ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how neoliberalism has undermined the role of activism in social work but suggests that critical social work education can reinvigorate opportunities for critique and action. It presents students’ voices from two research projects, emphasising the components of social work education that had been formative in their development as activist practitioners. The chapter discusses a broad understanding of activism as “small acts of generosity or everyday refusals, as much as large scale gestures of organised protest”. Social work education plays a fundamental role in shaping the development of future practitioners. The dominance of establishment social work education is at least partly attributable to neoliberal/managerial practices in universities that colonise learning, teaching and research. Critical pedagogy informed social work education begins with the contention that all knowledge is value-laden and therefore “inherently political”. The chapter argues that critical social work education is fundamental in facilitating the development of critical practitioners that engage in activism.
