Applying an Intersectional and Multi-Systemic Level Approach to Adei Institutional Assessments in Social Work Higher Education

Background and Purpose: The 2022 EPAS call for methodologically developed assessments to guide Anti-racist, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ADEI) strategies for change, as part of the standards for social work education and practice. Currently, there is no consistency in what schools of social work use to develop or assess ADEI standards or goals. This study explored community based participatory research methods, from a decolonial and intersectional approach, in the process of institutional reflexivity at a school of social work within a northeastern public university in the United States. The research question guiding this project was: What new institutional assessment tool can capture the multiple levels at which power manifests (socio-ecosystemic model) and the intersectional ideologies of dominance (intersectionality framework) upholding coloniality (decolonial framework) within social work education institutions? A new tool and model for Anti-racism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ADEI) institutional assessment in social work higher education was developed using an intersectional and multi-systemic level approach.

Methods: Two sub-aims were achieved: 1) the development and refinement of the new tool; and 2) collaboration with stakeholders in further refining and pilot testing the tool. Individual semi-structured interview sessions were used to collect data through the use of critical pedagogical practice, story-telling, and counter-mapping. This project draws inspiration from counter-mapping as a practice of truth-telling and refuting colonial erasure of interpersonal, cultural, structural and systemic injustices. Two subsets of participants were recruited for this study: a) content experts (n=4) in social justice work collaborated with the researcher in the process of refining the tool; and, b) an MSW program’s stakeholders (n=8) (students, faculty, staff). Content experts and stakeholders represented a diverse representation of historically marginalized positionalities.

Results: The tool successfully integrated the four key elements which were identified as objectives for the tool based on the review of the literature and participant input. Preliminary findings from pilot testing the new tool reflect that the new Mapping Institutional Coloniality Assessment Tool (MICAT) successfully gathers and documents examples of coloniality as presented from the perspective of social work education stakeholders by integrating two critical domains: Ideologies of Dominance and Socio-ecosystemic Levels at which power manifests. The MICAT collected close to 200 examples of coloniality over the course of eight individual semi-structured interview sessions pilot testing the tool. Visual content analysis and deductive thematic analysis of the data point to the ubiquity of coloniality within and around social work higher education.

Conclusions and Implications: Robust qualitative data was collected with a relatively small, yet diverse, number of stakeholder participants. Findings revealed a wide range of institutional dynamics which align with existing literature regarding coloniality in higher education and the multiple effects of ideologies of dominance being embedded in the very fabric of modern life. This approach deviated from traditional positivist methods of instrument development and testing through metrics and quantitative approaches for standardization. Research-based institutional ADEI tools and assessment models are needed to support schools of social work in demonstrating compliance with CSWE’s 2022 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS).