A pedagogy of hope: the potential contributions of Alasdair MacIntyre’s Revolutionary Aristotelianism to critical social work education

This chapter shows how neoliberalism has undermined the role of activism in social work but suggests that critical social work education can reinvigorate opportunities for critique and action. It presents students' voices from two research projects, emphasising the components of social work education that had been formative in their development as activist practitioners. The chapter discusses a broad understanding of activism as "small acts of generosity or everyday refusals, as much as large scale gestures of organised protest". Social work education plays a fundamental role in shaping the development of future practitioners. The dominance of establishment social work education is at least partly attributable to neoliberal/managerial practices in universities that colonise learning, teaching and research. Critical pedagogy informed social work education begins with the contention that all knowledge is value-laden and therefore "inherently political". The chapter argues that critical social work education is fundamental in facilitating the development of critical practitioners that engage in activism.

The impacts of global capitalism and neoliberalism on higher education can reduce the social work curriculum to competency-based skills acquisition rather than critically reflective, transformative learning. This encourages the promotion of establishment social work approaches aimed at accepting the status quo, rather than critical forms of social work that critique the dominant social structures and power relations that cause broad social divisions. The marginalisation of critical approaches reshapes social work towards conservative, market-led demands, yet an explicitly critical social work curriculum is pivotal to the claim of social work as an emancipatory project. This article presents original research that discusses the impact of an Australia critical social work programme on students’ development as agents of change. The findings suggest that developing a curriculum based on critical social science, and using critical pedagogical processes, assists students/graduates to work effectively for social justice and promotes their participation in collective social action.

This chapter explores the ramifications for critical social work pedagogy when it is delivered online in a post-pandemic world, and in the context of accelerated time under neoliberalism. It brings together critical literature found in sociology of education, sociology of time, and social work education in order to theorise what actually happens to critical pedagogy in social work education when it is produced remotely through digitalised platforms. The chapter draws on different perspectives found in the critical literature on neoliberalism to discuss the ways in which neoliberalism has reconstituted universities and the lives of students and academic workers. It examines the possibilities and perils that exist when critical social work education goes online in the neoliberal university The suggestive acceleration theory is deployed in order to explain educators’ and students’ experiences of work intensification and time scarcity under neoliberalism.

This research study explored the perspectives of social work students (n = 118) in the final semester of their studies regarding the implementation of critical social work in their future practices. Using performance ethnographies to collect data, students were asked to share their perspectives about implementing critical social work both in individual interventions and as a way to change the practice of mainstream social work organisations. Research ethnographies were analysed using a descriptive phenomenological approach, in an attempt to describe the shared essential experience of participants. Results demonstrated that students are influenced by several lines of thinking that come into direct conflict with one another: (i) they feel that critical social work is essential for individual interventions while also feeling that critical social work is not a priority for individual interventions and (ii) they feel that critical social work should and could change mainstream social work organisations while also feeling that critical social work should not and could not change mainstream social work organisations. These results contribute to a better understanding of the barriers in implementing critical social work, as well as the dilemmas and questions that should be addressed in social work education. Implications for social work education are outlined.

Although critical social work (CSW) is an important framework for addressing racism and oppression within social work, few studies have examined CSW education. This study assessed CSW educational opportunities, student attitudes, and the effect of CSW exposure on student learning via a survey administered to undergraduate and graduate social work students (N=191). Findings suggest that students have a strong interest in CSW, but that classroom and field placement opportunities are inconsistent. Linear regression model results demonstrate that student knowledge of and interest in CSW are significant predictors of higher scores on the Diversity and Oppression Scale (Windsor et al., 2015). Based on the study findings, recommendations regarding curriculum development and field placement policies for social work educators are discussed.

This article introduces contemplative silence and the wholeness of being into critical social work education. It draws on in-depth interviews with students 1 year after the completion of a course to reflect on the impact of contemplative practice and mindfulness practice on the students' personal lives and critical social work practice. Students' reflection shows the power of contemplative pedagogy and mindfulness in deepening their awareness through the 5 senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste. They came to embody critical reflective practice in a way that is not achieved to the same depth through conventional teaching and learning of critical practice with only the mind.

