Social worker and immigrant client experiences in multicultural service provision: Educational implications

Abstract

Social work education, while committed to preparing students for anti-oppressive practice with immigrants and refugees, has not always been successful in achieving this goal. Student knowledge about and interest in cross-cultural practice, as evidenced in Canadian and US studies, often remains superficial and marginalized. This may in part be due to a lack of inclusion of practice wisdom and lived experiences of front-line practitioners and their clients. To remedy this deficit, 13 Canadian social workers of varied cultural backgrounds providing services in inner-city schools and 19 immigrant clients were interviewed in-depth to ascertain their perceptions of central elements of anti-oppressive practice with immigrant populations. Results yielded two major themes: Multifaceted Perception of Self and Other , which pertained to a recognition that culture was multifaceted, complex, and defined interactively; and Proactive Service Delivery , which pertained to active worker involvement in cultural bridging, brokering and advocacy. Implications for anti-oppressive social work education include a focus on multifaceted definition of culture, and admissions policies that promote multilingual, multicultural competencies.