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Whither the seminal thinking and practice of Paulo Freire in contemporary times? If Covid 19 is the most seismic health crisis in living memory, it is also just as much an unprecedented crisis for education and society. While Paulo Freire’s work so often calls attention to the deprivations and exploitations suffered by the weakest in our society, at no stage does Freire’s work succumb to a negativism or a pessimism about the possibilities of transformation. To the contrary, Freire’s work is always animated by a strong and fundamental affirmative spirit which calls on people to join together to make change, as opposed to simply waiting around for it to happen. This text on Freire’s contemporary importance thus seems a timely intervention. Originally a conversation between engaged interlocutors at a University of Catania symposium, this discussion then broadens out to include connection to the particular rendering of these issues across different national and international contexts. Including essays by established and new thinkers in the Critical Pedagogy perspective, the book also includes up to date and exciting interviews with contemporary practitioners of Theatre of the Oppressed and related social-therapeutic approaches in Italy.

This book is the first to focus specifically on the highly original contribution to the field of Critical Pedagogy made by the sometimes «irritable» French philosopher Jacques Rancière. The book represents a significant addition to the growing body of work on Rancière as well as to the field of Critical Pedagogy. While introducing and contextualising Rancière for those unfamiliar with him, the book also develops an understanding of the singularity of his conception of pedagogy for those already acquainted with his work. Central to the book is Rancière's vision of education as a «practice of equality» ? a method grounded in an assumption of intellectual equality between students and teachers. Throughout the chapters of the book, the contemporary relevance of this vision is drawn out for educators in schools and universities, adult and popular educators, as well as for political activists. For anyone and everyone with an interest in teaching and learning, this book contains vital insights for the survival and development of education as a democratic, critical and emancipatory project.

Ecofeminism and critical animal studies have much to offer social workers interested in transformative social change inclusive of non-human animals, built and natural environments. Inequality on the basis of species and gender—particularly as they intersect with neoliberal rhetoric—are major points of our discussion. The chapter is organised into five overlapping sections: ecofeminism; critical animal studies; ecological/green social work; critical (animal) social work in the context of neoliberalism; and transformative education and the joy of animal connections. We draw ideas most from Val Plumwood and Vandana Shiva (representing ecofeminism), Carol J. Adams (vegan ecofeminism), Steve Best (critical animal studies), Fred Besthorn (ecological social work) and Lena Dominelli (green social work). Our primary focus is on how the central ideas from ecofeminism and critical animal studies can inform non-anthropocentric social work, that is, social work that does not assume human superiority or governance over other animals, nature and the environment.

A critically reflexive approach to social work practice entails an understanding of power. However, there is a tendency to assume that the exertion of power necessarily involves oppression: by the state, by institutions, by individuals. This chapter draws on the work of influential social theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault to revision critical pedagogy in social work by providing an alternative view of power. Foucault argues that the exercise of power is omnipresent and ubiquitous, that it is a part of all of our relationships and interactions, and that it can foster positive, creative responses. The author explores Foucault’s “technologies of power”, including the “technology of self”, that captures the sense of individual agency expressed in exerting power over oneself. It is argued that this perspective can (paradoxically) empower while acknowledging subjection to power. Her experience with Australian social work students is that an analytical understanding of this notion of power, gained via critical reflection, leads to an appreciation of how power and agency can combine in unexpected ways to benefit individuals and societies and empower individuals. This ultimately benefits students, the practice of social work pedagogy and social work educators themselves.

The question of education for democratic ‘empowerment and liberation’, and how this might guide pedagogic practice is seldom raised and extremely challenging for social work education today. This chapter takes up the proposition that social work, through its educational practices, ‘can’ deliver on its promise of ‘democratic practice’ if democracy is understood as a process and not a predefined product. We argue that such a process and its embodiment in institutions cannot exist without the formation of radically democratic subjects, people (including social workers) capable of questioning dominant social forms and of creating new forms and practices. Accordingly, this chapter explores the educational implications for social work of the work of the revolutionary theorist, Cornelius Castoriadis (1921–1997). Castoriadis’ philosophy accords a crucial role to democratic pedagogy (paideía) as an essential form of praxis in the creation of a radically democratic, egalitarian and sustainable society. In particular, we examine his idea (against (neo)liberal individualisation) that ‘autonomy’ is simultaneously an individual and social project that begins in, and is always dependent upon, individual and collective self-reflection. This argument is illustrated by examples from the authors’ classroom experiences of teaching both critical reflection and critical social theory to social work students in Australian universities, on the premise that both are indispensable in social work education as a democratic practice for ‘empowerment and liberation’. The chapter outlines a brief discussion of Castoriadis, his main ideas and the pedagogic dimensions of his philosophy before bringing the latter to bear on the authors’ teaching experiences.

