicitly and implicitly in social work education. Social work educators, however, have divergent opinions on the most effective approach to incorporating diversity content in the curriculum. Some schools of social work choose to infuse diversity and social justice content throughout their curricula. Other schools require students to take a separate course specifically on diversity and social justice, in addition to curricula infusion. Studies have examined the impact that diversity infusion has on changes in students’ knowledge, awareness, and skills about diversity; other studies have examined the impact that a separate diversity course has on these same indices. Lacking is a comprehensive examination on which of these two approaches is most effective. Such information is warranted because it could better inform how diversity education in social work gets incorporated into graduate programs. The current study compared the effectiveness of diversity infusion and separate diversity course approaches to diversity education.

Methods. This study was conducted in a school of social work at a large university in the Southeastern region of the US. This particular school revamped its curriculum and required a new diversity class for all incoming first year Masters students. The sample included 181 students, 84 first year (the “diversity course” group) and 97 second year (the “diversity infusion” group) students. The second year students were defined as the infusion group because they had already completed one year of coursework that infused diversity content throughout the curriculum. Overall, 88.1% of the sample was female, 45.1% were African American, and 48.3% were White.

A pre/post survey design was used for first year students, who were sampled at the beginning and end of the Fall semester. Second year students were sampled one time at the beginning of the Fall semester. Students completed a survey that contained measures of cultural responsiveness, color blindness, awareness of one’s own biases and beliefs, awareness of abilities to identify individual, institutional, and societal level oppression, and awareness of how culture influences one’s thinking and action.       

Results and Discussion. At the pre-test analysis, second year students rated higher than first year students on cultural responsiveness (t= -2.80, p< .01), and awareness of biases and beliefs (t= -2.54, p< .01). First year students rated higher on color blindness (t= 2.54, p= .01) at pre-test; the groups were comparable on all other indices. At post-test, first year students scored significantly higher on measures of ability to identify racism (t= 3.55, p< .001), sexism (t= 3.87, p< .001), heterosexism (t= 3.20, p< .001), classism (t= 2.67, p< .01), ableism (t= 2.82, p< .005), and institutional (t= 3.52, p< .001), societal (t= 3.20, p< .005), and individual (t= 3.99, p< .001) oppression, awareness of how culture influences one’s thinking (t= 2.50, p< .01) and action (t= 2.56, p< .01), and cultural responsiveness (t= 4.61, p< .001). There were no difference between the two groups in ratings on color blindness. Implications for diversity education in social work curriculum will be discussed.