Assistant Professor Portland State University Portland, Oregon, United States
Overview: This paper explores design elements and learning outcomes from an innovative MSW course that deepen students’ knowledge in strategies for social transformation while contributing to social justice movements. Drawing on three years of course artifacts, this case study offers a model of community-engaged teaching that centers reciprocity, and justice.Proposal text: Though the field of Social Work has long-held values of social justice and social change, many critical social workers question whether these values are consistently defined, taught, or practiced (George, Silver & Preston, 2013; Reisch, 2013). As Gray and Webb note, “The practice of social work inevitably operates within a ‘grand tension’ of refusing the dominant order, while at the same time being contaminated by and maintaining this order” (2014, p.336). Where do future practitioners learn, not simply to grapple with this tension, but to actively resist oppression and injustice? This paper traces one attempt to answer this question through a case study of a graduate social work course designed to deepen students’ skills and knowledge in practices for social transformation, while amplifying existing social justice movements. The focus of study is a three-quarter course sequence that anchors an MSW program’s macro concentration. Threaded across the three terms is a team-based, community-engaged project through which students partner with a local social movement. The project is rooted in feminist principles of community engagement— emphasizing relational accountability, a commitment to resisting false binaries (such as between campus/community, learner/expert, and helper/helped), reflexivity, and an activist orientation (Iverson and James, 2014). In the first quarter, students are introduced to the Just Practice Framework, a social work practice model rooted in feminist and critical social theories and designed to prepare social workers for social justice work (Finn, 2016). Students then break into four self-selected groups to explore existing social movements (such as Immigrant Justice, Mass Incarceration, Foster Care Reform, and Climate Justice). In the subsequent weeks, each team uses the Just Practice Framework to study its topic through the lenses of history, context, meaning, power and possibility (Finn, 2016). Teams develop a partnership with a local campaign or community group, and close fall quarter by completing an assessment of their topic and a proposal of how they might help assist their partner. In winter, students revise and begin implementing their plans. Throughout the year, teams document and share their work through progress reports, end of quarter papers and presentations, and in spring, each team completes a culminating evaluation with their community partner. To consider the contributions of such an approach to both students and community partners, this paper draws on three years of course artifacts, including reflections from instructors, students, and community partners. Using the Just Practices processes (Finn, 2016) as an organizing heuristic, this case study begins with reflections on students' engagement with one another and their social movement, then explores the teaching and learning processes that informed their assessment process. Next, the paper traces the action and accompaniment phase of their work--which has included online fundraising, popular education, legislative advocacy and community education-- and closes with a discussion of each team’s reflections, evaluation, and celebration. Through a close study of the process and outcomes of this course for students and community partners, this paper offers a model of community-engaged teaching that centers solidarity, reciprocity, and justice.
Learning Objectives:
Upon completion, participants will be able to describe feminist principles of community engagement—an emphasis on relational accountability, a commitment to resisting false binaries, reflexivity, and an activist orientation (Iverson and James, 2014) and contrast these with traditional approaches to service learning.
Upon completion, participants will be able to discuss core curricular and pedagogical elements of a course designed to prepare students to participate in social change.
Upon completion, participants will be able to discuss potential benefits of community-engaged teaching to both students and community partners.