In a significant breakthrough, the Journal of Teaching in Social Work has devoted an entire issue to critiquing Critical Social Justice practice. It is titled: Beyond Ideological Mandates: Critical Reflections on Anti-Racist and Social Work Education. This is the first time there has been an issue dedicated to such a critique in an academic peer-reviewed journal.
Editors Vicki Lens, Naomi Farber and Maryah Fram explain here that the “galvanising spark” which led them to issue a call for papers was the response to events following the October 7 massacre by Hamas. Students and faculty were “signing petitions and joining protests that devalued Jewish lives and valorized violence in the name of anti-racist practice that deemed Jewish people as being on the wrong side of the ‘settler-colonialism’ or antiracist line.”
The editors state that they hope this special issue encourages “reflection, dialogue, and a continuing conversation, whether in the form of a response to this issue or in manuscripts that tackle the varied ways we can address social, economic, and political inequality independent of the constraints of ideological fealty”.
Contributors and authors include students, faculty members and social workers from Canada, England, Scotland, Israel and the United States. The subjects covered range from detailed accounts of what students are experiencing in classroom to historical and theoretical critiques of anti-racist and EDI practices. See for example, Jane Fenton’s, professor of social work at Dundee University, article on the dangers of teaching a Critical Social Justice understanding of society to students.
Amongst the authors are two members of CTA – Arnold Cantú, a clinical social worker and psychotherapist and Jon Mills, faculty at the University of Essex, Adelphi University, and the New School for Existential Psychoanalysis. Arnold’ Cantú’s article is a cautionary tale of what can happen to students when education is replaced with indoctrination. It can be viewed here. Jon Mills’ article is a critique of Antiracist Ideology and can be viewed here.
The entire issue is open access and there is an option to download individual articles or the whole issue here.
This is an encouraging development and CTA hopes that others in the therapeutic professions will take note and follow suit.
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