Interracial Team Teaching in Social Work Education
A Pedagogical Approach to Dismantling White Supremacy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18060/24176Keywords:
Social work education, social work curriculum, anti-oppressive social work curriculum, Interracial team teaching, anti-racist pedagogy, dismantling white supremacy, critical race theoryAbstract
This article aims to explore anti-racist social work education through interracial team teaching, where one instructor is White, and the other is Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color (BIPOC). This pedagogical approach is presented as an emerging conceptual model to consider in anti-racist social work education. As an anti-racist approach to teaching, this model aims to engage students and faculty in a more active and accountable role in dismantling systemic racism and White supremacy through social work education. A close examination of published articles on interracial team teaching revealed an absence of theoretical frameworks to guide this teaching method. Critical Race Theory (CRT) emerged as a compatible theoretical framework for teaching anti-racism within an interracial team-taught model. Five CRT tenets from Sólorzano et al. (2005) align with previous studies to support this emerging pedagogical approach as a viable option. Findings suggest that anti-racist education requires explicitly naming terms like White supremacy, racism, and colonization within the social work curriculum. Interracial team teaching necessitates shared power and authority between instructors and calls for White educators to examine their White identity and resist performing allyship. Academic institution hiring practices need a greater representation of BIPOC faculty to reduce overburdening faculty of color.
References
Akamine Phillips, J., Risdon, N., Lamsma, M., Hambrick, A., & Jun, A. (2019). Barriers and strategies by white faculty who incorporate anti-racist pedagogy. Race and Pedagogy Journal: Teaching and Learning for Justice, 3(2), 1-27. https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/rpj/vol3/iss2/1/
Alsubaie, M. A. (2015). Hidden curriculum as one of current issue of curriculum. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(33), 125-128. Microsoft Word - JEP-Vol.6 No.33 2015.docx (ed.gov)
Amos, Y. T. (2010). “They don't want to get it!" Interaction between minority and white pre-service teachers in a multicultural education class. Multicultural Education, 17(4), 31-37. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ915269.pdf
An, S. (2017). AsianCrit perspective on social studies. Journal of Social Studies Research, 41(2), 131-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jssr.2016.06.002
Anastas, J. W. (2010). Teaching in social work: An educators’ guide to theory and practice. Columbia University Press.
Barnett, R., & Coate, K. (2004). Engaging the curriculum in higher education. McGraw-Hill Education.
Beck, E. (2019). Naming white supremacy in the social work curriculum. Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work, 34(3), 393-398. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0886109919837918
Bhuyan, R., Bejana, R., & Jeyapalb, D. (2017). Social workers’ perspectives on social justice in social work education: when mainstreaming social justice masks structural inequalities. Social Work Education, 36(4), 373-390. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2017.1298741
Brayboy, B. M. J. (2005). Toward a tribal critical race theory in education. The Urban Review, 37(5), 425-446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-005-0018-y
Campbell, C. (2002). The search for congruency: Developing strategies for anti-oppressive social work pedagogy. Canadian Social Work Review, 19(1), 25-42. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41669745
Chanmugam, A., & Gerlach, B. (2013). A co-teaching model for developing future educators' teaching effectiveness. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 25(1), 110-117. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1016491
Chenneville, T. (2017). Ethics and social justice: A review of theoretical frameworks and pedagogical considerations. In D. D. Liston & R. Rahimi (Eds.), Promoting social justice through the scholarship of teaching and learning (pp. 3-14). Indiana University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2005zc2
Council on Social Work Education. (2015). Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards. https://cswe.org/getattachment/Accreditation/Standards-and-Policies/2015-EPAS/2015EPASandGlossary.pdf.aspx
Council on Social Work Education. (2019). MSW graduates by race and ethnicity: Findings from the 2018 survey of master’s of social work graduates. https://cswe.org/CSWE/media/Workforce-Study/WorkforceStudy_Brief-MSW_Raceethnicity-pdf.pdf
Curiel, L. O., & Ashley, W. (2020). Team teaching in social work education: A pedagogical approach to modeling inclusion. Journal of Sociology and Social Work, 8(1), 40-47. http://dx.doi.org/10.15640/jssw.v8n1a4
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2012) Critical race theory: An introduction (2nd ed.). NYU Press.
Dill, K., Shera, W., & Webber, J. (2017). Many hands make light work: Team teaching in social work education. The Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work, 22, 207-216. https://doi.org/10.18084/1084-7219.22.1.207
Duran, D., & Miquel, E. (2019). Preparing teachers for collaborative classrooms. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.780
Forte, J. A. (2014). Skills for using theory in social work: 32 lessons for evidence-informed practice. Routledge.
Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed: 50th anniversary edition (D. Macedo trans.). Bloomsbury. (Original work published 1968)
Galloway, M. K., Callin, P., James, S., Vimegnon, H., & McCall, L. (2019). Culturally responsive, antiracist, or anti-oppressive? How language matters for school change efforts. Equity & Excellence in Education, 52(4), 485-501. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2019.1691959
Garran, A., Aymer, S., Gelman, C., & Miller, J. (2015). Team-teaching anti-oppression with diverse faculty: Challenges and opportunities. Social Work Education, 34(7), 799-814. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2015.1062086
Ginther, S. D., Phillips, A., & Grineski, S. (2007). Team-teaching the HBSE curriculum: Considerations and advice. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 27(1-2), 199-211. https://doi.org/10.1300/J067v27n01_13
Giwa, S., & Mihalicz, M. G. (2019). What’s all the fuss about social work syllabi? Action speaks louder than words in addressing the silence of whiteness in social work curriculum: A game theory perspective. Journal of Sociology and Social Work, 7(2), 46-63. https://doi.org/10.15640/jssw.v7n2a6
Gollan, S., & O'Leary, P. J. (2009). Teaching culturally competent social work practice through black and white pedagogical partnerships. Social Work Education, 28(7), 707-721. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615470802406502
Gorski, P. C., Davis, S. N., & Reiter, A. (2012). Self-efficacy and multicultural teacher education in the United States: The factors that influence who feels qualified to be a multicultural teacher educator. Multicultural Perspectives, 14(4), 220-228. https://doi.org/10.1080/15210960.2012.725332
Guyton, E. M., & Wesche, M. V. (2005). The multicultural efficacy scale: Development, item selection, and reliability. Multicultural Perspectives, 7(4), 21-29. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327892mcp0704_4
Hanover Research. (2012). The effectiveness of the co-teaching model: Literature review. Washington, DC. https://www.ousd.org/cms/lib/CA01001176/Centricity/Shared/The%20Effectiveness%20of%20the%20Co-Teaching%20Model-Inclusion%20Material.pdf
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
Jay, M. (2003). Critical race theory, multicultural education, and the hidden curriculum of hegemony. Multicultural Perspectives, 5(4), 3-9. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327892MCP0504_2
Johnson-Ahorlu, R. (2017). Efficient social justice: How critical race theory research can inform social movement strategy development. Urban Review, 49, 729-745. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-017-0419-8
Kelly, D. M., & Brandes, G. M. (2010). Social justice needs to be everywhere: Imagining the future of anti-oppression education in teacher preparation. The Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 56(4), 388-402. https://cdm.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ajer/article/view/55425
Kolivoski, K., Weaver, A., & Constance-Huggins, M. (2014). Critical race theory: Opportunities for application in social work practice and policy. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 95(4), 269-276. https://doi.org/10.1606%2F1044-3894.2014.95.36
Ladhani, S., & Sitter, K. C. (2020). The revival of anti-racism: Considerations for social work education. Critical Social Work, 21(1), 54-65. https://doi.org/10.22329/csw.v21i1.6227
Macias, T. (2013). “Bursting Bubbles”: The challenges of teaching critical social work. Journal of Women and Social Work, 28(3), 322-324. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109913495730
Meizlish, D., & Anderson, O. (2018). Teaching in teams: A planning guide for successful collaborations (CRLT Occasional Paper No. 37). Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED586355
Miller, J., & Garran, A. M. (2017). Racism in the United States: Implications for the helping professions (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1891/9780826148858
National Association of Social Workers. (2017). Code of ethics of The National Association of Social Workers. https://www.socialworkers.org/about/ethics/code-of-ethics
O’Neill, P., & Miller, J. (2015). Hand and glove: How the curriculum promotes an antiracism commitment in a school for social work. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 85(2), 159-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/00377317.2015.1021222
Ortiz, L., & Jani, J. (2010). Critical race theory: A transformational model for teaching diversity. Journal of Social Work Education, 46(2), 175-193. https://doi.org/10.5175/JSWE.2010.200900070
Ouellett, M. L., & Fraser, E. (2011). Interracial team teaching in social work. In K. M. Plank (Ed.), Team teaching: Across the disciplines, across the academy. New Pedagogies and Practices for Teaching in Higher Education (pp. 73-95). Stylus Publishing, LLC. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9qp-Ax6SAGYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA73&dq=Ouellett,+M.+L.+%26+Fraser,+E.+(2011).+Interracial+team+teaching+in+social+work.+&ots=0pKxfhELCo&sig=AvqUp41sr4ygftsLw8tOmYQdkMs#v=onepage&q&f=false
Patton, L. D. (2016). Disrupting postsecondary prose: Toward a critical race theory of higher education. Urban Education, 51(3), 315-342. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085915602542
Sakamoto, I., & Pitner, R. O., (2005). Use of critical consciousness in anti-oppressive social work practice: Disentangling power dynamics at personal and structural levels. British Journal of Social Work (35)435-452. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bch190
Santas, A. (2000). Teaching anti-racism. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 19, 349-361. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005298916161
Sleeter, C. E. (2017). Critical race theory and the whiteness of teacher education. Urban Education, 52(2), 155-169. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0042085916668957
Smith, B. (2013). Mentoring at-risk students through the hidden curriculum of higher education. Lexington Books. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=xUaOJbK7iv0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=The+Hidden+Curriculum,+Buffy+Smith&ots=3GY1foBRP3&sig=aErIr_vmzlg6sQT48oT29NLhjLE#v=onepage&q=The%20Hidden%20Curriculum%2C%20Buffy%20Smith&f=false
Sólorzano, D. G., Villalpando, O., & Oseguera, L. (2005). Educational inequities and Latina/o undergraduate students in the United States: A critical race analysis of their educational progress. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 4(3), 272-294. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1538192705276550
Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books.
Valdes, F. (2005). Legal reform and social justice: An introduction to LatCrit theory, praxis and community. Griffith Law Review, 14(2), 148-173. https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2005.10854554
White House. (2020, September 22). Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping 85 F.R. 60683 [Executive order 13950]. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/28/2020-21534/combating-race-and-sex-stereotyping
Wingfield, A. (2010). Are some emotions marked "whites Only"? Racialized feeling rules in professional workplaces. Social Problems, 57(2), 251-268. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2010.57.2.251
Zapf, M. K., Jerome, L., & Williams, M. (2011). Team teaching in social work: Sharing power with Bachelor of social work students. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 31(1), 38-52. https://doi.org/10.1080/08841233.2011.539135
