(WITHDRAWN) Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis to Explore the Impact of Critically-Engaged Pedagogies

Social work education is the point of origin for instilling the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed by social workers to address race-related disparities that are recursively created within discriminatory systems (Reskin, 2012; Wheeler-Brooks, 2009; Witkin, 2014). Social work educational spaces have the potential to create a transformative learning experience, but scholars have continued to question the white dominant epistemologies and theories embedded in social work curricula as well as the failures to address power, structural inequities, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness (Aguilar & Counselman-Carpenter, 2021; Corely & Young, 2018).

Historically, most social work programs have not focused on teaching students to address racism and the systemic roots of oppression because a majority of students enter social work with an interest in clinical practice and direct service to individuals and families (Pulliam, 2017; Hanna et al., 2021). Further analyses of social work curricula have found the literature contained within is most often focused on the individual, failing to address white supremacy, power, and structural inequities (Abrams & Moio, 2009; Mehrotra et al., 2018; Polk et al., 2021).

To better understand the ways in which social work curricula can potentially teach clinical students how to address systems of oppression, the purpose of the study was to explore how MSW students made meaning of a course that used critically-engaged pedagogies to develop critical consciousness about structural racism (Freire, 1973; hooks, 1994).

The study was conducted using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), a qualitative approach that co-constructs detailed accounts and interpretations of meaning behind a participant’s lived experience (Smith et al., 2022; Tuffour, 2017). The course that was the subject of the study, Social Work and Mass Incarceration, integrated critically-engaged pedagogies that encouraged students to critique and reimagine structural racism in the criminal legal system, and to extend that knowledge by analyzing other discriminatory systems (Reskin, 2012; Richie & Martensen, 2020; Sousa-Meixell, et al., 2021). The study explored eight participants’ perceptions about meaning making using in-depth, semi-structured interviews, assignment reviews, and member checking.

Based on the analysis and interpretation of data collected, several themes emerged for the researcher that describe how participants made meaning of the course. Three of the primary themes were participants (1) developing transformative consciousness about structural racism; (2) critically reflecting on discrepancies between the college’s MSW curriculum and its stated mission and vision; and (3) encountering the course differently based on their social identity.

Findings revealed that participants made meaning of the course in ways that can illuminate future research on curriculum design, pedagogical strategies, and academic recruitment. For example, participants of all social identities (Black, Hispanic, and White) stated their experience of the implicit and explicit curriculum was positively impacted by having a Black male professor teaching the course and creating a safe learning environment for students. Further research is needed to increase understanding about how to facilitate students’ critical consciousness about structural racism and how that knowledge transfers to social work practice, especially for White students who have no lived experience of structural racism.