Deconstructing Hierarchy Through Learning Communities: Justice, Equity, and Storytelling in the Social Work Classroom

Abstract

Despite the focus on social justice, social work education is still heavily rooted in hierarchy and harmful educational practices. This conceptual and practice-informed article aims to highlight the deconstruction of educational hierarchy within the classroom through a justice lens, with equitable intention, and storytelling as meaningful discourse in social work education. These authors intend to deconstruct power dynamics, dismantle harmful assumptions, and encourage the unlearning of systemic and oppressive methods with the integration of clinical social work experience, useful decolonized classroom practices, and narrative pedagogy. The practice of storytelling can be healing, aid in building community, and also offer a collective learning experience that is actively working in social work education. The unlearning of harmful grading practices, classroom power structures, and models that reinforce individualism are essential for propelling social work education toward a more collective, justice-oriented approach. This article draws on transformational pedagogy and clinical social work practice to explore the ways in which change can occur with intention, attunement, and humility on behalf of instructors and lends to the ongoing conversation around decolonizing social work education. The authors posit that transformative education lies in the space between social work education and clinical practice. The methodology for this article is a culmination of a narrative literature review and the authors’ collective clinical social work practice and pedagogical experience, and this article brings what already occurs in that space into the scholarly literature.

1. Introduction

The institution of higher education, otherwise known as the academy, is one that has historically provided opportunities for advancement for some while strategically and intentionally denying access to the majority of others (Bhopal 2022; Carnevale and Strohl 2013; Feagin et al. 1996; Taylor et al. 2020). We place emphasis on the majority. Acknowledging this unfortunate truth, as well as shifting priorities within the professions that comprise the social sciences, specifically social work, has led to a bold and necessary pivot in the ways in which education centers justice, equity, power, storytelling, and decolonization.

To ground readers, we offer working definitions of these key concepts in order to ensure shared language and understanding as we journey together. For the purposes of this manuscript, the terms will hold the following definitions when presented: justice is the act of ensuring fair and equitable treatment for all while actively assessing and correcting inequities of power, resources, and opportunity (Holder 2025). Equity is the practice of recognizing and removing barriers so that all individuals have fair access, opportunity, and support in order to reach their full potential. The practices of centering justice and equity are interconnected and inextricably linked. Power is the ability to influence, shape, or control people. Power can operate internally, externally, collectively, and structurally within social, cultural, or systemic contexts. Power exists relationally and can be overt, covert, or inherent within roles and relationships. Decolonizing social work education and practice means to strategically dismantle colonial and individualist ideologies and power structures, and intentionally and equitably center historically excluded and culturally grounded voices, practices, and perspectives (Gray et al. 2013; Holder 2025). Storytelling, which we define as the sharing, relating, writing of narratives, can be a powerful and effective tool for supporting justice, equity, and decolonization, through the illumination of diverse student perspectives and encouragement of self-reflection (Keehn 2015), the promotion of moral and spiritual growth (Archibald 2008), the acknowledgment of oppression and envisioning of better worlds (Banks-Wallace 2002), and the introduction of “counter stories” to resist dominant narratives and ideologies (McKenzie-Mohr and Lafrance 2017).

Decentering professors and instructors is necessary to center justice and equity in the academy (hooks 1994). With the beliefs of justice, equity, and storytelling operationalized as embodied values, the necessary decentering of professors and instructors and the rightful replacement of community, bolstered by the elevation of marginalized voices (Fuentes et al. 2021) and reflective acknowledgment of the impact of structural inequities in and outside the classroom (Love 2019; Keehn 2015; Hearn 2012; Linder et al. 2015), is central to the development of equitable learning communities. It is in community that true knowledge integration and transformation can occur through dialogue and storytelling (Freire 2000). So rather than thinking of the educational space as a rigid classroom, this paradigm shift to learning communities is what will begin the process of anti-oppressive, anti-racist, and truly deconstructed learning. We propose that deconstructing the hierarchy between educators, students, and assistants in tangible ways will inevitably shift the culture of social work education.

The purpose of this paper is to offer both a conceptual basis and practice-based ways educators can reimagine classroom power dynamics by embedding, rather than adding, justice and inequity into pedagogy. In this article, we provide personal narrative examples and tangible practical approaches for educators to help enliven theoretical knowledge and provide clarity and direction. Thus, we offer both insights and tools to deconstruct and decolonize pedagogical practices in a way that encourages instructors to share and balance classroom power, and encourages students to reconstruct their own learning in a way that is meaningful and desirable for them, in the short and long term. This not only includes the dynamic between instructors and students, but also the powerful support of graduate teaching and research assistants.

Though this article draws on the wisdom of scholars and educators across disciplines and geography, and can hopefully be applied as such, it is written from the perspective of a Master of Social Work program in the Global North. Our discourse is well situated within the field of social work, which is defined by the International Federation of Social Workers as “a game changer. Social workers… help people build the kind of environments in which they want to live, through co-determination, co-production and social responsibility” (IFSW n.d., para. 1) and calls social work “the largest non-political movement globally for peace and social justice” (para. 4). Indeed, advancing justice and equity are core elements of the accredited social work curriculum (CSWE 2022). Given that the first step to becoming licensed and independently operating as forces for change is the MSW classroom, social work students are further distinct in that this profession is practice-based, through internship experiences that must be connected to the classroom curriculum. Part of the nuance comes from recognizing how systems interact and impact one another, increasing the need for social work students to have the capacity to both think and behave across systems levels and contexts. Social work students are not solely learning—they are immediately applying their learning with actual humans, and decolonizing education is one method of embodying not just the “what” but also the “how” of their education and practice. “The management of its application takes different forms around the world, even though everywhere it creates opportunities for students to develop, enrich, and integrate their theoretical and practical knowledge while ‘doing’. This component of social work education is often the most important one in which students can connect and verify existing theory with the reality of practice while they are supported by qualified social workers supervising their practice” (Przeperski and Baikady 2024, p. 295). This makes this framework necessary.

We, as the authors, would be remiss not to begin with our story, to ground our offerings as two professors and one graduate research assistant at a department of social work in the western United States. This is not only to ground the pedagogical knowledge, but to model vulnerability, inspire trust, and further validate the role of storytelling in authentic community-building—just as this is what we are charging those who read with. Let us now locate ourselves intersectionally, positionally, and personally.

Intersectional Introductions

The first author identifies as a Black, cisgender female with an appreciation for the ways in which class is fluid. I am a disabled veteran with the privilege of moving between ability statuses, given the invisible nature of my disabilities. I am a liberal Christian, Black feminist, and I believe in liberation and abolition. I live with experiences of trauma and anxiety. I am a first-generation college student with a doctoral-level education and own my own home and business. Most importantly, I am a first-time, single mama to a Black daughter. My identities as a single mother, Black woman, and disabled veteran are perhaps some of the most informative and representative of my complex intersectionality. Professionally, I am a tenure-track assistant professor of social work, a board-certified licensed clinical social worker, a yoga instructor, an author and a speaker. The culmination of my lived experiences, cultural connections, and personal/professional identities have shaped my motivation for being not just present, but active and vocal in higher education. Representation matters. May I always serve as who and what I once needed, and be the example that my daughter can accomplish anything in this world.

