Is Anti-Oppression Teaching in Canadian Social Work Classrooms a Form of Neo-Liberalism?

Abstract

This paper explores how the anti-oppression framework in the curriculum of schools of social work in Canada is co-opted into the neo-liberal and post-colonial structures of the wider society. First, the authors critically examine why an element of oppression either becomes essentialized as an autonomous site, that is, de-historicized, or understood in binary or dichotomous ways (i.e. black/white, gay/not gay) within the anti-oppressive framework. Second, the authors show how forms of safe knowledge are produced in the academy as faculty draw on their privileged social locations of teaching, while engaging in critical and progressive social change work that reflects their scholarship interest areas. Third, the authors suggest ways in which the anti-oppression framework itself can be challenged to make it a more viable and useful approach in social work classrooms.