Anti-Racism in Social Work Teaching

A review of how anti-racism is taught on the BA (Hons) Social Work Programme at the University of Suffolk

Researchers: Dr Sue Hollinrake, Garfield Hunt, and Colin Boyd
School of Social Sciences and Humanities

Anti-racism is rightly being revisited in Social Work education and practice, and to ensure that the  Social Work course at UoS keeps pace with professional expectations, we are revisiting a research project that we undertook between 2017-19, when we conducted focus groups with our students about their experience of the teaching of anti-racism. The findings highlighted a number of improvements to enhance their experience and received national attention via publication and conferences.

This new study is a follow-up study to evaluate how much improvement there has since been, by researching the student experience again. Additionally, we are seeking lecturers’ and practice educators’ views on embedding lessons from the previous research into their individual teaching practices through a questionnaire which has just been sent out to them, involving practice educators, across Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk who support our students on practice placements. The research project’s anticipated impact will further improve teaching and learning on the course and across the Eastern region, in partnership with local employers and will add to national perspectives through knowledge exchange.