The elephant in the room: teaching race in consensus

Abstract

ABSTRACT Clear instruction and dialogue on race are necessary as social workers desire to be part of freeing the world of racial bias. The social work profession can adopt and support clear definitions that strengthen the educational content being produced in the classroom as it relates to teaching race in consensus. This qualitative study examines the varying degrees of how licensed social workers define race. The sample consisted of 82 licensed social workers. Majority of the participants were White (69%; n = 57), female (92%; n = 76), 21 to 35 years of age (42%; n = 35), Licensed Master level social workers (68%; n = 56) who had been in practice for three to eight years (46%; n = 38). Researchers used analytic strategies to identify words or phrases from participant responses of how they defined ‘race.’ The responses for race definitions were collapsed into five thematic concepts: Culturally Based, Personal Identification, Color Classification, Biological Essentialism, and Origin. The overall findings support a limited ability of helping professionals to clearly define race for themselves or their clients.