Decolonising social work learning – a university’s journey

Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 8 March, 2022

Over the last five years social work students and staff at Oxford Brookes University have been involved in a joint initiative to decolonise the social work curriculum, and to promote a genuinely inclusive learning community. 

Initially our intention was to address the outcome and attainment gap between white students and minority ethnic students. However, over the period of four years, this has developed into a commitment to produce a curriculum that no longer privileges white Anglo-centric approaches to learning and practice but draws equally on models from the global south. 

The approach really gathered momentum after we received some negative comments on social media about our early work. Namely, that a top-down approach of not involving enough students from ethnic backgrounds in the design of our work presented a non-diverse perspective. Addressing these comments helped us to see students as core partners in developing the initiative. 

Central to that partnership has been our development of the Global Majority Collective student group. Its attendance was initially structured into the curriculum to demonstrate the fundamental importance of creating a structure that in turn supported attainment of students from diverse backgrounds.

By doing this, we also took on board learning from our previous mistakes when we hadn’t acknowledged the complexity of the pressures of students' lives outside of their university experience.

As part of this, about 25 students met fortnightly, led by a student, to identify and prioritise anti-racist course development opportunities.

Students know that this is a confidential space to express themselves. As a result of advice from the group, our team has further decolonised content and assessment, and trained external contributors to our programme in unconscious bias and microaggressions.

The current leader of the Global Majority Collective said this has “opened a dialogue to create an anti-racist university experience. As a Black student I’ve seen an implementation of many issues we reported”. 

We have been supported in developing a decolonised programme through partnership with colleagues from Hope Africa University in Burundi. From this, we have explored the potential of concepts such as Ubuntu (I am because we are) and Ikibiri (Solidarity) in social work education. 

The importance of belonging for students in higher education inspired us to draw on ideas by the political theorist Achilles Mbembe around ‘creating a place to inhabit’.

Mbembe’s work was used as a basis for developing strategies to achieve equity for our students. The model focuses on making time, acknowledging student needs including age and other differences, such as educational and life experiences.

In working towards the goals to decolonise the curriculum, the team have had to address a wide range of issues. These included:

• reviewing our staff recruitment approach to ensure a range of different lived and practice experience amongst the staff group 
• reviewing our student admissions process to ensure that we identify the specific learning needs of each student as they enter the programme
• engaging with the student group to challenge and develop the curriculum with our Global Collective Majority Group’s meetings and activities being structured into the curriculum
• reviewing our teaching materials to include a diverse range of readings, theories, case studies and vignettes to aid student thinking. This has included a concerted focus on anti-racist approaches to teaching
• reviewing our assessment framework to offer a creative range of assessment approaches
• building a working relationship with, and learning from, Burundian colleagues and actively seeking to learn from indigenous social welfare practice

Overcoming these, drawing ideas from Ubuntu and Ikibiri, and creating a place to inhabit has helped us ensure all voices are heard and valued. We intend to build on this to produce a fully post-colonial approach to social work learning and practice.

Jill Childs is principal lecturer and Liz Clarke is a senior lecturer in social work at Oxford Brookes University