The second author identifies as a white-bodied, cis, hetero, married woman and mother. I am a board-certified clinical practitioner, an adjunct instructor, and a published author. I am an ally, a feminist, and a co-conspirator for change. I recognize the privilege of my identities and strive to elevate matters in spaces where other voices are silenced. I believe in social work, in education, and in social justice. I am a first-generation college graduate with a doctoral-level education, and my clinical work is also rooted in higher education. I live with complex PTSD and anxiety, I am a survivor of child abuse and neglect, and I have lived experience with being unhoused as a teenager. Educators and safe educational spaces were the epicenter of my world and of my healing journey. My lived experience and my professional career drive my work toward justice-centered, inclusive, equitable classrooms and where liberatory practices pour into the next generation of helping professionals.

The third author identifies as a white, cisgender female who recognizes the complex facets of both privileged and marginalized identities she holds. My time as an MSW student, and much of my department’s grounding in feminism and Black feminism, has in many ways felt like healing and homecoming, having experienced my own share of sexism and misogyny, and having been gifted with a lifelong desire for social justice by elementary teachers and college professors alike who, I now realize with gratitude, were committed to liberatory pedagogy. I recognize the immense privilege I wield in being white, able-bodied, financially stable, and in having structures of support in my life that make it possible to hold a graduate research assistantship. I am a mother, and my most fervent hope is that my daughter will experience a kinder, more just world.

These intersectional introductions and positionality statements (Greathouse 2020; Watts-Jones 2010) also serve as the gateway to and the first modeling of storytelling at the start of any academic setting. But before delving deeply into storytelling, we must build the theoretical and conceptual foundation for our practice offerings.

The storytelling examples presented in the following sections are fictional composite narratives constructed by the authors from their cumulative teaching experiences to illustrate key pedagogical concepts and are not drawn from direct research with identifiable student subjects.

2. Context: Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations

“The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.”—bell hooks.

We must highlight and emphasize that this article is conceptual and practice-informed. The narrative examples are derived from the collective pedagogical and clinical experiences of the authors. This is intentionally aligned with the deconstructive values of this manuscript. Practice-informed scholarship is often overlooked when empirical research has not been conducted, which further widens the gap between theory and practice. In order to support the integration of diverse voices into the dominant teaching and practice discourse, practitioner knowledge must be recognized as a valid and valued form of social work evidence (Witkin and Harrison 2001).

2.1. Bell Hooks and Engaged Pedagogy

In her landmark book Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks envisioned education as “a practice of freedom,” grounded in her own experience of Black schools in her youth, where learning and education were understood to be a powerful form of resistance to hegemonic racism, and thus an essential avenue to justice and equity (hooks 1994). As she continued on her own academic journey and became further inspired by both Paulo Freire’s liberatory pedagogy and feminist pedagogy, her vision of engaged pedagogy became one that centered on mutuality, community, and care.

In this model, students and teachers alike had not only an ability, but a responsibility to collectively create a learning community, with student contributions viewed as an invaluable resource. Educators were responsible for creating an environment of mutuality, modeling both vulnerability and respect for others’ vulnerability, where holistic well-being was valued as well as intellectual and spiritual growth. As hooks (1994, p. 207) wrote, “The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility, we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress”. hooks’ (1994) model of engaged pedagogy is, in this sense, justice in action with the structural redistribution of knowledge and voice within the classroom.

2.2. Design Justice

Institutes of higher education have historically centered dominant perspectives and reified structures of inequity, and our current era has seen a pushback against anti-racism efforts, with moves to ban critical race theory, for example, in higher education (Miller et al. 2023). In times like these, marginalized voices—of students, of faculty and staff, of texts—are at even more risk of being pushed out (Vargas et al. 2024). Merely making space for these voices is not enough; diversity efforts that seek to placate dominant groups and the top of the hierarchy may not only be less effective, but may even be more prone to inducing “diversity fatigue” and faculty willingness to go along with the status quo (Smith et al. 2021).

Pedagogical approaches that hinge on racial justice offer an alternative: centering marginalized voices to counter the dominant messaging that sustains systems of racism and marginalization. Bettina Love argues that teachers should invert these hierarchies by grounding their work in anti-oppressive theory and creating “homeplaces” for students to feel seen, heard, and affirmed as scholars holding intersectionality-marginalized identities (Love 2019). Course design that centers authors of marginalized backgrounds in the syllabus, acknowledges intersectionality, and collaborates with students to co-create norms around communication can all help create and sustain these inclusive and affirming spaces (Fuentes et al. 2021). The active assessment and correction of inequities of power, resources, and opportunity is justice embedded directly into course design.

2.3. Community of Learners

Classical models of education have viewed the educator as a reservoir of knowledge to be imparted onto passive, receiving students, referred to as “the banking model” of education (Freire 2000). Such a model privileges the perspective and knowledge of the teacher—the “sage on the stage”—over others’ knowledge and perspectives. Not only does this approach overlook the immense value inherent in the breadth and depth of students’ lived experiences, but it also reifies hegemonic systems by legitimizing a single dominant narrative and suppressing others.

Freire and hooks, by contrast, saw the classroom as a communal place where student perspectives and narratives were both valued and valuable, key to the development of critical thinking and consciousness of structures of oppression, and instrumental in the struggle for human liberation. This perspective is not only better suited to advancing a just world but also enhances student intellectual growth. Empirical evidence suggests that student engagement and teacher–student relationship quality are positively associated with learning outcomes (Lei et al. 2018; Thornberg et al. 2022), and that actively including students in learning (Freeman et al. 2014) and dialogue (Howe et al. 2019) during class time results in better outcomes than traditional lecturing.

Frameworks like relational pedagogy (Bovill et al. 2016) and students as partners, that emphasize reciprocity and collaboration between students and teachers, are gaining traction as the field recognizes the value of student voice (Bryson 2016; Mercer-Mapstone et al. 2017). Dialogue among students, in turn, is particularly well-suited to discussing competing ideas (Howe and Abedin 2013); encountering that challenge is essential to building knowledge and developing critical consciousness. When we approach education from a justice-based, learner-centered lens, a collective perspective where we expand together, elevate one another, and redistribute power is truly cultivated. This is where the magic of learning in community shines. The collective co-creation of this community of learners is a crucial distinction, particularly as we return to the definition of justice presented above. This redistribution of power in its overt, covert, and structural operations, as defined above, is what transforms community from a neutral gathering into a site of justice. A communal classroom without a justice lens runs the risk of replicating hierarchy—a practice the authors are committed to dismantling. Reciprocal knowledge can disrupt the hierarchy and redefine the learner/teacher relationship, which can be attained through critical dialogue, classroom interactions, and informal interactions (Williams et al. 2024). Disruption of power can be achieved with integrity, intention, and without harm to the institution of learning.

2.4. Justice and Equity Lens

Student trajectories and outcomes in higher education vary significantly by race, with students of color, and particularly Black students, experiencing both lower completion and higher borrowing rates, and a higher proportion of white students attending the most selective colleges (Carnevale and Strohl 2013). Meanwhile, even though students in higher education have become increasingly diverse along with the U.S. population, college and university staff remain predominantly white (Kim et al. 2024). Classroom dialogue is often dominated by subgroups of students who tend to hold certain gender, ethnicity, and attainment identities (Howe and Abedin 2013), and many white faculty members struggle with the task of supporting students of color through issues of race (Young and Brooks 2008).

