“We have to Work Harder”: Testing Assumptions about the Challenges for Black and Minority Ethnic Social Workers in a Multicultural Society

This paper reports from a small-scale qualitative research study designed to keep the dialogue open about anti-racist social work and to test assumptions about the role of black and minority ethnic (BME) social workers within it. Multiculturalism is a contested term, which describes a process of increasing diversity and incorporation of that diversity into public discourse and policy. This process is often used to provide political polemics about the plausibility of multiculturalism and ‘race’ relations. Social work as an institution is not immune to these issues and can be a site for inequalities based on ‘race’, thus, challenging the success of social work in a multicultural society and creating particular challenges for BME workers. However, this research with its focus on the experiences of BME social workers also uncovered how opportunities for BME social workers to discuss working with and overcoming such challenges could contribute to the service.