Social Work and Decolonisation: Student Social Workers’ Understanding of the Concepts of ‘Culture’, ‘Cultural Identity’ and ‘Decolonisation’

Decolonised pedagogy requires contextual relevance through, for example, the inclusion of students’ lived experiences, perceptions and understandings in curricula. To support the principle of respect for diversities, the diverse South African context needs an exploration of student social workers’ self-positionality regarding professional concepts, and how they relate this to practice. As such, this chapter reports on the findings of a phenomenological qualitative study, focusing on the concepts of culture, cultural identity and decolonisation. Utilising the Active Force of Currere framework, student social workers participated voluntarily in World Café group discussions to explore their perceptions and experiences pertaining to these concepts and how this influences present understandings, attitudes and behaviours, and to develop a collective description of these terms. The findings that are presented in this chapter provide their collaborative descriptions of the concepts, definitions that were formulated, and reflections on experiences of participating in these discussions.