The following is an edited summary of an Anti-Racism Workshop which took place on June 2nd, 1998 at the Canadian Association of Schools of Social Work Conference. It was part of a special session on the Anti-Racist Training and Materials Project. The facilitator was Dr. Lena Dominelli and the participants included the project's Team Leaders, members of the Management Committee, faculty representatives from various schools across Canada, and some students. Michel Dubois (Quebec Region Team Leader) and JoAnne Zamparo (Co-ordinator) were both absent due to illness.
The workshop participants were a mix of different cultures who have all experienced racism in different ways. Some are members of the dominant group and have not experienced racism as such, while others are from minority groups and have experienced the oppression of racism. This raised the question of how to develop sufficient trust so people are able to discuss the issues and their internalized racism. The assumption was made social workers and social work students are not as racist as other people. However, as a student in the 3rd or 4th year pointed out, these feeling do exist. They are not supposed to feel this way and it relates back to who they are, their identities, their self-concepts as tolerant beings, and to their training. Social work ethics demand that social workers be tolerant and non-judgmental, but the ‘othering process' really exists here as well. Many assume "they", those people over there, are racist, not "me" or "us".
A student from Memorial University of Newfoundland discussed the situation that exists within this university's School of Social Work. There is very little diversity within the school, student body or faculty. How do professors help students who have never been confronted with racism recognize that they may have racism within them? Many of the school's graduates will probably not be working in Newfoundland, but rather locations with more diverse populations, such as Toronto. How can these students develop an awareness of racism before they are actually confronted with the issue? This situation raises the question of how to help students in situations where the population is more homogeneous. How do you develop the skills to work with diversity within social workers?
The issues raised for discussion at the beginning of the workshop are summarized as follows:
1. What are we (as educators) afraid of?
2. How do we keep anti-racism central to the project and yet pay attention to other intersecting social divisions?
3. How can these intersecting diversities be captured sufficiently in a curriculum?
4. How do we create a model for counseling on a multi-ethnic and anti-racist basis?
5. How can a "mixed" group develop sufficient trust so people are able to discuss the issues and their internalized racism?
6. How do we help students in situations where the population is more homogeneous?
Unfortunately, there was insufficient time to discuss all of these issues in detail. The questions addressing the fears of educators, intersecting social divisions, and the curriculum were extensively discussed by all participants, and the remaining questions, although not discussed in detail, were addressed as well. In addition, the general discussion at the beginning of the workshop led into a discussion of admission procedures, including the use of interviews and personal statements. This issue was not initially raised by the participants, but it seemed to encourage a lot discussion.
The following statements include quotes from student papers and the ethnicity of these students ranged from a Black Jamaican individual to White individuals in their mid-twenties. One student addressed his/her fears stating, " I never had to question my lifestyle and I resent others who challenge my comfortness.". This started to address what students become afraid of when they are challenged. Other students acknowledged the fear of being ostracized by families and friends if they change. Their comments were, "I've often felt that if I say or do something that is out of the ordinary I will be ostracized be those around me" or "any challenges that question the values and use of the dominant culture puts us at risk of being ostracized and implicitly hurt." One student who is a Jamaican immigrant into our country, coming to Canada as a young youth said that, " I have convinced myself over the years that I am totally comfortable with homosexuality. However if I were to be completely honest with myself, I'd say that I am not. I feel added pressure because my culture is so homophobic. I need to make the situation safe for me before I can make it safe for others. It scares me to write these things down. It's required me to look at how I behave and act towards others who are different from me. It becomes obvious that I am not as innocent or as fair as I presume myself to be." A white woman with English as her second language (she is originally from F rance), commented, " the gangs were hanging out at night as I was at home by myself. I became an example because as a teen I had lost freedom. Eventually, I came to feel unsafe or threatened by a culture that did not conform to mine only because the few incidents that happened to me involved young men. A clash of values, traditions and beliefs is evident. Who's culture has to change ?".
There were many more examples of these quotes and the honesty of students was remarkable. They felt they needed to change and they wanted to address this. However, the process of change was also very frightening to them. It has always been assumed that students come to our schools with certain feelings. More research is required to determine the accuracy of these assumptions and we need to push our students to really examine themselves and their feelings. These students went on to discuss their peers and they discovered, by the end of the course, that challenging these fears and starting to address the issues for themselves was a wonderful learning experience. This participant wanted to be fair to her students and not make them sound like a group of racist, homophobic students who stayed that way. They really made progress once they got past their fears and started challenging and opening up about what was going on inside themselves. There is a lot of fear out there, but once people start addressing it, the fears disseminate to a large extent and they can move past them by starting to grow and enjoy the group.
