Introduction to Reflection and Critical Reflexivity
While moving throughout the different sections of this website, we encourage you to engage in the stages of reflection outlined in the diagram below. You may find it useful to use the theories and approaches covered in this website as prompts to reflect on previous actions that you have taken in your social work practice.
You may find it helpful to think about reflection as an opportunity to “scrutiniz[e] the self for values, needs, and biases” in order to “increase awareness” and ultimately “engage with service users more consciously and objectively” (Sloos, 2020d).
Figure 1: Stages of reflection
Image from: Sloos, R. (2020c, October 19). Seminar 5: Critical use of self and critical reflection vs critical reflexivity [PowerPoint Slides]. eClass.
We also encourage you to engage in critical reflexivity. Unlike reflection, critical reflexivity applies a “lens of power” (Sloos, 2020d). This lens of power is both applied to your “use of self”—that is, the skills and tools that you have because of your experiences and positionality—as well as to the processes of reflection themselves. Critical reflexivity, therefore, includes both a “critical use of self” and “critical reflection” (Sloos, 2020d).
Figure 2: Critical Reflexivity
Image from: Sloos, R. (2020c, October 19). Seminar 5: Critical use of self and critical reflection vs critical reflexivity [PowerPoint Slides]. eClass.
You may find it useful to use critical reflexivity to identify and challenge, for example, the forms of power embedded within the theories and approaches that this website covers, as well as to identify the forms of power that are promoted by identifying what is missing from this website (Sloos, 2020d). The diagrams below may be helpful in further understanding critical reflexivity.
In our section that briefly discusses critical social work, we discuss that a component of critical social work must include resisting to label oneself as purely “critical”.
We therefore encourage you to consider how, in your processes of reflection and critical reflexivity, you may be leaning toward labeling yourself as a purely “critical” social worker.
Instead, we ask you to think about the ways “in which critical reflexivity can operate to re-inscribe colonial notions of moral superiority, and re-center whiteness within social work education and practice settings” (Badwall, 2016, p. 1).
Suggested Reading:
Badwall, H. (2016). Critical reflexivity and moral regulation. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 27(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/10428232.2016.1108169