Intersectionality frameworks grounded in Black feminist theory (Crenshaw 2012) are a useful way to conceptualize the idea that all participants in a classroom have intersecting identities that reflect many facets of privilege and marginalization, including (but not limited to) race and ethnicity, skin color, religion, class, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, and size. Because teachers hold positions of power in higher education, it is important for them to recognize and reflect on their own intersectionality and the complex ways their identity interacts with the curriculum and with students (Hearn 2012).

Willingness to model this self-reflection and facilitate activities to help students reflect on how their own identities influence their experience is critical to fostering an inclusive classroom (Linder et al. 2015). Recognizing and exploring these structural inequalities not only develops critical consciousness (hooks 1994) but can help build connection and community across differences (Cook-Sather 2015). A justice and equity lens is directly and powerfully connected to the practice of storytelling through centering historically silenced voices. This centering, however, requires structure for those voices to be heard and honored as they deserve. This is the responsibility of the instructor to initiate, and the learning community to agree to hold together (hooks 1994).

2.5. Storytelling Across Cultural Traditions

Storytelling is universal in human societies, likely as old as language itself, with oral traditions across the world being utilized to pass on historical, cultural, and moral information (Anderson 2010). In the African American tradition, storytelling has supported the struggle for freedom through empowerment via healing and connection, through sharing stories of oppression and, rooted in African cultural traditions, sharing stories of ancestors and those who have come before to help listeners envision a different world (Banks-Wallace 2002). It is a powerful and necessary practice that has contributed to revelation, understanding, and depth of relationship, despite being both critiqued and not always rightfully attributed to African Americans (Banks-Wallace 2002). In North American Indigenous traditions, stories can hold immense power, with some laboring for decades to gain the authority to tell certain sacred stories (Archibald 2008). Indigenous stories can be powerful examples of endurance and resilience (Middelton-Moz et al. 2023). In Indigenous storywork, interrelatedness, reciprocity, and connection through storytelling promote moral, intellectual, and spiritual growth (Archibald 2008).

Freire built his dialogic approach on the impossibility of speaking for others’ experiences: “It is not our role to speak to the people about our own view of the world, nor to attempt to impose that view on them, but rather to dialogue with the people about their view and ours” (2000, p. 78). Bringing personal stories into the classroom not only helps students retain knowledge by adding meaningful personal dimensions to course material, but also provides insight into the variety of perspectives and experiences other students hold and opportunities for students to self-reflect on their own assumptions and stereotypes (Keehn 2015). Storytelling thus encourages a vital openness to and awareness of the often-unjust reality of others’ worlds (Freire 2000), and thus can help counter dominant narratives (McKenzie-Mohr and Lafrance 2017). Moreover, some theorists argue that storytelling emerged to meet a basic human psychological need: to have our experiences heard by others (Anderson 2010)—and thus the sharing of stories can offer students not only the chance to learn from others, but also to be heard and held in community.

These theoretical frameworks focus on the power inherent in storytelling, view knowledge and learning as a collective responsibility, center on mutuality and care, and recognize and name structural inequalities while centering historically silenced voices. These principles undergird the practice recommendations presented by this authorship and teaching team. Thus, the above four frameworks are offered as a unified constellation underpinning all practice recommendations, rather than solely as discrete ideological stances or pedagogical practices.

The main questions or aims guiding the development of this framework are: What is the potential/experienced impact of deconstructing social work education through the development of learning communities? How does centering equity and justice, approaching teaching as relational, and deconstructing hierarchy within existing institutional structures truly change the teaching and learning processes? And what are tangible, reasonable methods of incorporating these frameworks as educators? The objectives of this framework are to provide theoretical grounding and an easily implemented roadmap for teaching teams, offering practice and pedagogically informed implications for future empirical research.

3. Materials and Methods for Deconstructing Hierarchy in the Classroom

The scientific materials and methods utilized, much like our ideas and practices, deviate from convention and further represent a decolonial stance. These include a narrative literature review, practice-informed reflection, and collective pedagogical experiences of the authorship team.

3.1. Rethinking Power

Power is inherent in the classroom setting due to a long-standing dichotomy set in place generations ago. Classrooms have historically revolved around the dynamic of a single knowledge holder (instructor) and knowledge receivers (students) who will be passive recipients in the transfer of said knowledge (Freire 2000). This power has resulted in dysregulated nervous systems, surface-level relational dynamics, and an overall limited learning experience. Despite not being able to control students’ motivations for learning, what we do know is that students do not learn best in the midst of fear of failure, as this decreases their capacity for knowledge retention (Lerche et al. 2018; De Castella et al. 2013). A rethinking of power as well as its overt, covert, and structural operations is necessary in order to support the deconstruction of potentially harmful and certainly limiting dynamics. This begins with the redefining of relationships between instructors, assistants, and students.

We acknowledge that university administrators are gatekeepers to change and tend to uphold hierarchical norms (Williams et al. 2024; McKee and Delgado 2020; Taylor et al. 2020) and that university structures, accreditation, and institution policy, necessary though they may be, can create real constraints that hinder the ability to rethink and redistribute power in the classroom. This article is not proposing that instructors or students ignore rules, but rather, we are asserting that meaningful shifts are both possible and necessary within existing institutional structures.

3.2. Redefining Relationships

With the application of a deconstructed and relational lens, the instructor recognizes that learning is a shared event in which instructors can learn from students and students can learn from each other. This is a reciprocal and mutual process. This paves the way for the co-creation of a learning environment that invites and encourages academic risk, critical consumption of knowledge, and meaningful application—rooted in the power of community rather than theory. Experiential learning occurs when a learner-centered dynamic is embraced. Instructors who have examined their own power can work to minimize the negative impact on students and co-create a learning space that lends to the process of learning rather than solely emphasizing the outcomes of presented curricula. Relational learning then acknowledges all parties as humans first (personal) and students/educators second (professional). To further undergird the redefinition of relationships, participation in this level of community-building and engagement is reinforced and explicitly stated as optional rather than required. Students who prefer greater academic distance are equally valued members of the learning space, much like other communities have many members with varying roles and degrees of involvement, but are instrumental no less.

3.3. Graduate Research Assistant Support

The same power dynamics that shape the student–teacher relationship extend to an often less considered relationship in the learning environment: that of Graduate Research Assistants (GRAs). Often seen as taskers that solely exist to support the academic goals of the instructors, GRAs can go underappreciated and unrecognized. The kind of tasks research assistants are frequently assigned—data collection, transcription, literature searches, annotated bibliographies (Narendorf et al. 2016)—are typically not recognized as worthy of authorship (Sweeting et al. 2024). This practice contributes to their exclusion, devaluation, oppression, and erasure. The roles of GRAs should instead be empowered in a learning community that deconstructs hierarchy and exploitation (Camargo et al. 2025). This begins with the hiring (paid vs. unpaid labor) of GRAs at a fair wage, hourly rather than a flat compensation, and granting them access to pre-published learning materials to increase transparency and decrease gatekeeping. It is inviting GRAs into research projects as co-PIs and contributors, with their names and contributions acknowledged. When assisting with course development, they are both trusted to find appropriate resources and mentored throughout the process. And much like this current project, they are welcomed as co-authors on manuscripts in which their contributions far exceed solely finding references or reading with a critical eye. In these ways, GRAs are a part of research and teaching teams, honoring their breadth of expertise across both educational contexts.