Other participants joined the discussion and responded to this question using examples from their own schools. One school has an Ethnic Quota where 25% of the seats are reserved for disadvantaged people and this quota does not just include physical minorities or First Nations. This student must write a personal statement, bring it to the panel, and answer their questions. What is unique about this process is that the students become educators. This participant, as an Indo-Canadian, along with a Jamaican, Indo-Canadian, First Nations and a disabled individual, sat in a group where the majority of the class were white females. This process provides minority students with the opportunity to educate other students about their communities.
Memorial University uses student's personal statements, marks, work and/or experience as admission requirements, but there is no interview. Most Newfoundland students have not been faced with the issue because there is very little diversity in St. John's. As a result, even if their views were different than those expected for social workers, they would probably not be revealed through the personal statements.
Another school does have an interview process, but it does not include these types of questions. This school's participant felt the lack of questions was unfortunate because at their school, there is one individual who believes it is okay to use racial jokes. The result was a huge argument, almost a brawl, that broke out in one of the classes. The participant felt the implementation of such questions might end these unfortunate incidents.
About five years ago everybody in the United Kingdom interviewed. However, for a variety of reasons, many schools no longer use this technique. A lot of work needed to be done to ensure that the interview panel actually reflected the diversity of the population. Those observing this process wanted to monitor what was and was not being said. After the interviews were completed, discussions were held about the issues and the responses. This process evolved over a period of years. We determined it was meaningless to simply ask, "Do you support diversity?" because when asked, most people would not answer no to this question. To solve this problem, we asked people to describe any situations where they may have encountered a form of difference. We examined specific forms and how potential students handled these situations. What did they learn from these experiences? The goal was to discover if students were set in their standards and if not, did they display an openness to explore. In her twenty years of experience there was only one occasion when this process did not work. The relationship did not involve race, gender, class, or sexual orientation, but rather it was simply a problem with a client. We were so worried about the major divisions that a basic division was overlooked. It was a challenging situation and we had a difficult time removing this student from a course on the grounds of unsuitability to practice. The procedure for removing a student from a course is called "the second opinion" process. The student is examined on race, gender, etc. by someone who is matched and then evaluated. This experience convinced us our procedure was inadequate so changes were made. However, it was still a difficult time.
The situation differs in schools where interviews do not occur. Their admission procedures may depend on the value system of the school and as a result, students may be asked to respond to or write about certain things. We find the personal statement inadequate in the British context for various reasons. Students often write, "I want to help people", but this statement is really quite meaningless, especially in Britain where their tasks within the field of social work are limited anyway. However, because there is a centralized system of admissions, a clearinghouse for social work students, this forum is necessary. The personal statement is supplemented by other techniques, but this process, known as paper interviews, is still not as comprehensive as the original interview process. The statements are examined by a panel of individuals covering all of the social divisions and although students used to be part of the interview panel, they are now excluded. We have lost the student voice and research was done to determine if this loss made a difference to those on the panel. In terms of heterogeneity on race, gender, age, education, or grades there seems to be no difference, but the research did not include an analysis of attitudes and there is nothing to compare it to. We will attempt to examine this issue as part of the curriculum content and practice experience. Our research council considers users to be funders, but it seems more individuals are beginning to challenge the state model of organizing social work by supporting the involvement of the "users", meaning the service users, the clients, and others we work for.
One participant believed that many instructors fear looking foolish. It was discussed in the morning session that students may or may not start rejecting their own anti-racism and make some accusations. This obviously creates some discomfort for the instructor who could possibly look foolish or even racist. However, there are several levels to this issue. As an instructor teaching anti-racism, especially in a skills course, one must be prepared to take any risks they expect their students to take. However, if one is afraid of taking those risks and looking foolish, the instruction will be ineffective and all sorts of barriers will be created, allowing students the easy way out.
Another participant agreed and felt that in addition to feeling foolish, some instructors fear an inability to handle the situation. It is like coming to this group and saying "Yes I've been grappling with this for years but I'm still not perfect". This is a really hard and painful thing to do, not just in our profession but certainly within university faculty. Another fear she struggles with is the difficulty dealing with and handling this issue properly in the classroom. This discussion is going to cause pain for somebody in the class, but in her experience, the students seem to get through it because they are tougher than we think. She gets really nervous when the discussion becomes heated and although it is essential students say what they mean, she is afraid somebody is going to get hurt. It is at this point, she goes to theory or some other way of intellectualizing the issue and avoids discussing what students are feeling.
