Teaching through the tension: Resolving religious and sexuality based schism in social work education

This article presents an approach to resolving religious and sexuality based schism amongst UK social work students. It explores how this classroom schism mirrored current religion and sexuality based tensions in wider society including social work education and social work services. It also identifies the challenges involved in attempting to resolve such a schism. A teaching model is proposed that examines the limits of any claims to anti-discriminatory practice; that clarifies what is and what is not a social work task in relation to religious texts; and the risks involved for each side of the schism.