ABSTRACT
W.E.B. Du Bois made an extraordinary contribution in the first half of the twentieth century to an activist and intellectual engagement with challenging racism within the USA and internationally. Yet, for much of his life, that contribution was ignored and suppressed within academic sociology and history. Re-centering Du Bois with critical social work pedagogy not only resurrects a foundational voice; it can enable students to recognize the profoundly Eurocentric nature of social work education today. The chapter describes how Du Bois’ theories of the ‘veil’ and double consciousness can be used to situate both standpoint epistemology and critical race theory within a tradition of social work as advocacy and social pedagogy. This chapter details both curriculum content and pedagogical approaches that foreground class, race, gender and other intersectionalities to unsettle neoliberal notions of cultural competence in contemporary social work education using autoethnographic and qualitative research methods within an Australian social work program.
