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Moving Toward Racial Equity: The Undoing Racism Workshop and Organizational Change

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Abstract

Since 2002, social workers and others in New York City have attended Undoing Racism™ Workshops (URW) designed to encourage participants to advance racial equity in the organizations in which they work. However, little is known about the extent to which participants pursued these goals following the workshop. Drawing on a participatory action model, this study explored the impact of URW by examining the participants’ (1) change in knowledge and attitudes about structural racism, (2) engagement in job-related racial equity activities, and their (3) view of their organization’s progress toward racial equity. The study also explored (4) factors that might be associated with personal engagement and progress toward organizational change and (5) the role of race in the outcomes. Findings include increased knowledge and attitude change, considerable individual engagement, mixed organizational progress, and identification of facilitators and barriers with some differentiations by race.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bertha Capen Reynolds Professor of Social Policy at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, The CUNY Graduate Center, 2180 Third Ave @ East 119th Street, New York, NY, 10035, USA

    Mimi Abramovitz

  2. Department of Social Work, College of Community and Public Affairs, Binghamton University, State University of New York, P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, NY, 13902, USA

    Lisa V. Blitz

Authors
  1. Mimi Abramovitz
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  2. Lisa V. Blitz
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Correspondence to Mimi Abramovitz.

Additional information

The ARA core organizing team included core PIASB trainers, the ARA co-founders, the President of the NYC Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, New York City, and members of the Undoing Racism Internship Project, hosted by NASW.

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Abramovitz, M., Blitz, L.V. Moving Toward Racial Equity: The Undoing Racism Workshop and Organizational Change. Race Soc Probl 7, 97–110 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-015-9147-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-015-9147-4

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