Drawing on the work of Kevin Kumashiro, this chapter sets its sights on exploring ‘queer’ as a concept that remains problematic in social work education and practice. Queer theories are not highlighted. Queer ways of knowing and seeing are not identified. Students who identify as queer often do not feel safe, and service users who identify as queer are frequently problematised by mainstream social work. Queering social work aims to unhinge queer from limiting notions of understanding, working with and cultural competence, to look at how queer theory can be used to critique discourses, not just about gender and sexuality but about structural inequality and the construction of norms. Kumashiro identifies and critiques four approaches to anti-oppressive education and the ways in which they are either complicit in perpetuating normalising knowledges and practices, or create spaces for disrupting these normalising knowledges and practices. Kumashiro argues that the notion of queer is inherently uncomfortable. He argues that anti-oppressive teaching disrupts comforting knowledge, however this process can be uncomfortable for both students and educators, and therefore it is often avoided. For social work educators, Kumashiro provides pathways toward a queer approach to education that reminds us never to stop asking what is problematic with the norm, addressing the resistance, the discomfort and our own uncertainty.

This chapter provides a concise overview of the life and career of Jacques Derrida, exploring how his substantive philosophical writing could be relevant to a critical social work pedagogy and practice. Derrida was a leading philosopher of what is commonly known as deconstruction, and while never explicitly writing to social work, his later work became more overtly political, and hence of relevance. Following a biographical sketch, the ‘traces’ of some key elements of his work (the ‘trace’ used in a specific Derridean way) are outlined, foregrounding three key threads, all equally important, all interlinked: Deconstruction as ‘opening up’ texts, programmes and institutions; The ‘passion of not knowing’ – on alterity, the ‘other’ and hospitality; The hauntology of justice, the imperative to activism. Overall, these three threads summons an ethics of learning. From this ethics of learning several signposts are offered for a critical and deconstructive social work pedagogy and practice, with a particular focus on what it could mean for students to respond to the summons of the learning moment, and the obligation to listen (and read) critically in a particular way recognising that a deconstructive hermeneutic always is an intervention, an interruption, a disruption – an ‘encounter’ summonsing action.

This chapter explores Henry Giroux’s vision of critical pedagogy and its implications for social work education and practice. Giroux offers a rich, philosophical and political approach to education that can be applied to help reinvigorate social work as a critical project. His vision is committed to creating citizen activists who are cognisant of structural oppression, yet also connected with a sense of agency to work toward a radically democratic and just society. The implications of this are articulated for social work education and practice, particularly with regard to Giroux’s critique of neoliberalism and degradation of education. Giroux’s critique of technicist education, and his emphasis on the need for critical theories are highlighted and applied to the example of teaching social work practice skills through role-plays. Giroux’s concepts of educated hope and agency, and reconceptualisation of critical pedagogy beyond the classroom are also similarly explored in light of their relevance for social work.

This chapter highlights the relevance of Stephen Brookfield’s work in adult education to enhance the teaching of critical reflection in social work. In applying the ideas of critical theorists to education, Brookfield has made a significant contribution to developing critical pedagogy in a way that holds important implications for social work education and practice. In particular, his work is helpful for assisting social workers to practise and teach critical reflection critically. An example of the application of Brookfield’s model of critical reflection is presented in relation to the author’s own teaching practice when she outlines her work in assisting a student to critically reflect on their practice, while also demonstrating her own parallel critical reflection process on her own teaching practice.

In the current context of the neoliberal subordination of social work education and practice to market demands and public austerity, this chapter argues that there is an urgent need for ‘critical pedagogies’ in social work education, enabling practitioners to understand and respond effectively to the conditions (many of them global in scope) that give rise to so much avoidable suffering in the lives of the people we work with. This chapter traces the historical development of critical pedagogy and its anchorage in critical theory, highlighting their potential to reinvigorate social work education as an emancipatory practice. This chapter also introduces The Routledge Handbook of Critical Pedagogies for Social Work as part of an alternative or ‘counter-hegemonic’ vision of the fundamental role of social work and related professions to how they are currently framed by neoliberal governments. As such, the collection is presented as a catalyst for mobilising resistance to dominant and destructive social trends by addressing the lack of critical theorising around pedagogy within social work, and offering educational alternatives to work toward a more socially just world.

