Assistant Professor Salem State University Salem, Massachusetts, United States
Overview: MSW students are expected to understand social justice and commit to advancing human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice. Unclear is how MSW students conceptualize social justice and their comfort with engaging in social justice activities in practice. Their understanding has meaningful implications for social work education.Proposal text: For MSW students preparing as leaders for social change, understanding and cultivating social justice knowledge and skills through classroom and field training is “paramount to meeting the professional imperative of social justice in social work” (Benner et al, 2019, p. 321). Little is known about how MSW students define and understand social justice. Social justice has been defined in different ways. For example, Bell’s (2018) conceptualization of social justice emphasized ensuring the “full and equitable participation of all people from all social identity groups” (p. 34) in society. Understanding how MSW students perceive social justice can implicate how social work educators facilitate dialogues around social injustices, make connections between course content and social justice topics, and how they effectively prepare students to engage responsibly in professional activities that promote social justice (Funge et al., 2020).
This study examined how MSW students conceptualized social justice and how they learned about social justice. A survey was administered to 36 MSW students enrolled in an accredited social work program in New England. Data were collected via Survey Monkey and analyzed following a content analysis methodology. Results show that 84% of respondents defined social justice similarly; using terms like equity, equality, and fairness. The majority of these respondents noted that their MSW diversity and policy (e.g., social policy, health policy) courses contributed to their understanding of social justice, while several respondents (n=8) shared that their MSW field experiences had been salient to their understanding. There were unifying experiences around what in the respondent’s bachelor’s degree programs contributed to their understanding of social justice. About 63% of the respondents said that social justice content and discussions from baccalaureate courses influenced their understanding of social justice. Other factors contributing to the development of a sense of social justice included family socialization, where participants grew up, volunteer experiences, and personal treatment of injustices. Interestingly, 39% of the respondents had no exposure to social justice or were unaware of social injustices prior to enrolling in a baccalaureate program.
Overall, the survey results show that the MSW respondents already possess a good understanding of social justice, and their definitions of social justice are consistent with the definitions presented in the literature. To some extent, their understanding of social justice developed as a result of life experiences, studies undertaken in earlier bachelor’s programs, and exposure to social justice content in their MSW program. In summary, the results suggest that in preparing MSW students for social justice work, educators must thoughtfully infuse social justice content into foundational coursework and engage them in learning activities that stimulate critical thinking and readiness to address injustices in practice (Atteberry-Ash et al., 2019; Deepak et al., 2015; Funge et al., 2011). These efforts are critical given that 34% of the respondents felt that their MSW training had not been instrumental in preparing them to provide leadership in advancing human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice.