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

摘要

The thesis is a qualitative study from critical theory perspectives to enhanceunderstanding of how systemically mainstream organizations marginalize social workpractice with ethno-racial minorities. It also explores strategic implications for systemicchange based on field research findings. Ten social workers from Edmonton – theprovincial capital city of Alberta, Canada - participated in investigative dialogues for thethesis field research. These research participants’ workplace stories lend themselves toexplore three questions: what does marginalization of practice with ethno-racialminorities look like in mainstream organizational settings; what is there to understandabout it as a systemic issue and what the research findings imply for change strategies.A critical analysis of dialogic data thematically identifies everyday work issuesthat describe how practice with ethno-racial minorities is kept at the operational andservice-delivery fringe of individual workplaces. These thematic findings point tobroader issues of the mainstream human service organization sector. These broaderissues further highlight how the practice marginalization of concern in this thesis is asystemically constructed issue. These broader issues are mainstream benevolence, socialwork as an employment regime, multicultural service delivery as a thrill and clientizationof ethno-racial minorities.In consideration of these sector-wide issues, implied change strategies revealthree thematic directions for systemic transformational change: (i) continued dialoguinginvolving 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 practicemarginalization issue so as to build a strong knowledge-base to support and empower broad-base activist endeavour to effect change about mainstream human serviceorganizations.