Assessing the Use of Journaling As a Pedagogical Tool to Discuss Implicit and Explicit Bias in a Social Justice Course

Background and Purpose: Though social work students are taught in BSW programs to recognize and confront bias in others, students are oftentimes unable to identify their own biases. This requires a pedagogy that explores the emotional and intellectual influences of students (Jeffery, 2005; Webb, 2002) and one way to do that is through transformative learning opportunities. One specific example of transformative learning that we highlight is journaling. Journaling allows students to make sense of their experiences while challenging existing schemas with new information (Merriam & Bierema, 2014). The purpose of this study is to assess the use of journaling as a pedagogical tool to discuss implicit and explicit bias in a bachelor's level Social Justice course.

Methods: This is an exploratory study that uses a survey given to two different cohorts in 2023. Thirty-four of the 38 (89%) enrolled students chose to participate in the optional survey. Several questions were based on the demographics of the participants, and the remaining questions inquired about the student's opinions of the journaling experience. The questions used a 2-point word scale where Yes=1 and No=0. The surveys were distributed in class by a professor who did not teach the course at the end of the semester. The surveys were returned to the non-teaching professor once all students finished the survey.

Findings: The results show that the use of journaling in the social justice class supports critical personal reflection regarding the professional and personal bias of the practitioner. Female students found journaling supportive at 93% (n=27) and male students found it more supportive at 100% (n=7). Caucasian students (n=16), black students (n=10), and American Indian students (n=1) found it most supportive at 100% while bi-racial students (n=5) found it less supportive at 80%, and Hispanic students (n=2) found it least supportive at 50%. Traditional aged students (34) felt journaling to be supportive at 86%. Students enrolled in the social work major (n=15) agreed that journaling was supportive at 87% whereas students enrolled in other majors found it to be more supportive at 100% (n=19). Freshman students (n=8) found it to be more supportive at 100%, whereas sophomores found it less supportive at 95% (n=19), and juniors found journaling to be least supportive in critical personal reflection at 86% (n=7).

Conclusion and Implications: Descriptive statistics confirm that journaling can be an innovative approach to discussing implicit and explicit bias in social work. This study highlights that this experience will help all students to become better engaged with and build critical thinking and analytical skills in social justice issues. Our experience shows that the use of journaling in the social justice classroom holds promise in advancing student learning and can be used to guide difficult conversations.