This article argues that further enhancement of critical social work education and practice is needed to counter politicised and restrictive policies towards people seeking asylum in advanced globalised market economies. This means social workers giving more emphasis and prominence to the role of neoliberalism rather than solely focusing on the adverse moral and mental health impacts of state responses. Drawing on current debates and practices within critical social work and seven years’ experience in the Australian refugee sector, this article will demonstrate the punitive and deterrent configurations adopted by states like Australia to respond to people seeking asylum. The article then highlights the importance of social workers critically analysing historicised discourses which normalise such people as ‘dangerous’, ‘illegitimate’, ‘othered’ and a ‘burden’. Further interrogation of the social and cultural logic(s) of neoliberalism which serve to justify the former discourses will also be included. Finally, reflections on a range of strategies and solutions will be presented for critical social work educators and practitioners to resist and subvert neoliberalism and to secure better outcomes for people seeking asylum in Australia and elsewhere.

Recognizing the complexities of critical social work the authors use a metaphor of a traffic circle to survey the fundamental values, assumptions, theories, concepts, principles, and practices of critical social work. They then consider the relationship among ‘mainstream’, critical, and other marginalized social work perspectives. A subsequent exploration of the challenges and possibilities of critical practice is followed by a reflection on the processes of teaching and learning critical social work. The article does not presume a level of pre-existing social work knowledge or experience on the part of the reader and is therefore accessible and useful for scholars, teachers, students, and practitioners who are new to critical social work.
 KEYWORDS: Critical social work; social work education; practice fundamentals

The question of education for democratic ‘empowerment and liberation’, and how this might guide pedagogic practice is seldom raised and extremely challenging for social work education today. This chapter takes up the proposition that social work, through its educational practices, ‘can’ deliver on its promise of ‘democratic practice’ if democracy is understood as a process and not a predefined product. We argue that such a process and its embodiment in institutions cannot exist without the formation of radically democratic subjects, people (including social workers) capable of questioning dominant social forms and of creating new forms and practices. Accordingly, this chapter explores the educational implications for social work of the work of the revolutionary theorist, Cornelius Castoriadis (1921–1997). Castoriadis’ philosophy accords a crucial role to democratic pedagogy (paideía) as an essential form of praxis in the creation of a radically democratic, egalitarian and sustainable society. In particular, we examine his idea (against (neo)liberal individualisation) that ‘autonomy’ is simultaneously an individual and social project that begins in, and is always dependent upon, individual and collective self-reflection. This argument is illustrated by examples from the authors’ classroom experiences of teaching both critical reflection and critical social theory to social work students in Australian universities, on the premise that both are indispensable in social work education as a democratic practice for ‘empowerment and liberation’. The chapter outlines a brief discussion of Castoriadis, his main ideas and the pedagogic dimensions of his philosophy before bringing the latter to bear on the authors’ teaching experiences.

ABSTRACTThis paper uses critical reflection as its primary methodology to research one Master of Social Work student’s former practice experiences as an Australian immigration officer. The paper contextualizes the study by offering a critical analysis of hegemonic constructions of asylum seekers in Australia, which are reflected in Australian law and policy, as well as potentially influencing social work practice. Critical reflection on one of the author’s practice provides a rich case study that reveals the tensions of government-employed social workers in restrictive environments, and the espoused social justice values of the profession. The findings hold implications for both social work education and practice, suggesting that critical social work education, and in particular, the use of critical analysis and reflection, can improve ethical practice with refugees and asylum seekers.

