White MSW Students' Awareness of Racism and Engagement in Anti-Racist Practice

Background & Purpose

In the summer of 2020, weeks of mass protests followed the murder of George Floyd, reigniting outrage over police brutality and the extrajudicial killing of Black people. These protests were the largest in U.S. history (Buchanan et al., 2020), and mobilized White people to participate in record numbers (Harmon & Travernise, 2020). As justice-based professionals, social workers must be among those advocating for policies that advance racial justice. Awareness and skills for anti-racism should be central in social work education. White students, who constitute half of MSW students (CSWE, 2020), need to examine the ways in which they themselves benefit from racism and commit to working for racial justice (Deepak & Biggs, 2011; Hamilton-Mason & Schneider, 2018). This study describes White students’ affective responses to racism, engagement in anti-racist behaviors, and the relationship between these concepts.

Methods

Participants (N=1,123) were MSW students in CSWE-accredited programs. Program directors were asked to share the survey link with their students. The survey included Likert-scale questions about racial justice and social work education, the Psychosocial Costs of Racism to Whites Scale (PCRW) (Spanierman & Heppner, 2004), and the Anti-Racism Behavioral Inventory (ARBI) (Pieterse et al., 2016). Data were uploaded to SPSS and analyzed using descriptive statistics.

Results

Participants (N=1,123) were White MSW students. Mean age was 30.8 years (SD=9.0). Most participants (86.2%) self-identified as female, 8.7% male, and 5.1% non-binary. Half of participants (51.3%) started their program in 2020. Most participants (93.1%) agreed that the profession is committed to racial justice, and many learned about anti-racism in their classes (83.4%) and field placements (61.7%).

Reponses on the 16-item PCRW used a six-point Likert scale; higher scores mean higher levels of the constructs measured in the subscales. The mean total score was 60.92 (SD=8.01) with mean responses on subscales of 5.2 (moderately agree) for White Empathy, 3.8 (slightly agree) for White Guilt, and 2.2 (moderately disagree) for White Fear.

Responses on the 21-item ARBI used a five-point Likert scale; higher scores indicate more awareness of racism, individual, and institutional advocacy for anti-racism. The mean total score was 79.51 (SD=12.09), with mean responses on subscales of 4.22 (agree to strongly agree) for Awareness, 4.04 (agree) for Individual Advocacy, and 2.72 (disagree to neutral) for Institutional Advocacy. There was a significant positive relationship between PCRW and ARBI scores (r=0.326, p=0.000). There was no relationship between scores and program start date.

Conclusions & Implications

There was a relationship between the psychosocial cost of racism and anti-racist awareness, individual advocacy, and institutional advocacy for White MSW students. The findings suggest a need for social work educators to use pedagogical approaches to support White MSW students’ progression from developing awareness to taking action, especially in the area of institutional advocacy, which was much lower than individual advocacy. Further research should explore how social work education can support anti-racist practice, as students who had been in the program longer were no more likely to be aware or engage in advocacy than those who were new to the program.