Marginalization of social work practice with ethno-racial minorities in mainstream human service organizations in a Canadian setting : a critical exploratory study of systemic issues

Abstract

The thesis is a qualitative study from critical theory perspectives to enhance understanding of how systemically mainstream organizations marginalize social work practice with ethno-racial minorities. It also explores strategic implications for systemic change based on field research findings. Ten social workers from Edmonton – the provincial capital city of Alberta, Canada - participated in investigative dialogues for the thesis field research. These research participants’ workplace stories lend themselves to explore three questions: what does marginalization of practice with ethno-racial minorities look like in mainstream organizational settings; what is there to understand about it as a systemic issue and what the research findings imply for change strategies. A critical analysis of dialogic data thematically identifies everyday work issues that describe how practice with ethno-racial minorities is kept at the operational and service-delivery fringe of individual workplaces. These thematic findings point to broader issues of the mainstream human service organization sector. These broader issues further highlight how the practice marginalization of concern in this thesis is a systemically constructed issue. These broader issues are mainstream benevolence, social work as an employment regime, multicultural service delivery as a thrill and clientization of ethno-racial minorities. In consideration of these sector-wide issues, implied change strategies reveal three thematic directions for systemic transformational change: (i) continued dialoguing involving concerned social workers and ethno-racial minority community leaders, (ii) community social work to build and foster coalitionary activist work and organizations, and (iii) participatory research involving a community sharing concern of the practice marginalization issue so as to build a strong knowledge-base to support and empower broad-base activist endeavour to effect change about mainstream human service organizations.