Merleau-Ponty dedicated his life’s work to thinking about human existence. His philosophy of being-in-the-world challenged dominant Cartesian thinking that preferences the mind and objectifies the body. This chapter explores Merleau-Ponty’s thinking, not only how the body is lived, agentic and knowing, but also how our being is embodied and cannot be understood without the world. That is, our being occurs in the world, and that this world has social, historical and political context. Merleau-Ponty’s theorising about embodiment provokes deeper ways of understanding the body-in-the-world. His theorising is applied to poignantly illustrate that non-normative bodies’ agency and knowing are often oppressed – not due to the body itself – but due to being in a world underpinned by ableism. This is revealed through discussing cultural and institutional forms of prejudice toward disabled people that continue to be perpetuated in society and social work through dominant normative discourse and images. The chapter argues that by adopting Merleau-Ponty’s thinking of bodies as lived, agentic and knowing within a critical disability studies approach, we can begin to disrupt and shift unchecked ableism that exists in everyday social work praxis. This is an essential approach in order to achieve anti-oppressive practice.

Dorothy Smith is a Marxist, feminist sociologist who rejected traditional sociology and instead developed a sociology ‘for the people’ which can be used to examine power and oppression within organisations and institutions. Critical to her work is understanding how the day-to-day activity of people reveals social and institutional power as privileged sources of knowledge. Smith is renowned for her use of standpoint theory and the development of institutional ethnography; a method of sociological inquiry and research that examines how dominant ideologies are exercised within organisations and institutions. This approach has been distinctive in the way it has examined managerialist processes and procedures within organisations, observing the way regimes of power and control operate. Through analysis of organisational texts, such as case files, assessment forms or funding applications, how information maintains hegemonic social order is revealed. This chapter explains Smith’s sociology with reference to her use of standpoint theory and institutional ethnography and how power is often replicated unknowingly by social workers. By critically reflecting upon these organisational processes, it is hoped social workers, educators and researchers can engage in transformative social change which is, in Smith’s words, ‘by the people for the people’.

The Routledge Handbook of Critical Pedagogies for Social Work traverses new territory by providing a cutting-edge overview of the work of classic and contemporary theorists, in a way that expands their application and utility in social work education and practice; thus, providing a bridge between critical theory, philosophy, and social work. Each chapter showcases the work of a specific critical educational, philosophical, and/or social theorist including: Henry Giroux, Michel Foucault, Cornelius Castoriadis, Herbert Marcuse, Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Joan Tronto, Iris Marion Young, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, and many others, to elucidate the ways in which their key pedagogic concepts can be applied to specific aspects of social work education and practice. The text exhibits a range of research-based approaches to educating social work practitioners as agents of social change. It provides a robust, and much needed, alternative paradigm to the technique-driven ‘conservative revolution’ currently being fostered by neoliberalism in both social work education and practice. The volume will be instructive for social work educators who aim to teach for social change, by assisting students to develop counter-hegemonic practices of resistance and agency, and reflecting on the pedagogic role of social work practice more widely. The volume holds relevance for both postgraduate and undergraduate/qualifying social work and human services courses around the world.

‘Offensively Australian’ Joseph Furphy completed the first draft of his magnum opus Such Is Life in 1897, and, being unsure where to have it published, submitted the 1,125 pages of hand-written manuscript to the Bulletin magazine, of which he was an inveterate admirer. In a now famous covering letter he wrote to the magazine’s editor J.F. Archibald : ‘I have just finished writing a full sized novel: title ‘Such Is Life’; scene Riverina and northern Vic; temper democratic; bias, offensively Australian’ (Barnes and Hoffman 28). These latter phrases have come to be seen as expressive of the ‘legendary’ nationalist discourse of the 1890s.1 Though critical attitudes have never endorsed this view unconditionally, the predominant perception of the novel remains that expressed in the blurb on the 1991 Angus and Robertson edition of Such Is Life, which reads