Instructors also fear the problem of projection. One participant recalled a personal situation where a student accused her coming on to her as a lesbian and giving her all kinds of signs that she was interested. She felt extremely vulnerable, but luckily, she was team teaching. The lesson learned from this situation is how important it is to team teach in this type of environment. Pushing students past their comfort level can create a backlash for some and cause tremendous pain. Instructors need to create a safe classroom environment so that both they and their students are comfortable taking risks. To create this environment, instructors should team teach and fight their unions and administration over various workload issues.
One participant admitted that he defends himself against the fears that come from self-disclosure by avoiding racism and grasping hold of theory. This was an example of the "othering process". It is like it is over there and safe, thus creating a theoretical environment where one can talk endlessly about anti-racism and racism. It took him awhile to recognize what he was doing and in fact, through a tough class three or four years ago, he began to realize we were all escaping the issues. Everybody wanted to escape because some of these issues are too painful to discuss. One way to deal with the fear is to run away into theory instead of looking at what is happening within the classroom. However, as a teacher, he has to be a role model for disclosure. It is useless to expect everybody, but yourself, to disclose their feelings. It can be a painful process that produces fear for instructors partly because it is associated with the deconstruction of their own authority. If instructors are going to model self-disclosure and it is important that they do, this is where their authority really lies. They are not afraid to admit their fears and say, "this is going on in me right now".
This issue of self-disclosure also relates to pedagogical issues. We, as instructors starting a class, need to examine all of our pedagogical assumptions because we then share these assumptions, whether good or bad, with the learners. What is the focus of the class ? How can we teach and be effective with this group of learners ? How do we engage them collaboratively in visiting that design both in terms of content and in terms of process ? Andy Barkson, in Teaching As Practice, discusses the business of establishing course committees to share the process of responsibility and authority with the instructor and the entire class. We need to be better at giving away some responsibility, defending what and how we are teaching.
The focus was now on the instructor as a role model of disclosure. One participant discussed the work of a colleague who was writing on how critical perspectives are used in everyday social practices. She wrote about self-disclosure and whether it could be helpful in helping clients. She wrote that self-disclosure on the part of the social worker can sometimes hide the tension or differences in the power relationship between the client and the social worker and, in some cases, shut out the client. Therefore, this process seems to be a difficult dynamic to handle.
Another participant recalled a situation where she was attempting to teach in a way where the knowledge came from the class. It was a mixed group of students and one student challenged her about something she had said or done. Her first thought was, "I guess I really messed up here" and she felt somewhat defensive. She felt the best she could do was ignore the comments and not be defensive. Her first reaction was to call a break. At the end of the class during the evaluation, one student suggested how she might have handled the comments. She was suddenly aware of the knowledge in the group. Instructors are assumed to have all the answers when theoretically, they know they do not.
One of our fears involves the fear of reprimand and action within our school's own internal hierarchy. A certain dynamic exists within a faculty and what happens usually depends on how issues are introduced or how much support there is among other faculty. It is not unusual, however, that there is not much support from other faculty, deans or directors, and one can easily be silenced. Then what do you do ? A similar kind of dynamic occurs in the classroom when students feel silenced. Perhaps one of our fears is that as our school or institution becomes involved in this conflict, we actually begin to question the power relationships including our own privileges. However, we are also trying to work towards some kind of a democratic process using the strength of the faculty or group. Sometimes progress is made because both the faculty and circumstances are supportive, but then the clock gets turned back.
One participant shared the story of a student who felt courage was essential for this current time in social work. He learned a lot from this student's thoughts and believed it was a gift that she gave to the rest of us. Some of us are hoping to proceed and implement it. We are asking that others be as courageous as this group of participants, attempting to address these issues and implement changes. Are we afraid to be courageous ?. It is energizing and can generate both personal and political excitement. There is no other way to be and we are asking our colleagues, our schools and our institutions to feel the same way.
In Dr. Dominelli's experience, much of an instructor's worries about getting it right are more our fear than the reality. The answers are so complex that it is actually quite difficult to say there is a right answer and she finds that she never responds to the same situation in the same way twice. She becomes the facilitator in the process rather than the one with the right answer and she guides her actions by certain principles, such as getting people to talk to each other and address their own words and behaviors. She also admitted, however, that students really do not like this process. They would rather be told the right answer and given a toolkit to go out and say, "I am now an anti-racist social worker".
