Critical Social Work Research: Prioritizing Marginalized Lived Experiences & Structural Change

Background: Black, Indigenous, Women of Color (BIWOC) have experienced historic forms of oppression, including but not limited to enslavement, lynching, stigmatization of welfare, economic exploitation, and sterilization abuse (Jones & Guy-Sheftall, 2015). As a result of these compounding and reinforcing forms of discrimination, prejudice, and bias, BIWOC experience a higher incidence of stress-related illnesses (Belgrave & Abrams, 2016), are at greater risk for gender-based and institutional violence (Jones, 2014), are employed at lower wages (Childers, Hegewisch, & Mefferd, 2021), have a lower median net worth (Brown 2012), and maintain significantly lower levels of representation in positions of power compared to men and white women in the United States. Similar outcomes are present for LGBTQ+ people as well. The LGBTQ+ community is at higher risk of unemployment, food and housing insecurity, school bullying, and unaddressed mental health issues; these trends are exacerbated for LGBTQ+ BIPOC. The proposed research project seeks to determine the extent to which the field of social work prioritizes issues of social justice, power, and structural inequality in mainstream social work research. More specifically, this study examines to what extent the profession of social work centralizes the lived experiences of BIWOC and LGBTQ+ people in its collective research agenda for the purpose of working toward transformative structural change and social reform.

Methods: I applied a purposive sampling method for conducting a content analysis examining peer-reviewed research articles from the three mainstream social work journals. I define the included journals as mainstream because they each publish on a wide variety of research topics and social issues and hold a relatively high impact factor in the field of social work. The first wave of the study includes research articles published in each of these journals between the years 2015-2018. The second wave of data includes articles published between the years of 2019-2022. Key variables include the following: (1) the inclusion of race, gender, and/or sexuality; (2) whether or not the race, gender, and/or sexuality variables are structural; (3) intersectionality variable; (4) use of critical theories and frameworks.

Results: Preliminary findings (2015-2018) show a significant dearth of research examining sexism, racism, heterosexism, and the intersections of these. In fact, the first wave of data (N=404) showed that only twelve articles (2.9%) investigated the experiences of Black, Indigenous, Women of Color (BIWOC), five articles (1.2%) centralized the experiences of LBTQ+ folx, and three articles (0.7%) included the experiences of LGBTQ+ BIWOC. Additionally, few studies (2.4%) applied critical frameworks and methodologies to these ends. I have received funding to complete collection of the second wave of data (2019-2022) in summer of 2023.

Conclusions/Implications: Many social workers are pushing for a critical shift in the profession that centralizes large-scale structural change such as eradicating sexism, racism, heterosexism/homophobia, and the intersections of these (Marston & McDonald, 2012). This research illustrates a disconnect between the profession of social work’s values and collective research agenda and seeks to provide pathways for more effectively researching and addressing persistent structural issues faced by marginalized groups.