June Gary Hopps

From Problems to Personal Resilience

SUMMARY This paper reviews data on select areas relevant to the status, functioning, and general well-being of African American Youth. Practitioners in both policy and clinical intervention must assert a greater role in helping these adolescents grow, develop, and become prepared to take their rightful place in American Society. Attention is afforded the African American Family, particularly Black youth and the threats, both historical and contemporary, which confront their ability to survive, cope, and sustain a resilient presence. Conflict theory is used to understand how this population interfaces with oppression, and a resilience framework, coupled with group as a method are presented as strategies for working with Black adolescents. The authors proffer that a justice-based model is useful in supporting this resilience framework within a group approach.

A Response to Pardeck: From the Past-Editor of Social Work

believe several assumptions are challengeable. First of all, must all editorial board members be current publishers? A case can be made for membership based on distinguished work, not simply on citation measures, as a determinant of credibility and capability. In a field as broadly based and service oriented as social work, expertise gained in a field of practice or practice method, demonstrated excellence in teaching and mentoring, and researched content presented to learned groups and in testimony before Congress and other policy-making bodies can also serve as criteria for those selected to search out and evaluate potential contributions

Social Justice and Civil Rights: A Call to Action for Social Work

This special issue of Social Work, in many ways, offers an opportunity to reflect on the role of the profession in addressing issues of social justice and civil and human rights. It catapults from Social Work’s 1982 Special Issue on Oppression Based on Color, edited by Dr. June Gary, in which matters of social injustice, systemic discrimination, and the language of oppression were applied to “minorities” and examined by a diverse group of scholars (Hopps, 1982). This topic was reexamined by Schiele and Hopps (2009) in Social Work’s Special Issue on Racial Minorities Then and Now: The Continuing Significance of Race. In this current special issue of Social Work, the authors build on the work of Hopps (1982) and Schiele and Hopps (2009) and argue that the current scholarship is guided by the notion that “the profession, since its inception, seems to be challenged by a ‘push-pull’ or ambivalence vis-a-vis power and powerlessness, wealth and inequality, and social control and benevolence” (Bowles & Hopps, 2014, p. 4). Therefore, this 2016 special issue of Social Work explores the continued need for social work’s presence in clarifying and advancing the intersectionality of social justice and civil and human rights. Civil rights include personal liberty; the rights of citizens to political, legal, and social equality; and fundamental protections of human rights (BentGoodley, 2014; Pollard, 2008; Valdez, 2015). Social justice is a foundational term and is extensively used throughout the profession. As such, it would seem that a working definition and consensus statement would have been articulated given the prominence attached to the term (Galambos, 2008; Rountree & Pomeroy, 2010). The term is even a central theme in some school of social work mission statements. Holosko, Winkel, Crandall, and Briggs (2015) conducted a study of the top 50 schools of social work and found that the term “social justice” was used in 33 of the 50 mission statements reviewed. Arguably, Rawls’s (1971) treatise on the subject is probably one of the most widely used in the profession. His position focuses on the principle of fairness centered around guarding equal protection to liberties, rights, and opportunities: being aware that inequalities not only exist, but are acceptable if all have an equal chance of experiencing the conditions that comprise inequality; and that inequalities must redound to the benefit of those with the greatest disadvantage. Other philosophies that help undergird the term include utilitarian, libertarian, communitarian, egalitarian, and distributive perspectives and values (Galambos, 2008). These orientations grow out of political rights; the U.S. Constitution; and the first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights. Political and civil rights have overshadowed concerns about social components of citizenship or social rights, such as the right to education, economic security, employment, and health (Wilson, 1995). In the sixth edition of the Social Work Dictionary, Barker (2014) defined social justice as “an ideal condition in which all members of society have the same basic rights, protection, opportunities, obligations, and social benefits” (p. 398). Social justice encompasses the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society (Bent-Goodley, 2008). The richness of these contributing ideas, particularly around redistribution, also add some lack of consensus and perhaps polarization—in the profession and in society. As mentioned earlier, schools of social work have identified the term “social justice” in their mission statements and even as a center piece in some cases. In the Holosko et al. (2015) study, “social justice” was used interchangeably with nine other terms such as “social work justice,” “social advocacy,” “social and economic justice,” “distributive justice,”

Cracks in the Ceiling? Historical and Contemporary Trends of African American Deans of Schools of Social Work

This article presents data from an exploratory study of the demographic and published scholarship profiles of the deans and university provosts of the top 50 schools of social work as ranked by the 2016 U.S. News and World Report ratings. Method: The authors used an exploratory design to conduct a content analysis of the demographic and scholarship characteristics of the deans and provosts of the 50 top schools of social work. Results: The data show that the majority of deans and provosts of the top 50 schools of social work are Caucasian. The frequency of mentions of African Americans and other ethnically diverse groups in published articles by deans is uneven. Implications: This study highlights recommendations to enhance the opportunities for deanships among racially diverse faculty and to guide further research that explores the reasons for lack of racially diverse candidates selected as deans of schools of social work.

Spirituality and social work practice at historically Black colleges and universities

ABSTRACT In 2011 the Council on Social Work Education Religion and Spirituality Work Group was organized “to promote social workers’ knowledge, values, and skills for ethical and effective practice that takes into account the diverse expressions of religion and spirituality among clients and their communities.” In this article we discuss how the mission, charters, and goals of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) addressed the domains of religion and spirituality from their inception. More specifically, the focus of this discussion is the epistemology of spirituality and religion at HBCUs from historical and contemporary perspectives. Content on the exploration of the related themes, religion and spirituality, as manifested in the curriculum, cultural milieu, and social environment of HBCUs will be described. Additionally, we document the role and influence of the African American community, church, and political insurgency. These forces, coupled with the inability or unwillingness of established social service agencies and other social institutions to address issues of inequality and marginalization of African Americans, influenced the essence of the content offered in HBCU schools of social work. Spirituality, advocacy for material aid, and critical race theory are themes that were prevalent in HBCUs curriculum. Finally we show that this “unique HBCU curriculum” was brought about primarily by environmental factors such as racism, segregation, and financial uncertainty, leading to what Du Bois referred to as a double-consciousness.

A Journey Through the Prism of Race: An Evolution of Generational Consciousness

SUMMARY Race consciousness is examined over the life course of three social work professors of color during different generations. This narrative method illustrates their journey through self-affirming families and communities that served as protective factors against hostile individual, community, and institutional forces that attempted to marginalize, subjugate, and oppress their will. Each experienced similar bouts with racism, albeit in less blatant forms, while all benefited from earlier leaders who served as ladders. Implications for diversity, social justice, and social work education are discussed.