Co-designing with service users is an increasingly common practice in social and community service organizations and one that graduate social workers are likely to encounter. The potential benefits of using co-design for social work are that service users become active participants in problem solving and develop creative solutions to social issues that may not be achieved by more traditional methods of intervention. However, co-design in social work education is considered a novel approach to working with diverse stakeholders to address issues of mutual concern. Therefore, graduates may not be equipped to engage with co-design and other forms of design thinking are through a critical lens. Herein lies a challenge. How might social work academics equip students with co-design skills in ways that complement critical social work ethics, practices and values? This paper analyzes the alignment of critical social work with the problem-solving focus of co-design and examines the implications for social work academics when preparing graduates to work in critical and creative ways within organizations employing social workers. This article makes an original contribution to the emerging literature on social work education and co-design in neoliberal contexts.

This article considers critical social work education within the context of the challenges associated with the increasingly neoliberal, corporate and competitive nature of higher education and human service provision. The metaphor of maps is used as a framework for exploring the potential for transformational learning opportunities associated with alternative ways of thinking about teaching and learning. Countering the neoliberal tendency to depoliticise, metaphors of maps and map-reading, as discussed here and applied to social work education, evoke diverse perspectives and engagements in relation to the politics of knowledge, knowing, theory and practice. In emphasising the partiality of knowledge, the indivisibility of the ‘knower’ and the ‘known’ and, as such, the personal and the professional, efforts to cultivate critical consciousness, thus, enable different conversations. The central premise of this article is that in offering opportunities for engagement which open up rather than close down the space for meaningful dialogue, educators may contribute, in profound ways, to both student development and the (re)shaping of public discourse.

Human Centred Design (HCD) is emerging in Australia as a participatory approach to service design in social work and human services organisations. In this article, we reflect upon our incorporation of HCD into a core unit offered to final-year students in a Bachelor of Social Work (Honours) degree, as part of a collaboration between design and social work academics. We highlight successes and challenges, and identify adaptations that can provide HCD with a stronger strength-based, critical approach that better aligns with critical social work education. We provide suggestions for social work practitioners and educators around implementing HCD, in ways that inspire critical and reflexive thinking, promote social justice and focus on designing for progressive, structural and social change.

Colonial critical social work education is a strange place. It professes a goal of social justice but subscribes to an often-unconscious compliance with what has been named as ‘colonial’ or ‘white time’. White time sets and enforces limits for the completion of courses, programmes and assignments. Such colonial chrononormativity also sets and enforces what counts as and in history. In this article, we question this time compliance, tracing literature on critical temporalities that take up, for example, crip, queer and pandemic time. Drawing on abolitionist work, we then outline how colonial time may also be transcarceral, that is, confining and punishing, especially when we commit time-crime and ‘miss’ a deadline. Indeed, by delving into the little-known but violent history of deadlines, we hope to encourage more refusals of transcarceral time, as well as deliberate discussions that create space for a range of temporalities in our classrooms and beyond.

This article draws from my involvement in critical social work education and my position as an aspiring ally of the Mad movement in the Irish context. I use a reflexive auto-critique as a methodology to consider a significant shift in my engagement with Mad matters which has led to new ways of (un)learning critically about madness and distress in education and activism. This is a shift from celebrating criticality and inclusion strategies, and in particular service-user involvement in education, to problematising criticality and its potential to perpetuate power inequalities within mental health and education systems. It is a shift from viewing critical education as a process of knowing about distress and Mad people to a process of knowing with and from Mad people, service-users, and survivors. The emerging field of Mad Studies provides a conceptual framework to inquire about knowledge and knowers, to consider issues of co-option and epistemic injustice, to focus on pedagogies for unlearning, to ask questions about representational politics and the complexities of being an engaged academic and Mad positive ally. Guided by Mad Studies as a mode of analysis, I recognise that inclusion of madness in university curricula can work in ways that continue to pathologise and subjugate Mad people. This is an unsettling recognition that leads to an interrogation of my own praxis as an academic and an aspiring ally of the Mad moment. I propose that prefigurative politics are central in these considerations as genuine engagements with mental health matters need to model the changes we aim to achieve. Engaging with the tensions of inclusion politics, the complexities of madness, and the unsettledness this engagement generates, can be a source of knowing through epistemic humility and a resource for networks of solidarity.