Overview
Case studies, descriptions of experiences and interactions drawn from your own practice, will be used in this course to ground our discussions of anti-oppressive social work practice. This is an opportunity to apply theory and actual practice in retrospect for the benefit of reflection, analyses and further learning.  Ideally, each case study will describe a relationship or interaction that involves issues of race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. that has left you with unresolved questions.  These encounters can be drawn from your experiences with clients in your  placement.  By sharing and discussing these cases, we will provide students the opportunity to revisit these experiences and to reframe them in light of the theoretical models introduced in class and the insights offered by other students.
Steps 
Step 1: Start with identifying a critical incident and describe it with as much specific details as possible. It could be any practice experience that made you stop and think, and react to what has happened. Write down your description, as writing is a good way to think the incident through, and to actually remember it and its different parts. It is natural that your description develops as you are writing it.
Step 2: Make a critical reflection on your description. Start with identifying power relations operating in the incident. By using intersectionality as a base for the reflection, it is possible to stay focused on gender, sexuality, class, and race as central categories of oppression and how they actually work in and affect social work practice. When understanding how power relations might affect the social worker, the client, and the social work organization, it is possible to investigate alternative understandings and actions.

Step 3: Reconstruct and redevelop new and emancipating strategies for theory and practice which are possible, as the social worker identifies and understands the means of social change and recognizes her agency and her own construction of power. What might you do differently in or reinforce about  the incident based on what you’ve learned in this class this semester.