Reflective Practice: A Discourse Approach for Social Work Education

Reflection in social work education and professional development has been the topic of much discussion and research in the field with debates surrounding what methods best encourage reflexive thinking (Burr, Blyth, Sutcliffe, King, 2016; Ruch, 2010). Particularly given the move toward evidence-based practice, critical reflection allows practitioners to relate theory to practice (Knott and Scragg, 2010). Ixer (1999) suggests that “reflection” is a complex process that is largely unknown and perhaps needs more unpacking. His statement is reiterated by colleagues in the field of education who suggest that the term “reflection” itself is often unspecified along with attendant principles (e.g. establish “rapport”) (Walsh, 2015; Sert, 2016). What does the development of rapport look like? Do we know how clients discursively signal delicate or uncomfortable topics, anxiety, or resistance? How do social workers balance the roles of practitioner and bureaucratic manager through their talk with clients? What kinds of verbal cues to social workers use to organize and control talk? Given the movement toward client-centered practice (Rogers, 1959) and relationship-based social work (Ruch, Turney, and Ward, 2010), how do we as practitioners create verbal spaces for client-centeredness in managerial systems that narrow participation through required forms and computerized documentation (Matarese & Caswell, under review)?

These questions can be answered by integrating a discourse analytic approach into reflective practice, an approach that White and Stancombe (2003) have argued is useful for evidence-based practice in social work. Social work interaction research is widely conducted outside of the United States (Hall, Sarangi, and Slembrouck, 2006; Hall, Juhila, van Nijnatten, Matarese, 2015), and in fields like medicine/public health and education discourse analysis has been widely used, solving problems in client satisfaction (Heritage and Robinson, 2002), client participation (Jacknick, 2011, Waring, DATE), and the like. Social work in the United States, however, has been slow to take up the mantle of discourse analytic research. Nevertheless, U.S. studies have examined caseworker documentation and performance management (Matarese and Caswell, under review), social work client insistence (Matarese and van Nijnatten, 2014), and social worker constructions of responsibility and accountability vis-à-vis time benchmarks (Matarese, in progress).

This workshop leads social work students and researchers through an approach for “reflective-on-action” (Schon, 2002) reflective practice. Using social work data collected through an interactional ethnography of a homeless shelter in an urban metropolis, I examine a series of commonly analyzed discursive practices in social work research, including talk revealing delicacy and discomfort, resistance, insistence, practitioner and client roles, and responsibility and accountability. You will learn about how to use discourse analysis in your own reflective practice, as well as in creating professional development programs for your practitioners. Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (Stokoe, 2014) and similar discourse-based approaches for reflective practice are discussed. The workshop includes time for attendees to practice their new skills, as well as to suggest implications of the approach and areas for future exploration and research.