When responding to peoples' fears, as educators or practitioners, one must be aware of the other person's feelings. She realized this through a situation that occurred within one of her groups at the university. There was a student who was white, English working class, who had to fight quite hard to get to university because it is a very middle class organization. This student wanted to learn about race and its issues, but was already feeling disempowered and underprivileged and suddenly, here was another thing for him to take onboard. It is important to not simply let students feel bad about being racist. She feels that if we are part of an oppressed group we must admit that we are and want to change it, but we should not make the mistake of assuming everybody wants to get rid of their privileges. As a result, she asked this student, "How does knowing about your oppression in the past help you to make peace with others who are oppressed whether it's race or gender or sexual orientation? Can you actually use that experience and that knowledge? How can you still feel okay about yourself so that you can embark on the process of change".
One of the mistakes we made in the U.K. was dealing only with people's heads and their intellect, rather than the whole person and their emotions. Most individuals have experienced oppression in some form and through understanding these experiences, we can help individuals understand themselves and what was done to them. It is a means of building bridges across other social divisions. We all have other facets to our personalities. We can use our "multiple identities" as a way of opening up the dialogue to talk to others about their experiences. However, we have to deal with them very differently in different situations. She would not deal with all of her black students, whether from Asia, Britain, Africa, or the Caribbean in the same way. There are times when we deal with groups individually and other times when they come together. There has to be a space for people to do their own agenda setting so they can find out who they are, what's important to them, what worries them about who they are and what worries them about their interaction with others. Then, this needs to be put in the context of their interaction with others.
Although we possess effective techniques to help keep racist individuals out of our programs, a continuum exists as to what degree one can assess their level of awareness. For example, what are the attitudes of social work students towards a person with severe mental illness ? It seems that their attitudes are no different than those of the general public, so it is essential we understand the existing societal context. As a result, we should want students in our schools who are open to discussing issues of diversity, racism, and aggression. However, curriculum development tends to focus on competence, knowledge and skill, not on attitude, self-reflection and personal growth. As a result, our curriculum may be missing critical ideas in terms of helping people address these kinds of issues.
Many of the participants agree this problem exists. One participant acknowledged that she received her greatest personal and professional guidance from those who pushed her into a greater and deeper knowledge of self-awareness. If we discuss and overstress the question of knowledge and skill, there is a very real danger of ignoring who is actually using this knowledge and skill. This is really the beginning process. We are all here to learn and develop method, but also to find out who we are.
Another participant addressed her fears which are related on an intellectual level to the idea of shaping and being sensitive to other social divisions. Canada is not always a mutual ground and this participant, who teaches in a French program, commented that when she teaches anti-racism issues, the constitutional making of Canada must be dealt with as well. This includes issues affecting the French people and multiculturalism. It creates a sense of insecurity because since the French have also felt discriminated against, one is not able to teach the message of anti-racism simply as discrimination towards people of color. All of these issues must be dealt with and this creates a situation where instructors must carry multiple identities into the classroom and into the curriculum. This participant is attempting to work with all of the issues, but fears one agenda will be dropped by another.
Many of the participants have been trying to do some of this work in their courses. However, how do we bring this into our schools ? How do we make this part of the process, considering admissions, hiring, a mission statement, instead of simply setting up the infrastructure with the interested faculty ? In order to accomplish this task, one participant believes the process of asking ourselves, "What are we afraid of in the classroom ?" and "What are we afraid of doing as a group and faculty ?", is essential. It is also important to involve both students and individuals from the community in this process. We must face our fears, admit they exist and determine how to deal with them.
The issue of institutional change is important and just as we have taken a class through change, we also need to help our own faculty through this process as well. Some will come on board and some will not, but if we want to embrace this mandate, it is absolutely critical to work together. Another issue is that some individuals have to be fair. Most students and faculty alike have come out of other systems of education never having this experience. They do not know how to conduct a class other than to deliver a content and some discussion. They do not have the process skills or experiences, and they do not know how to model practice. They may not be practice teachers, and therefore, unable to do this in the class.
After training our students, we want them to keep what they have learned and welcome all of their clients. They model the self and when working with individual families or at the community level they use this model to convey the message of anti-racism. However, this leads to the question of how do we, as social workers, keep the work going without stopping at our students? If we stop teaching anti-racism to our students when we feel they have reached a level of maturity, some may forget about the issues and stop bringing the message out in the field. Social work aims at social change and part of our role as instructors is to ensure the message of anti-racism continues to be conveyed.
