Interrogating the role of the school social worker in social movements: Lessons from Black activism in Chicago Public Schools, 1960s-1970s

• In Event: Poster Group 3
  In Poster Session: Interrogating the role of the school social worker in social movements: Lessons from Black activism in Chicago Public Schools, 1960s-1970s

Proposal

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Black community in Chicago led a grassroots movement for educational equity and community control of schools in response to years of segregation and oppressive educational policies. Majority-Black schools were overcrowded, underfunded, and led by majority-White staff. In line with the Black Power movement, Black students and teachers – whose voices were continually ignored in school policy-making – were critical in growing and sustaining efforts for greater Black community control of schools. The role of school social workers, who were increasingly embedded within Chicago Public Schools (CPS) starting in the 1960s, is less known. While the social work profession at the time supported efforts for civil rights and racial equality, scarce research exists on the involvement of school social workers in efforts to fight inequities, especially within CPS.

Through a grounded examination of archival materials, as well as historic and contemporary literature from the fields of social work and education, this paper examines the role of school social workers during this period of discord within Chicago’s public school system. While some literature exists on the role of the school social worker in social justice movements, this paper is original in contributing a historical-critical examination of archival materials, using Chicago as a prime case study to better understand how school social workers and the profession at large responded to increasing demands from the Black community for greater power within schools.

This paper finds that the role of school social workers in the movement for school equity in Chicago during the 1960s and 1970s was notably dubious. While there were certainly individual moments of solidarity from social workers, particularly from the Black social work community, school social workers were largely limited by a professional entanglement with the school system and Board of Education; a predominant focus on the daily activities of intervention and casework rather than social activism; and shaped by the larger social work profession’s modest response to educational injustices. Through a short review of archival materials and literature from post-1970s to present-day, this paper finds that these three issues continue to permeate the school social work profession today.

The role of school social workers in social movements is salient to the question of how those within school systems engage in struggles for systemic transformation and is particularly relevant to the CIES 2024 theme. If protest in education is to be examined comprehensively, it is essential to understand the role of a profession – which has historically been deeply embedded within the school environment – that purports to uphold values of social and racial justice. Despite efforts on the part of the Black community and allied groups, CPS continues to grapple issues of racial and educational inequity. This paper suggests that the school social work profession would be well-served to engage in activism supporting community control of schools, encourage the education and training of more Black school social workers, and interrogate whether the current function of the social worker in schools aligns with the profession’s stated values and goals.

Author

• Emma Heidorn, University of Chicago