Challenging Paternalism in Social Work Research

Paternalism is a characteristic of white supremacy culture that counteracts anti-racist and anti-oppressive efforts in social work. White social work is rooted in paternalism and saviorism. The Charity Organization Society positioned social workers as experts whose role was to correct the perceived moral deficiencies of the clients they served. A desire to professionalize the field in response to Flexner's speech in 1915 facilitated the adoption and application of the medical model to social work practice, which further entrenched paternalism into the cultural practices of the field. Paternalism permeates all areas of social work, including social work research. Social work's ethical mandate to serve historically excluded individuals and communities is at odds with the paternalistic approach embedded in both social work and larger systems of research. The potential of research to subjugate participants and their knowledge risks further harming the very populations social work aims to serve. The literature on paternalism in research is primarily the work of bioethicists and centers on the protection of research participants and the informed consent process. This literature constructs participants as unqualified and concludes that paternalism in research is justified because of the belief that "subjects" suffer from deficiencies or impairments that make them incapable of protecting their own interests. These dominant ethical frameworks inappropriately regulate perceived deficiencies of participants rather than deficiencies in systems of research oversight or the research process. Discussions of paternalism in social work research have been largely absent from social work research, although some approaches, such as community-based participatory research, offer methods that challenge paternalism. This roundtable session responds to the call from SSWR's Research Capacity and Development Committee to dismantle white supremacy in social work and will provide a forum for presenters and participants to collectively explore and critically challenge paternalism in social work research. The session will include a brief discussion of paternalism as a characteristic of white supremacy culture to underscore the relationship between paternalism in social work research and anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices. Presenters will share insights related to their experiences as a postdoctoral fellow conducting research with formerly incarcerated people, a former university IRB Chair and associate dean for research and faculty development, a director of a center focused on the research and scholarship of Latinx faculty, a scholar-activist who utilizes community-based participatory research methods, and a director of a center focused on health equity. These varied roles and experiences provide different perspectives on how paternalism is embedded in social work research education, publication practices, human subjects oversight, and promotion and tenure standards. Participants will be invited to reflect on their own observations of paternalism in social work research as well as potential strategies, or antidotes, to this approach to research. This roundtable provides an important opportunity to bring this discussion to social work and reorient long-standing approaches to social work research and reduce the harms of participant subjugation.