Through the cracked mirror and the burnt toast: racism and anti-racism in social work education and practice

Social work education has long struggled to move from rhetoric to meaningful anti-racist praxis. While anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory principles are embedded in curricula, racism often remains unspoken or inadequately addressed, especially when it manifests covertly in professional and educational contexts. This article explores the innovative use of visual methodologies and story-telling to understand racism and bring it to the surface, and to embrace anti-racism and critical allyship within social work education and practice. Drawing on Visualizing Racism and Anti‑Racism in Social work (VISAR), a creative, reflective project that used everyday objects as metaphors or totems, we argue that visual artifacts—ranging from cracked mirrors and burnt toast to lanyards and boxing gloves—can reveal lived experiences of racism in deeply personal and pedagogically powerful ways. The project invited educators, practitioners, and students from anywhere in the world to select an object and narrate its connection to racism and/or anti-racism in their lives and/or professional practice. Participants each proposed an object to a collection that numbers 45 at the time of writing. Through these objects and their accompanying narratives, we explore how visual methods could support anti-racist pedagogy by encouraging emotional resonance, critical reflection, and deep learning in the social work classroom.