3.4. Graduate Teaching Assistant Support

An additional layer is the presence and participation of Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs). Many times, these roles are treated as subordinate within the classroom dynamic. They exist solely to engage in the mundane tasks that instructors are too busy for or simply cannot be bothered with. This perpetuates the presence of hierarchy and leads to students further witnessing the very dynamic instructors claim to be deconstructing. As models of deconstructed learning spaces, it is incredibly significant for words and actions to be aligned, which we call critical accountability. Teaching assistants are instead invited into all aspects of the course, and encouraged to view the course as just as much “theirs” as the “instructor’s,” reflecting a mutual partnership (Bryson 2016; Mercer-Mapstone et al. 2017). This includes meeting at the start of the term, introducing the teaching assistant as part of the teaching team, and actually integrating their suggestions and feedback. This also includes teaching and mentoring them to eventually hold their own classes, so co-creating rubrics, teaching anti-oppressive grading, requiring at least one lecture development and delivery, and allowing them time to meet with and support students without the instructor’s presence, as appropriate. Given the nature of bias, sexism, and racism, we do carry anxieties, particularly as women and BIPOC folx, about the impact of teaching assistant involvement on student feedback scores (Heffernan 2022). Thus, it is important to communicate openly and honestly with institutional leadership, as well as within the learning community, about appropriately giving feedback, representation in higher education, and intent vs. impact.

3.5. Options and Participation

Many students come with academic experiences that must be unlearned. Among these are rigid institutional standards and expectations, rooted in white supremacist and colonial ideals around perfectionism, objectivity, individualism, and success (Okun 1999; Vargas et al. 2024). Decolonizing social work education resists these notions through the strategic dismantling of colonial power structures in favor of historically excluded and culturally grounded ways of knowing. The level of angst, frustration, and discomfort that comes from breaking away from tradition can force individuals to adhere to practices that feel misaligned, yet familiar.

There is also the ever-hovering concern about what it means to be a scholar versus a professional, particularly for those transitioning careers or returning to higher education after many years (McSweeney 2014), and also for those whose education is steeped in traditional systemic experiences. The questions this creates include: How many pages should my assignment be? How many references must I include? And ultimately, what must I do to achieve a 100 rather than a mediocre 94? One of the notions that must continually be deconstructed is that of perfectionism (Okun 1999). Though uncomfortable, many students have written how amazing it was to witness and engage in the decolonization of a classroom in real time and how that led to a deeper understanding of their power across practice settings.

Instructors are no different in needing to unlearn such ideals. In the deconstruction of power and tradition, an instructor learns that students engage differently with more buy-in and an investment in the outcome when they have more autonomy and opportunities to engage in decision-making. Agreements on due dates, assignment formats (recording vs live presentations), and additional choices surrounding assignments are ways instructors can give much of the positional power in a meaningful and appreciated way. Ultimately, offering multiple entry points for student voice, assignment flexibility, and shared decision-making are methods of embodied deconstruction and increased ownership of the learning process.

3.6. Witnessing as Healing

The power in being seen and heard is well known as an act of resistance in social work research and practice contexts (McKenzie-Mohr and Lafrance 2017). It is also a need and a right that is much taken for granted, overlooked, and simply deprioritized, particularly in educational spaces. But if we are approaching the learning process relationally, witnessing builds trust and dismantles rigid hierarchies. Witnessing is healing.

From a narrative theory perspective, witnessing is an integral part of individuals authoring and reauthoring their own narratives (Paquin 2009; Speedy 2000). But the power lies not solely within the act or experience of being witnessed. It also lies with the sharing of self and of truths that often comes from sharing in community and ceremony. Additionally, the decrease in isolation subsequently results in the decrease in shame around shared lived experiences that do not always have space or voice (Paquin 2009; Speedy 2000).

These practices, appearing heavily therapeutic, may be a deterrent for educators for a host of reasons, including clinical training, interest, practice experience, and even the fear of professional boundaries being blurred, increasing tension or liability for educators. However, emotion belongs in the classroom (hooks 1994). How can students be encouraged/required to engage in “unlearning” if educators are not also willing to engage in this process surrounding emotional investment in the classroom? Students are being asked to set aside what they know and what they have learned to live in an authentic community, and so should we. This lends to a collective holding of space and challenges the normative classroom.

One of the ways we encourage students to engage in this practice is to reach out personally if a deadline extension is needed. Instructors can make it known that extensions are generously given, but only with up-front communication. Normalizing that life is happening, and that they are holding many roles aside from being a student (employee, child, parent, partner, etc.) and that it is human to need additional time, however, the expectation is clear that they must engage first. A high rate of success is common with students completing tasks prior to the extended deadline when met with a warm and compassionate response to their request. This is witnessing and being witnessed in action.

3.7. Academic Risk, Trust, and Relationship-Building

Academic risk-taking in the role of the instructor can be an empowering concept for students to witness. Collectively changing due dates based on conversations with students, altering assignments based on the instructor’s individual judgment, and allowing for assignments to be group or partnered projects when possible, are all ways to model challenging the norm in order to elevate the learning. These disruptions are everyday practices that lead to cumulative change and place the students and instructors in a horizontal relationship (Williams et al. 2024). This demonstrates to students when academic risk-taking is appropriate and value-added.

For students, academic risk-taking is a concept that must be modeled and reinforced as much and as often as possible. This begins with defining this practice and even providing tangible examples for students to engage in this, while also speaking to what will occur if the student does not meet expectations, but the effort, attention, and intention were evident. Naming and normalizing this practice early truly inspires creativity and integration of learning in ways that traditional, risk-averse methods are unable to. It is one major factor contributing to an academic space where risk-taking and learning from one another are normalized.

Academic risk-taking is recognized in ways that diverge from perfectionist grading. For example, engagement in written or video journals that require students to reflect on the integration of core concepts with internship experiences, exploration of theoretical development in practice, and personal examination as they develop their clinical identity in therapeutic spaces. These assignments cannot be measured by typical academic standards but must be incorporated into learning about themselves as burgeoning professionals. Effort, attention, and growth are honored in a way that makes traditional grading impractical and irrelevant. Communicating to students that the importance of learning lies in professional growth and personal development, and is not simply task-oriented or information regurgitation, is how this risk-taking is formally invited and subsequently supported.

The use of self-reflection in clinical coursework is essential (Fook 2015). The connection of learning materials to work, intern, or life experiences is a way for students to integrate the concepts into their practice and elevate their understanding. Giving autonomy to students by letting them state and reflect on what is important to them gives the reflection deeper meaning. Helpful questions to encourage self-reflection may sound like: What stands out for you in this week’s materials? What clients/situations does this bring up from work or internship? Metacognition in this setting is a huge part of the overall process of knowledge reinforcement and power examination, moving students from abstract to application (D’Cruz et al. 2007). hooks (1994) asserted that self-reflection as a part of engaged pedagogy is required of both instructors and students.

Transparency in relationships ultimately builds a level of trust appropriate to the relational context (Bellucci and Park 2020). This means that students respond generally positively when instructors are open about being new to teaching a course, uncertainty around unclear expectations, and even their own struggles, perhaps with the current socio-political climate or institutional transitions. Whatever the topic may be, sharing in conversation and community, even without achieving resolution, deepens not only trust but the likelihood of the relationship surviving cycles of rupture and repair, and serving as blueprints for future securely attached relationships (O’Shaughnessy et al. 2023).

