Title

Enhancing Self-Awareness: A Practical Strategy to Train Culturally Responsive Social Work Students

Publication Date

10-27-2010

Document Type

Article

Abstract

A primary goal of social justice educators is to engage students in a process of self-discovery, with the goal of helping them recognize their own biases, develop empathy, and become better prepared for culturally responsive practice. While social work educators are mandated with the important task of training future social workers in culturally responsive practice with diverse populations, practical strategies on how to do so are scant. This article introduces a teaching exercise, the Ethnic Roots Assignment, which has been shown qualitatively to aid students in developing self-awareness, a key component of culturally competent social work practice. Practical suggestions for classroom utilization, common challenges, and past student responses to participating in the exercise are provided. The dissemination of such a teaching exercise can increase the field‰Ûªs resources for addressing the important goal of cultural competence training.

Publication Title

Advances in Social Work

Volume

11

Issue

2

First Page

223

Last Page

234

Publisher Policy

open access

Open Access Status

OA Journal

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