Critical Feminist Rapid Action Scholarship: A Methodological Case Study

Background: At the Council of Social Work Education’s 2022 Annual Program Meeting, allegations of harassment and discrimination were posted on social media. In the aftermath, our team decided to conduct what we understand to be the first-ever study of harassment and discrimination in social work academia. Using elements of rapid assessment procedures (RAP) (Harris et al., 1997), we undertook a mixed-methods study to explore: 1) the extent of observed and directly experienced harassment and discrimination; 2) the nature of the experiences; 3) perceived responses from external parties; 4) reactions and/or behavioral changes among persons experiencing harassment or discrimination; and 5) open-response reflections. Below we discuss why and how we applied the RAP framework to critical feminist scholarship, and some of our key takeaways in terms of went well and what to do differently in subsequent research.

Rapid Assessment in Critical Feminist Scholarship: Sudden or disruptive events that have immediate and broad community-level impact, e.g., public health or natural disasters, often require timely research responses to collect the most relevant data and to provide the most practical solutions or recommendations to mitigate negative impacts as soon as possible. They also draw on “community insiders... to inform the design and implementation” of the research (Harris et al, 1997, p. 375). In sum, three key characteristics of RAP are timeliness, use of insiders, and practical implications.

RAP has rarely been applied in a critical way to respond to socially disruptive events. We felt that the social work academic community needed timely information and practical recommendations for how to ensure that we minimize the risk of this happening at future conferences. Our team, academic community insiders with diverse experiences and positionalities, met almost immediately after the conference to design the study. In so doing, our objective was to generate timely and practical information for CSWE and other academic societies.

Our team adopted another element of RAP - mixed-methods approach. While we sought to quantify harassment and discrimination, we also wanted to capture the quality of the experiences. Given the potential to access a broader sample of participants from sponsoring organizations’ mailing lists and listservs, we designed an online, anonymous survey and included an open-ended question inviting respondents to share their own stories of harassment or discrimination or any additional reflections.

Takeaways: Our team’s commitment to rigorous research methods, in a rapid timeframe, was a strength. Our diverse roles, lived insider experiences with discrimination and harassment, subject matter expertise, and connections to national social work organizations ensured that we did not re-traumatize respondents or “blame the victim.” Moreover, despite the desire to launch the study quickly, we ensured that we had IRB approval before doing so.

Future research would benefit from in-depth interviews. Over 60% of survey respondents took the time to answer the open-ended questions, and many wrote paragraph-length testimonies. Secondly, we see a need for longer-term research testing theoretically informed models that would help explain risk and protective factors and inform interventions that can be tested through a rigorous intervention science model.