Several ethical considerations were made for this article and are present throughout the entirety of its effort to protect students’ individual stories through the sharing of overarching/fictionalized experiences. The considerations include, but are not limited to: student confidentiality, voluntary participation through storytelling, trauma-informed and learner-centered educational standards, and critical consciousness of power dynamics in the instructor–student relationship.

3.8. Storytelling, Vulnerability, and Community

“We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.”—Jimmy Neil Smith.

3.8.1. Storytelling as Equalizer

There is so much power in story as the sharing, relating, and writing of narratives that illuminate diverse perspectives, encourage self-reflection, and resist dominant narratives. What is even more powerful is shifting the expectation of vulnerability from resting solely on the students to those who have historically held power. This actually creates open space for storytelling. But this must begin with a simple, yet fundamental understanding: everyone is a storyteller.

From African ancestors to Biblical parables, stories have been used to illustrate points, preserve history, share connections, create peaceful communities, bridge generational and cultural divides, and, of course, to teach—everything from practical life lessons to theoretical applications (Anderson 2010; Archibald 2008; Banks-Wallace 2002). Though sharing stories brings a tinge of vulnerability, storytellers are revered for both their eloquence and experience. If educators view and approach storytelling in learning communities through this light, it can increase the willingness to engage in such powerful and meaningful pedagogical practice.

Narrative example: One powerful shared narrative in a previous term’s maternal and infant mental health class came from a student who experienced a difficult birth experience and loss in the context of a course designed to prepare social workers to work with the mother/child dyad. The class was able to engage with a deeper understanding from the mother/caregiver perspective due to the contributions of this student. When it felt appropriate for her to share, never with pressure, she would offer her opinions on things like bereavement services, physicians’ and nurses’ bedside manners, what type of support would be value-added and what felt like more of a barrier to her in those moments. These insights led to a multipronged perspective for the other students and a tangible way to practice compassion for the population we were learning about. The student also reflected that sharing in order to give perspective and encourage compassion to other professionals was healing and that she felt it honored her experience. The class was able to participate in real-time compassion and empathy, which added depth to the learning process when working with vulnerable populations.

3.8.2. Educator as Storyteller

Many of the most powerful leaders in social justice movements are known as storytellers: Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Erin Brockovich, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, to name a powerful few. Storytelling is perhaps one of the first forms of education. It transcends cultural and class barriers and has shaped learning throughout history (Bromley 2025; Freire 2000). Storytelling offers connection through shared experiences in a way that is stripped of pedagogical pomp and circumstance. What is more is that it serves as an immediately welcoming example to students that it is not only okay, but necessary for social workers to be full and unashamed humans.

The consistent feedback from students, particularly within practice courses or those with more emotionally taxing contexts, is that the stories of instructors are where they learn and connect the most. These stories include early learning moments, mistakes, and intentional growth as models for learning and practice. Students both need and deserve to have access to the practice experiences of instructors. This is what both grounds them and propels them early in their social work careers. Leaders openly and honestly sharing their narratives is one of the most powerful models of deconstructed and decolonized learning.

Narrative example #1: When I teach a substance use disorder course, I share the story of the very first veteran I supported during my MSW internship in the VA outpatient substance use clinic. This veteran experienced significant substance use concerns, as well as medicated physical health concerns that were negatively impacted by his cocaine and marijuana use. I shared the story of how I (independently) made a plan for this veteran to attend inpatient treatment, informed him of the plan, and was excited when he finally consented. When the time came for him to actually be admitted, he completely ghosted me. I could not reach him, and he did not attend our scheduled follow-up. I was absolutely devastated. Inconsolable. Why had he not listened to the perfect recovery plan I crafted for him? What had I missed or done wrong? When the veteran did resurface, it was after a near-death experience with his substance use, where not taking his medication caused him to have a stroke and be hospitalized. It was in this experience that he found his own motivation and desire for change. When I convey this to students, I do so to illustrate the woes of attempting to fix, advise, or correct when it is not our place as practitioners. And further to demonstrate the power of self-determination in individuals as they embark on their healing journey. Finally, to show that human emotion cannot be removed from the clinical process, it must be bracketed. It was my care and non-judgment that welcomed the veteran back, but it was his own work that led to his recovery journey. This story resonates deeply with students who share fears related to this type of clinical dynamic.

Narrative example #2: When I teach a clinical practice course, early in the term, I share the story of my very first session with a client. During my first clinical position, I was preparing for my very first session with a 16-year-old male who had a tough history, including suicidal ideations and an acute hospitalization. I had spent a lot of effort preparing an activity for us to do, and I was very excited about it. The moment we sat down in the room together, I asked how he was doing, and he began to cry. He sobbed uncontrollably. I sat there in shock for what felt like an eternity (in reality it was probably 60–90 s) and then realized he did not need an activity, he just needed me to be there. I got up to get tissues, asked for permission to touch him and rubbed his shoulder as he cried. I encouraged him to just let it out. After a good cry, he collected himself, and I told him that I was honored that he felt safe enough to cry in front of me, and then we moved into our activity. I relay this story with humor (can you break clients immediately?) and humility (admitting I did not know what to do at that moment, but my instincts as a human took over). This story allows students to recognize that we all feel unprepared at times, that clients will give us the unexpected at times, and that simply being there is enough.

3.8.3. Students as Storytellers

The culture and climate of the classroom often determine the level of storytelling, and effectively, self-disclosure from students. This begins at the outset of the course, perhaps within a community agreement that what is learned leaves and what is shared stays, and must be intentionally revisited. Jennings (2017) illustrates that seizing teachable moments can be attributed, in part, to deliberate probing questions, which lends to an atmosphere where open and honest participation can occur. This may look like inviting, not requiring, self-disclosure. In online learning spaces where course recordings are required, it may also look like pausing the recording so that deeply personal narratives are not captured and forever saved within the course.

Narrative example: A prior maternal and infant mental health student had a question on how we (as a society) can move closer to a supportive and less judgmental view of parents/mothers. Knowing that we had students from other cultures in the classroom, I called upon them to share if they had cultural traditions or perspectives that they felt comfortable sharing. One student was excited to share the way her family and community come in to handle everything for new moms. She shared that the week prior to the birth, the women cook, clean, and prepare the house so that the new mother can solely focus on healing from childbirth. The student shared from the perspective of the givers and how exciting it was to share in that tradition. This atmosphere, where sharing is valued, was created with intention by welcoming differing perspectives.

Reactivation is always, no matter the environment, a possibility when students are voluntarily in the position of storytellers. This makes information around reactivation, trauma-responsiveness, and how to ensure the implementation of actual best practices pivotal. Due to the varying nature of student and instructor backgrounds and each individual’s right to privacy, it is unreasonable to expect any one individual to be able to guarantee absolute safety. However, much like a tornado watch represents conditions favorable for severe weather, instructors can model a non-extractive, non-coercive, and non-punitive engagement in both community and storytelling as protective factors. This is a therapeutic-informed space, rather than an actual therapeutic space, honoring the boundaries within the instructor–student dynamic. This means instructors hold the emotional temperature in ways that then offer a pathway to additional support when stories exceed classroom capacity. This is the embodiment of creating classroom conditions favorable for storytelling.

