Multiplicitous Vectors of Knowledge: A Multi-Case Classroom Ethnography of Antiracism Pedagogies and Racial Learning in MSW Diversity and Social Justice Courses

Background and Purpose: The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) accreditation commission filed an amendment to its recent social work accreditation policy, which states that programs must demonstrate “explicit curriculum related to antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion” that advance students’ racial consciousness and foster equitable and inclusive learning environments, in all curricular efforts (CSWE, 2022). Studies of social work education conclude that diversity, and social justice competencies taught in designated and required diversity and social justice (DSJ) courses provide a means to benchmark racial learning outcomes and convey the field’s commitment to equity. However, the learning processes and effects of race-centered education approaches, including their benefits to students and society, are loosely examined and theorized in social work education studies.

Although CSWE’s intention to develop race-conscious professionals is evident, few empirical studies define the measures, markers, or outcomes, of racial literacy and knowledge, and many center measures that are informed by multiculturalist frameworks. By examining antiracism pedagogies, scholars can address the conceptual and empirical limitations of studies that adapt cultural competence and other multicultural education conceptual constructs in analyses of DSJ course effects, that seek to understand students’ racial learning and consciousness. This study explores social work’s enactment of anti-racism pedagogies to understand the learning processes and outcomes that shape students’ training within present-day sociopolitical imperatives for racial justice. As such, this study seeks to understand how DSJ courses that include antiracist pedagogies promote students’ racial learning and, potentially, the development of racial consciousness.

Methods: The study adapts a qualitative critical constructivist methodology to illuminate how participants make meaning of antiracist teaching and learning within racialized learning ecologies. The analysis incorporates a conceptual framework that integrates Adult Learning and Education with an explicit focus on Transformative Learning Theory and Sociocultural and Sociopolitical perspectives, to highlight barriers and opportunities to racial learning outcomes and racial consciousness development in graduate-level DSJ courses. Using multi-site ethnographic methods informed by Critical Race Theory philosophical insights that attend to instructors’ and students’ sense-making about curriculum and pedagogy, the study approach addresses the following research question: How and to what extent do courses that seek to teach antiracist competencies and content using antiracist pedagogies shape graduate students’ racial learning?

Data collection included course observations and fieldnotes in a 15-week semester, artifact data, as well as longitudinal interview data from instructors and a subset of enrolled students within a designated DSJ course in an MSW program. Analytic procedures were conducted through an abductive analytic approach which included deductive analyses, informed by key theoretical concepts and inductive analyses grounded in the data.

Conclusions and Implications: One key finding from the study demonstrates how teaching practices that converge critical epistemologies of political and economic systems with principles of universal design, promote multiplicitous vectors of racial knowledge and meaning-making within and beyond the classroom. Students’ capacity for iterative racial learning fosters ongoing criticality about race, racism, and racialization in social work practice. This study contributes to social work scholarship that advances antiracism education among graduate student learners.