Not ‘everything’s a learning experience’: racialized, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQ, and disabled students in social work field placements

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper critically explores the implicit and explicit message that ‘everything’s a learning experience’ when social work students engage in practice/community contexts as part of their professional training. It does so by reporting findings from focus groups, interviews and an online survey about the field education experiences of racialized, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQ and disabled social work students. According to these students, messaging that ‘everything’s a learning experience’ demands their adaptation to issues arising in placement as ‘opportunities for learning’, rather than recognizing how, at times, this ‘learning’ can entail corrosive instances of inequity, harm, neglect, and/or the additional demands of diversity or emotion work. Students described components of their placement experiences that they felt didn’t contribute—and, in many cases, actively interfered with—their learning. These experiences and concerns unfold against a backdrop of increasing constraint in the social service sector. We show how common placement discourses and expectations—intersecting with placement shortages—are having detrimental effects on students, and encourage specific attention to how students from equity-seeking groups are affected. We offer an analysis of the ‘crisis in field’ from the perspectives of these racialized, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQ and disabled students.