Sensory Arts-Based Storytelling as Critical Reflection: Tales from an Online Graduate Social Work Classroom

Abstract

Drawing upon Heron and Reason's (1997) participatory inquiry paradigm and extended epistemology, this article explores how six Master of Social Work (MSW) students engaged in sensory arts-based critical reflection concerning their social location, identities, social justice, and social policy. We share our process for creating sensory arts-based stories, the stories themselves, and pedagogical reflections. We elucidate how sensory arts-based storytelling allows learners to draw upon their strengths, unique perspectives, and experiences in the world, generating transformative understandings of social justice. Sensory arts-based storytelling holds potential as an interdisciplinary mode of critical reflection, generating inclusive learning environments oriented towards social change. In this article, we explore how six Master of Social Work (MSW) Students in an online learning environment engaged in sensory arts-based critical reflection concerning their social location, identities, social justice, and social policy. We share the assignment process, sensory stories, and our reflections on the assignment compared to traditional written forms of critical reflection. Ultimately, we demonstrate how critical reflection pursued through sensory art develops complex understandings of personal identity and social justice in both its creators and audiences. Sensory arts-based storytelling offers a potent interdisciplinary means of cultivating empathetic understandings of power, privilege, and justice, as learners and educators collaborate to disrupt the growing global inequity. We begin by exploring critical reflection in social work, highlighting this disciplinary practice and its potential for interdisciplinary adoption. We then explore sensory arts-based modalities and situate their potential within critical reflection practice. We follow this with sharing six multimedia arts-based stories created by the MSW students on their identity, social justice, and social policy. Finally, we finish by discussing potentials for integrating these types of assignments into learning environments across disciplines, as well as possibilities for social work practice.