Social Work Education

Global Suppression and State Repression of Critical Knowledge: Teaching Social Work in Difficult Times

Background and Rationale

Social work has historically been aligned with democratic values, grounded in human rights, social justice, and a commitment to resisting oppression, advocating for the empowerment of individuals and communities. In democratic societies, social work plays a crucial role in fostering participatory decision-making, ensuring that marginalized voices are heard, and promoting policies that uphold equality.

Yet across the world, universities, educators, researchers, and students are increasingly facing attacks on academic freedom, restrictions on political expression, and systematic efforts to suppress critical knowledge. These patterns include the destruction of educational institutions, the disciplining or dismissal of academics, the criminalisation of student activism, the censoring of curricula, and the erosion of spaces for critical reflection and dissent.

The most extreme contemporary example is the scholasticide unfolding in Palestine, where universities, schools, archives, students, and academics have been systematically targeted and destroyed. However, this phenomenon is not limited to contexts of war or military occupation. Attacks on education and repression of critical speech are growing globally, including in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, India, Argentina, and Turkey, where legislative and institutional pressures increasingly restrict the teaching of colonialism, racism, political violence, and human rights.

For social work education - a field that depends on critical inquiry, ethical engagement, and an honest confrontation with injustice - these developments pose profound challenges. They compel us to ask: How can social work educators teach ethically when critical knowledge is censored or punished? How should curricula respond to political repression or institutional silencing? How do students learn to challenge injustice when protest and solidarity are criminalised? What pedagogies are needed for teaching amid trauma, fear, and political pressure?

Aims and Scope

This special issue focuses on contexts where education itself is under attack - through scholasticide, censorship, political repression, and the suppression of critical knowledge. We aim to:

• Analyse how scholasticide, censorship, and repression impact social work education globally.
• Investigate the political, ethical, and pedagogical implications of attacks on educators, students, curricula, and institutions.
• Explore how social work programmes can protect academic freedom, support student activism, and foster ethical resistance.
• Highlight decolonial, feminist, Indigenous, anti-racist, abolitionist, and human-rights-based pedagogies that confront knowledge suppression.
• Document experiences of social work educators and students teaching and learning under threat.
• Propose models for building resilient, courageous, and critically engaged social work programmes.

Suggested Themes and Topics

1. Scholasticide and the Destruction of Educational Institutions
   • Targeting of universities and schools during war or military occupation
   • Consequences for social work education and knowledge production
   • Rebuilding or documenting educational loss
2. State Repression, Censorship, and the Criminalisation of Dissent
   • Surveillance or punishment of educators and students
   • Institutional silencing or political pressure
   • Academic precarity under repressive conditions
3. Attacks on Academic Freedom in Global North Contexts
   • Restrictions on teaching colonialism, racism, or human rights
   • Dismissal or disciplining of staff for political speech
   • Political interference in curricula
4. Decolonising Education Under Constraint
   • Sustaining Indigenous and decolonial pedagogies
   • Overcoming institutional barriers to transformative teaching
   • Embedding community and service-user knowledge
5. Student Activism, Resistance, and Solidarity
   • Criminalisation of student organising
   • Pedagogies for ethical resistance
   • Trauma support and collective resilience
6. Teaching Under Fire: Ethics, Emotions, and Responsibilities
   • Emotional and ethical burdens on educators
   • Navigating risk and uncertainty in teaching
   • Protecting pedagogical integrity under threat