A possible answer to this question is a social work course currently in development. The major course project is an anti-racism project and one of the criteria for the class is that students, through this project, demonstrate their contribution to anti-racism. They have all done it in different ways. Some challenged the culture within the department or something broader in the universe, while others created displays or had fashion days for the elimination of racial awareness. In some ways, they have reached thousands. One participant just finished teaching a course and believes it may be the best course she ever taught. Why does she feel this way ? The participant believes it may have something to do with courage. She had the courage to involve others in the process and in fact, the entire class worked together on a project to produce a puppet show on anti-racism for an elementary school. Discussions took place as they made the puppets and then put on the play for the elementary school children. It was a powerful experience for both the instructor and the students.
Another participant, who teaches in Kelowna at Okanagan, is teaching a diversity course for the second time, as well as courses on policy, generalist practice and law. She feels that because racism and diversity are so multi-layered we have to address them across the curriculum. We need a place in the curriculum to start at the affective level, otherwise, the rest of it has no meaning. This participant is working on a series of exercises, some personally designed and others from various books. She feels it is essential to start at the closest level of the student that you, as an instructor, can reach. She started the process this term and, without any tool, attempted to get as close to the student's affect as possible so they would not forget. She made a series of approximately thirty labels out of paper. These labels included statements like ‘the smart one', ‘the successful one', ‘the one who wouldn't be forgotten', ‘the quiet one', etc. The students, without speaking, went around and picked up the label that they felt best suited their personality. This participant was just playing around with this idea not knowing its effects. However, it was the most powerful thing ever done with these students because it hit them right in the gut and they have been working on that feeling ever since. The students constantly refer back to where they began at that affective level because they knew difference and experienced it within their own realm. It does not matter how that happened to them, rather it matters that they recall what that difference felt like. Maybe now other material addressing a practice framework, racism in the classroom, or racism with regards to a particular group can be introduced. Another series of exercises addressed what students felt like when they were young. What did it feel like when they were different ? What was their gut level reaction ? What did it feel like when they were the same? Quickly they began to notice that all the labels about difference are negative. This created another layer of understanding. There needs to be more opportunities to share those little things we are doing that bring us closer to understanding.
Many of the participants were interested in this activity and had some questions about how it was carried out. They wondered since the instructor makes up the labels, are they given to students directly or do they pick out the label they feel best applies to them? It was clarified that the instructor, who had not previously met these students, stood in the center and said "Who was the quiet one? Who was the difficult one ?", and so on. The students know who they are. The chosen label could only go to one student. The students responded by raising their hands and if more than one raised their hands, they would then decide who should have the label. Some students picked up two labels. Students also had the opportunity, using blank sheets of paper, to add some of their own labels not found in the group.
Another curriculum idea was suggested by a participant who teaches social workers to deal with refugees. The first assignment she gave her students was to go and interview three people who have come to Canada in the last three years. They can choose whoever they want, but in the interest of diversity, they cannot interview family members. The goal of these interviews was to examine their experiences in Canada, especially with the intersecting diversities of race, class, gender and how these issues affecting applying for jobs, looking for houses, and where they lived. The students were to write the findings of their interview in ten pages with published sources and most of the students felt this was a powerful experience.
Another participant felt that looking for a model of counseling is really an attempt to hide behind theory. She believes there are enough models out there. We all have our own frameworks and this may only require counseling on one front. She agrees it is important to have some connection to theory because there is a lot that is not of the mainstream and still beneficial for students to see. However, this connection worries many instructors because are they simply using it to hold onto their fears.
The current educational environment is one where we must consider what students have gained at the end of the course. We are not asking them to evaluate the process they learned by, but rather asking them to evaluate the course and then to go out and practice using the, "competency model", including their knowledge and skills. So, where do our emotions come into this process? Where do we include our experiences and how do you balance them with the theory and the other issues we have to learn in class ? At what point will students be able to say, "I think I can work in an anti- racist environment"? We are experts at discussing structural changes, organizational change models, and institutional change models. However, we do not have enough experts in the field of anti-racism, so how can we be competent and equipped to go and work with people from other cultures ? We constantly challenge our students, at the end of their course or evaluation process or even at the end of their degree, by asking them if they know how to work with people from other cultures. There are a variety of models for students to follow, including the "competency model". However, when we asked our students some questions about these kinds of issues, such as, "Do you have a sense of an anti-racist model of working with people?", they all said, "No, we don't even know what that means". A lot of information exists regarding these issues and although we need to pull all of the information together, one person does not have the ability to do so. However, we are still expected to include an analysis of these issues in our curriculum.
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