3.8.4. Witnessing Across Diversity and Difference

Diversity is difference, both those differences that are obvious and those that are not. It is variation and gradation across all possible contexts, internal and external. It removes assumptions of sameness despite shared identities and experiences. Diversity not only includes but celebrates difference across social identities and locations, no matter race, gender identity/expression, socioeconomic status, (dis)ability, and the like. It invites mutual communication and compassion that suspends judgment, without the necessity for understanding or agreement.

Stories and storytelling are bridges for equity and justice (Banks-Wallace 2002). Across diverse cohorts, stories as tools for teaching and lived experience as bridges for bonding are what make witnessing possible. And with witnessing comes compassion, shared purpose, advocacy, community, and eventually, a collective change.

Narrative example: Because I started my pedagogical journey as a practicum instructor, providing hands-on learning in a professional setting, I feel that I approach teaching from a unique lens. I take an empowering stance from the beginning and let students know that I am here for their growth and that failure is a reflection on my part. Owning that immediately brings a lower-pressure environment to the forefront of the classroom and allows for learning to be the primary goal. I also acknowledge what it is to be a recovering perfectionist and how the deconstructed classroom can be disorienting, offering space for those who struggle with that aspect. I am happy to provide structure to those who seek it and allow freedom to those who do not, when possible.

4. Conceptual Shifts and Practice Implications

4.1. Shifting Pedagogical Assumptions

Let us begin this section by identifying and deconstructing common pedagogical assumptions, with the ultimate purpose of moving away from control and authority, and toward relationality and justice in the learning environment.

Pedagogical assumptions:

Performance equals learning. Grading as a measure of performance is perhaps one of the most common and innocuous assumptions when viewed without a critical lens or in a vacuum (hooks 1994). Grades have overtaken learning, assignments have become busy work, and learners often disconnect from the process. One way to deconstruct this is to connect the learning outcomes with assignments. Giving the learners the why, not just the instructions. Connecting the learning objectives to the assignment in a meaningful way can be a powerful process that creates buy-in to the experience.

Enjoyment/excitement does not have a place in the learning process. Due to the need for perceived prestige and rigor, there can be an assumption that learning is no longer fun and must be inevitably serious to equate to status or achievement. This pressure to succeed can cause anxiety in students (Jones et al. 2018), which in turn challenges access to higher thought processes, working memory, and critical thinking, impacting learning retention (Suliman and Halabi 2007; Eysenk 2010). One way to deconstruct this assumption is to add joy back to the learning space, even in small ways. Playing introductory music, sharing positive news or travel plans, celebrating each other’s wins, and encouraging creativity with assignments (allowing poetry or visual aids with journaling, for example) can allow for some pressure release in the classroom. This can erase some of the feelings of dread that accompany entering a classroom setting by ensuring the classroom feels like a place of community and belonging. Humor can also be used as a tool to create a more fun learning environment, which also promotes attendance (Deiter 2000).

Humor equates to a lack of seriousness at this level of education. Academia feels more like a place of seriousness than a place where authenticity is welcomed. This assumption often forces folx to wear a mask in order to appear “appropriate” or “professional”. While that may be necessary for some situations, it often limits the capacity for learning by stifling creativity, honesty, and vulnerability (Ferguson and Dougherty 2022). A relaxed, welcoming, and inclusive environment centers the learning and not the appearance or performance that is often demanded. It also allows for mistakes to be learned from and not internalized as failure.

The instructor holds all of the power. This assumption is harmful because it robs the learners of autonomy and reinforces the powerlessness of systemic oppression (Freire 2000). This dynamic can be deconstructed by giving power back to the collective in ways that do not compromise the integrity of the learning. By challenging this assumption, the learners are given autonomy and decision-making responsibilities are transferred back to the learning community when possible. Treating the learners as capable individuals with a voice should be the standard.

Authenticity and transparency are unprofessional. The assumption that people have to show up a certain way in order to be perceived as “professional” is outdated, oppressive, and harmful. Dress codes and restrictions on tattoos, hair color, and piercings, etc., are ways in which systems have harmfully excluded the global majority from the “professional” workforce. This assumption can have a profound impact on a person’s self-concept and has perpetuated imposter syndrome and stereotype threat in many spaces. This assumption has also prohibited members of historically harmed communities from showing up authentically (Collins et al. 2020; Ferguson and Dougherty 2022). The dominant conception of “professionalism” requires conformity to Eurocentric standards of appearance and speech that historically exclude them, pressuring folx to perform whiteness and hide their “true selves” (Ferguson and Dougherty 2022).

Cultural/lived experiences are considered unprofessional and should not be discussed. This assumption is dangerous and implies the historical notion that scholars should leave behind their family of origin and strip away their experiences to gain knowledge. From a clinical perspective, the idea that disclosure is prohibited, unprofessional, or dangerous has been the professional standard. This assumption is harmful as it encourages power imbalances in the clinical setting. The idea that clients should not know anything about their therapists does not enhance a relationship but imposes a hierarchical dynamic that can disrupt a therapeutic alliance. We can begin to disrupt this norm in the classroom setting by allowing our humanity to surface while still maintaining ethical standards. Additionally, students’ lived experiences are often discredited if they are not “work-related,” which can leave the learner frustrated and unwilling to share experiences. These students should both be recognized for their experiences as well as provided the opportunity to integrate the new learning (Anastas 2010).

Educators and learners must remain neutral and should not react to current events. The historical avoidance of difficult discussions has created a narrative that polite conversations are the only appropriate exchange (hooks 1994). This is harmful because it creates internal and external barriers for shared thoughts, collaborative approaches, and the ability to disagree. The social work profession is currently under attack, and its core values are being challenged in a political arena. Remaining neutral is no longer an option. Creating an accountable space where frustration is shared and not overlooked can create community and deepen learning around injustice, oppression, and the ways in which these issues are coped with on multi-systemic levels. Shared perspectives can be instrumental in the stretching of one’s understanding around topics that have not been personally experienced.

Narrative example: In one course, we have an embedded assignment that cannot be changed, but the due date can be modified, which can help with autonomy. I also provide other assignments with more flexibility to account for the inflexible one. This recognition by the instructor lends to the notion that the students’ learning is the most important outcome rather than the demands of academic performance.

4.2. Pedagogy as Healing

Pedagogical and practice literature supports storytelling and witnessing as practices that support relationship development in both clinical and pedagogical spaces (Bromley 2025; McKenzie-Mohr and Lafrance 2017). Thus, they are central practices of repair for students, assistants, and educators alike. Attachment theory tells us that conflict is both inevitable and necessary, with relationships being cycles of rupture and repair, rupture and repair (O’Shaughnessy et al. 2023). Attachment theory also tells us that insecure attachment is healed through secure relationships that may not have existed with primary caregivers, and that the development of those relationships can happen at any point in life and across multiple relational contexts (O’Shaughnessy et al. 2023). Given this knowledge, instructors can engage in healing attachment wounds with students and assistants by simply being a steady, safe, and secure presence, with appropriate boundaries being modeled in practice. When the values of belonging and conclusion are consistent, educators have the opportunity for connection, attachment, and safety to be present and healing in the learning process (Middelton-Moz et al. 2023; Carello and Butler 2014; Duthie 2019).

