Session: "the Greatest Humanistic and Historical Task of the Oppressed: To Liberate Themselves": Integrating Critical Consciousness in Research to Achieve Equity and Justice (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

Background and Purpose: Critical consciousness, developed by Paulo Freire, empowers individuals with the awareness, skills, and knowledge to critically examine their sociopolitical environment and take informed action toward liberation and social change. While critical consciousness has been widely applied in social work education and practice to support students and practitioners in developing the knowledge and skills needed to help clients and communities challenge systems of oppression, its use in social work research remains less explored. The purpose of this symposium is to demonstrate how critical consciousness can inform the framing of research designs, used as a critical variable in statistical models, and serve as an intervention tool in social work research. As research aimed at revealing and addressing the harmful effects of discriminatory and oppressive systems, particularly those targeting vulnerable populations such as communities of color, sexual and gender minorities, and low-income groups is increasingly under attack and facing defunding, it is imperative for social work researchers to remain steadfast in their commitment to designing and conducting studies that expose, challenge, and dismantle these systems in pursuit of collective liberation.

Methods and Results: The papers presented in this symposium offer conceptual frameworks, used scoping review and quantitative methodologies, and implements an intervention that centers critical consciousness as a tool in achieving equity and justice in social work research.

The first paper presents a critical framework in designing quantitative studies that is grounded in critical consciousness using Critical Quantitative Methods (CQM) to evaluate structural factors that engenders systemic and institutional inequities that harms marginalized populations.

The second paper employs the Transformative Racial Equity Framework (TREF) rooted in critical consciousness to conduct an analysis of students from a large urban public school district using multilevel mixed-effects methods to examine the structural factors contributing to being overage for grade levels. School poverty and suspension rates were associated with being overage, primarily among Black and male students.

The third paper examines whether critical consciousness can moderate the relationship of heterosexist discrimination and use of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and cannabis vaping in a sample of sexual minorities. Critical consciousness moderated the aforementioned relationship and served as a protective factor from discrimination and use of some of the substances.

The fourth paper conducts a scoping review of interventions that use critical consciousness as a form of intervention in studies focusing on health and well-being as outcomes. Twelve papers were identified that cultivated positive health behaviors and encouraged participants to engage in advocacy to change their sociopolitical environment.

The fifth paper discusses the development and preliminary findings of the pilot of a randomized controlled trial of Mindfulness-Based Critical Consciousness Training for Teachers (MBCC-T). Results reveal promising evidence for the intervention's feasibility and acceptability, and improvements in multicultural teaching competence among participants in the experimental group.

Conclusion: The papers in the proposed symposia offer an extensive selection of how critical consciousness can be used in different types and stages of research that can enhance social work research and inform practice to challenge oppressive systems and attain equity and justice.