The State of Feminism in Social Work Education: A Scoping Review

Background/Purpose

Feminist theory and practice is multidimensional and includes the intersection of gender, race, sexual orientation and ability based oppression. Values including empowering the oppressed and promoting gender equality are important in social work.  More research is needed to understand the extent to which feminist theories and practices are utilized in social work. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which feminist teaching methods were conceptualized and utilized in social work classrooms.

 

Methods

A scoping review was performed in accordance with the procedures recommended by Arksey & O'Malley (2005). The searched databases included Social Services Abstracts, Social Work Abstracts, Social Science Citation Index (Web of Science) and PsycINFO. The identified keywords were (Feminis* or womanis*) AND social work education* AND (“social work” OR train OR teach”) and (feminis* OR womanis*) AND ("social work*" n4 (educat* OR train* OR teach*)). The inclusion criteria were recent publications, (2000-2016) from peer-reviewed journals that were related to feminist social work education in the US. Each researcher read the abstracts and articles to eliminate those that did not meet the inclusion criteria. A table was created to summarize and organize the articles as they were read. Articles that appeared to violate the inclusion criteria were discussed, and a third researcher was consulted to reach final consensus.

 

Results

After removal of duplicates, 120 peer reviewed articles were retained, of which 57 met the inclusion criteria.  After articles were further reviewed, 29 were eliminated due to lack of relevance to US social work education or lack of feminist pedagogical strategies, and finally N=28 articles remained.  Of the 28 articles retained, 4 were quantitative, 13 were qualitative, 8 were conceptual/theoretical, 2 were historic biographies and 1 was editorial.  The included articles had relatively small sample sizes (ranging from n=1 to n=233).  Feminist social work education practices included adopting a lens of intersectionality, recognizing dynamics of power/privilege, inclusivity, reflexivity, empowerment and activism.  Implementation of feminist classroom strategies among social work scholars was inconsistent.  There was a lack of empirical evidence that supported the implementation of feminist teaching strategies in social work classrooms. 

 

Conclusions and Implications

Guidelines for feminist teaching methods need to be established and implemented in the classroom setting to promote gender equality in social work. This includes understanding and utilizing intersectionality, and being inclusive of all students regardless of gender, race/ethnicity, ability and sexual orientation.  In addition, professors must implement reflexive classroom practices for both professors and students as well as critical examinations of the dynamics of power and privilege.  Professors must also support the activism and empowerment strategies of students in an effort to fight oppression and discrimination in the classroom and academic community.