Narrative example: A prior substance use disorder class I taught held many stories around recovery from the students. The space we created lent to a great deal of unsolicited self-disclosure. This began when one bold student shared where he had been on his journey and where he was at that present moment. This opened the door for many students to share their experiences, family experiences, client experiences, and the range of emotions that accompanied them. We came to an agreement that whenever one was to share a personal narrative, they would give the signal for me to pause the recording to protect them. This highlighted my reverence for their narratives. We also discussed openly that those who shared were not seeking therapy, but being heard and witnessed in community. They shared how unique and healing this was for them in a classroom setting, and how positively it impacted their personal and professional practice, but also how this reshaped many of the negative experiences they had within other learning spaces. At the end of this course, we developed our “class narrative identity statement” based on the contributions of all of our voices. This was shared for them to carry forward as they continued their MSW journey and beyond.

4.3. Long-Term Impact

The most important and powerful story we want to linger on is the one of the learning that inspires the next generation of educators. The classrooms that exist for learning and community, where mentors are built, and colleagues are bonded, are not a cautionary tale filled with feelings of survival, academic trauma, failure, or humiliation. They are a space where hubris is limited or non-existent, and teamwork is highlighted. This culture of equity and inclusion ripples beyond the singular classroom and into academia and communities. This includes community among the learning team.

One of the most representative ways we, as the authors, have engaged in this process is through direct practice and modeling. The author team of this manuscript also represents a team that has worked together across course development, teaching, learning, research, and grant-writing projects. This has led to a long-standing, trusting professional partnership that advances each of our education and career goals in a way that is just, equitable, supported, and sustainable.

Narrative example: One of the ways in which inclusion is present in a classroom setting is another example of the importance of modeling behavior. My years as the only social worker on a multidisciplinary team taught me that modeling behavior is one of the most important and powerful ways to teach others about inclusion. Being willing to use pronouns, call someone by their chosen name, speak out about racism and oppression, and still offer compassion when understanding is not possible are all demonstrations of inclusion that carry over into the classroom. Also, being vulnerable in my flaws, blind spots, and authentic in my willingness to shift, learn, or repair when needed speaks to building a culture that I want to model for the learners.

5. Discussion: Practical Approaches for Educators

The deconstruction of hierarchy within learning communities represents a fairly new and innovative concept in higher education, with efforts in the fields of education (Williams et al. 2024), medicine (Green et al. 2022), philosophy (Koolage 2024), and social work, the latter especially as it pertains to elevating service user perspectives (Gutman et al. 2012; Kjellberg and French 2011). While theoretical grounding (Freire 2000; hooks 1994), particularly as they operationalize the equity and justice frameworks defined at the outset of this article, and practice narratives are powerful supports for deconstruction in learning environments, it is just as important to provide established practices that highlight equity, accountability, and care. Focusing on deconstructing teacher–student hierarchies, the following are tangible practices to support educators as they begin to explore decolonizing classrooms, all tried and tested across multiple course environments. These practices are drawn directly from the authors’ combined decades of clinical social work education and graduate-level teaching experience.

5.1. Designing Participatory Curriculum

It is not often that students/assistants are directly invited and involved in co-creating class activities or rubrics. Prior to the start of each term, there can be a meeting with assistants to review assignments/rubrics, align for clarity, establish shared expectations around grading, and clearly connect assignments to learning objectives to demonstrate why they are necessary for skill development rather than arbitrary busywork. Assistants, often being current or recent students, can provide invaluable insights into student needs when treated as partners in education (Bryson 2016; Mercer-Mapstone et al. 2017).

5.2. Community Agreements/Critical Accountability Agreements

At the start of each term and with every new course, community agreements are co-created. The idea that this is a living document and can be adjusted, added to, or revised as learning progresses immediately gives the students a shared sense of responsibility in this space. They often develop intentional ideas for how they want their learning space to be constructed. This practice is consistent with hooks’ view that students are responsible for co-creating a shared learning community (hooks 1994), and helps counter dominant norms of individualism by identifying shared goals and making students accountable as a group (Okun 1999). This is also an introduction to the concept of critical accountability, in which intentions and actions are aligned. This is the entry point where community is introduced and actively constructed together, as the agreements themselves include respect for varying levels of personal engagement.

5.3. Self-Care as Culture and Lifestyle

Self-care in the classroom must be encouraged in a meaningful way. If the content is heavy or emotionally charged, a trauma-informed approach invites students to turn off the camera if necessary to take a moment to engage in self-reflection or compassion (Middelton-Moz et al. 2023). It also encourages them to go off camera to eat or drink if needed. Those small adjustments are ways to deconstruct the notion that education has to be rigid to be absorbed. Recognizing that students have needs and addressing them instead of asking students to remove parts of their humanity is teaching them that having needs is part of the human condition and not a flaw. Grounding techniques, recording pauses, and adding other small adjustments are not solely wellness structures. These practices are integrated intentionally as subtle and meaningful structures for emotional safety.

5.4. Community and Connection Check-Ins

The first five minutes of each class session, regardless of format, are spent in breakout rooms or groups. Students must be specifically and repeatedly reminded that this is time without an agenda—the only intention is to spend time in community and develop connections that would otherwise be overlooked because there is no space. Not only does this deepen relationships within the classroom and cohort, but it also breaks down walls of inhibition and awkwardness for future breakouts, as students cycle in and out of these same rooms throughout the class session. Having the choice of speaking in small or large groups helps create a culture of safety in the classroom (Middelton-Moz et al. 2023). When grounded in a justice-centered and problem-solving pedagogy as described by Freire, this practice also helps decenter the instructor at the outset as the narrating subject and instead centers solidarity among the majority through relationship and communication (Freire 2000).

5.5. Sharing Lived and Professional Experiences

The sharing of lived experiences can be done in ways that are more or less structured. One method we offer is to ask students to make connections and applications with materials to whatever precious population is relevant to their context—personally or professionally. And then asking them to share concrete examples of impact with the class to demonstrate meaningful integration and valued action. This can also be done through instructors pausing for input or remembering the lived experiences previously shared by students to intentionally invite their voice into the teaching and learning dynamic. Engaging students in productive dialogue like this not only improves learning outcomes (Howe et al. 2019) but also provides an opportunity for students to receive insight into diverse perspectives and self-reflect on their own assumptions (Keehn 2015), as well as have their psychological need for acknowledgment of their experience met in a supportive environment (Anderson 2010). It is the responsibility of the instructor to compassionately create space for the optional participation of lesser heard voices (should they choose), ensure no voices are overly dominant, and to ask critical questions to help students reframe assumptions and challenge dominant narratives, when necessary (Williams et al. 2024).

5.6. Teaching Back for Collective Responsibility

Teach backs, or flipped classrooms, are not an uncommon practice in higher education. The ways we propose this practice are a bit more expansive and require critical thinking and deeper engagement. The first is that students become responsible for teaching a certain week’s content, which they choose at the start of the term. The instructor provides insights and lectures, but only after students have thoughtfully taught and responded to one another. This ensures that the intended content is delivered, but the instructor’s voice does not overshadow or cancel out students who put effort and intention into teaching back. Next is the recommendation that students self-select into small groups based upon a reading or resource for that week, and are given seven to 10 min to discuss, collaborate, and develop a three-minute teach back to come back and present to the large group, with time for questions or comments from the colleagues. This decreases the burden of reviewing resources outside of class and the potential shame that comes from not having the capacity to thoroughly review all resources before class begins, helping counter dominant norms of perfectionism (Okun 1999). Each of these practices emphasizes collective responsibility (hooks 1994) and centers student voice and choice. Since classroom dialogue can become dominated by subgroups of students who hold certain privileged identities (Howe and Abedin 2013), the process of elevating diverse voices first within groups, then to the class, helps ameliorate that risk as well.

5.7. Embodied Practices

Check-ins are a weekly practice, encouraging the inclusion of emotion in the classroom (hooks 1994). Every class starts with a check-in: verbally, one word, or in the chat options are all available so that the student feels comfortable sharing, and the pressure is reduced. Due to the nature of social work, which can have heavy content at times, starting with an optional grounding technique (similar to that in a yoga class, therapy session, or mindfulness space). Finally, offering opportunities for students to lead the grounding to provide practice for their mindfulness skills within a lower-pressure and community space. These practices can also include reflective writing, providing students the option to share main reflections and processes based upon shared themes; or the invitation to witness authentic peer responses and reactions in real time, without correction or judgment. Reflection and analysis can help encourage critical consciousness (hooks 1994), while opportunities for nonjudgmental witnessing provide space for healing (Paquin 2009; Speedy 2000).

5.8. Valuing TA/RA Input

Graduate assistants must be recognized as co-educators, not subordinate staff. The presence and support of graduate teaching/research assistants are a gift that many educators are not afforded due to budget constraints or otherwise limited resources. When an option, we encourage educators to spend time mentoring, guiding, and supporting assistants in ways that further their own professional ambitions. This is particularly important for TA/RAs who hold historically and strategically excluded identities, as the majority of folx mentor people with shared identities (Young and Brooks 2008). In higher education, this leads to further exclusion and homogeneity of instructors. Deconstruction also intentionally centers diversity and inclusion, actively highlighting that graduate assistants have a unique and necessary perspective to bring (Bryson 2016; Mercer-Mapstone et al. 2017). This also includes bringing graduate assistants into learning spaces, inviting their expertise, voice (lectures), reflections together with, versus separate and apart from, students. This bears repeating due to the direct human impact and involvement.

5.9. Limitations

We would be remiss not to name the limitations of this article. This article is conceptual in nature. The lack of empirical studies leads to it not being wholly generalizable, though the practice concepts have great potential to be adapted and modified across educational contexts. These concepts and practices come from a single program in the United States, within the Global North context. The authorship team is small with shared positionality, providing unified perspectives. The narrative examples are fictionalized and composite, based on observation and experience rather than assessment. This article speaks to a specific socio-political moment in United States higher education, which may not transfer entirely as the climate shifts. Finally, where there is potential, there is not yet longitudinal data on outcomes.

5.10. Significance and Implications

Despite the limitations presented above, this article holds significance and implications across contexts. For educators, we provide both permission and tools to immediately implement without waiting for institutional buy-in, while maintaining integrity and attention to institutional structures. For programs/curriculum designers, we provide tangible practices for embedding vs. adding equity to social work course content. This distinction is critical as the former intentionally centers equity rather than the latter, which treats it as an optional additive. For institutions, it invites a critical examination of whether or not structures match stated values, and how to shift if the alignment is lacking. More broadly, we ask the question of the Council on Social Work Education if accreditation policy accounts for the relational and affective dimensions of learning. And for the profession of social work, it emphasizes the value and offers the perspectives of practitioners and educators who have lived justice, not just studied it theoretically.

5.11. Future Research Directions

There are a number of potential future research directions that result from this article. One is a study on longitudinal outcomes for social work students who are trained in MSW programs with decolonized classrooms. Another would be research with diverse student populations from various US university designations—Hispanic Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and predominantly white institutions—to measure whether this model holds equitably across race, class, and culture. A study of student, RA, and TA voices evaluating the framework through a participatory design would offer invaluable insight and further the deconstructed ideals of this article. Cross-institutional comparisons exploring what conditions help or hinder the framework integration could provide more generalizable data. And as an overarching design, a study that speaks to what empirical validation of storytelling as pedagogy looks like would offer further support for our claims around its importance in social work education programs.

6. Conclusions

As this article comes to a close, we return to one central question: what does it mean to deconstruct power dynamics to create just and equitable learning communities in higher education classrooms? Deconstruction need not be a single dramatic restructuring; it can be daily, small, and relational. It lives in class openings, responses to missed deadlines, and RA/TA introductions. It is the intentional closing of the gaps between values stated and syllabi written. It looks like shared decision-making, flexibility in structure, and witnessing humanity. Deconstruction requires that educators examine relationships to power and comfort with authority, and demands a tolerance for ambiguity, as deconstructed classrooms can be messier than traditional ones—at least initially. Consistency must be established so that students come to trust that safety is real and not performed. This comes through critical accountability when there are ruptures and modeling repair. Stamina is a necessary trait, as this deconstruction work is ongoing far beyond one term, one course, or one community.

This article demonstrated that justice and equity can, in fact, be deeply and centrally embedded, and not just added to course content. Storytelling, community, and witnessing are neither soft nor do they dilute the academic rigor. They are structural, challenging, and deepen learning to ensure lasting impact. The hierarchy inherent to positions of student, RA, TA, and instructor can genuinely be flattened without derailing the institution of the academy. Healing and learning in social work education are not competing priorities; they are the same process. Our article highlighted that this work is already happening and it is working. We want this work to become more widespread in order for the impact to powerfully touch the hearts and minds, and eventually the education and practice, of so many more.

We offer the following specifically for social work stakeholder groups, as those most posited to enact and sustain this work.

To social work educators: We encourage you to start where you are, as deconstruction does not require formal permissions. You must examine your relationship to power and model vulnerability before asking students to do the same. You can co-create, rather than mandate, agreements, rubrics, and due dates. Treat emotional attunement as a professional skill and normalize rupture and repair as part of the learning relationship.

To program directors: We ask that you hire and retain faculty who reflect the precious populations social workers serve. This extends to building decolonized pedagogy into faculty onboarding and not just student curriculum. Creating a protected space for pedagogical risk-taking without penalizing instructors in evaluations will support teaching teams in making these changes. This includes reviewing grading policies to assess whether they reward compliance or actual learning. Teaching teams, including RAs/TAs deserve compensation, recognition, and mentorship that are structurally supported.

To institutions: We invite you to audit policies and practices. Examine whether stated equity commitments are reflected in actual policies, and explore student evaluation systems that often punish non-traditional pedagogy. Resource allocation is often indicative of priorities, and the emotional and relational labor of this work must be resourced. Diversity, equity, and inclusion should be treated as infrastructure rather than programming, as this is the default of many institutions.

To accrediting bodies: We approach current competency frameworks with critical curiosity, asking if they measure relational and affective learning. Accreditation standards should reflect the full scope of what justice-centered practice encompasses, which requires a clear, operational definition. Social work program evaluations should also include culture and climate, not just curriculum content. And finally, student and community voices must be centered in the accreditation processes themselves. These changes will create a ripple effect of necessary programmatic changes through modeling and institutional validation.

We have attempted to bring to life bell hooks’ vision of communal, engaged classrooms that provide reciprocity in learning and nourishment, a place where we can truly practice freedom. While we have offered a number of suggestions and interpretations, we invite teaching teams across higher education to truly look within and around to find specific, actionable responses to best support their learning communities. This is also a call to action for educators to reimagine classrooms as learning communities where hierarchy is flattened and justice is lived daily. Transformation lives in the courage to tell our stories, make mistakes, and learn together as a pathway to justice and equity.