| Abstract: | Correspondence to Elizabeth L. Sullivan, School of Health and Community Studies, De Montfort University, Kents Hill, Milton Keynes MK7 6HP, UK. E-mail: esulliva{at}dmu.ac.uk Summary There is great public interest in issues of discrimination andprejudice and, while this interest leads to changes in publicand professional behaviour and sometimes to legislative changes,it is not at all apparent that these changes achieve the statedintention, which is to eliminate negative and oppressive discrimination.It is argued that current methods of education for anti-discriminatorypractice, while successful in terms of imparting understandingand competence in relation to structural and societal issuessuch as racism, power and inequality, may be less successfulat the individual level of personal attitudes. An argument isput forward which suggests that anti-discriminatory practice(ADP) education may sometimes result in hidden or unrecognized,unmeasured, and possibly unwanted learning outcomes. This isdiscussed in relation to social work education, and two possibleunforeseen outcomes are proposed: first, the individual mayshift the focus of prejudice from one subject to another, secondly,the individual may unrealistically interpret their attitudesas anti-discriminatory, despite evidence to the contrary. Inaddition, it is suggested that social workers may hold conflictingdiscriminatory attitudes towards a single subject, dependingon whether they see themselves, at that time, as an individualor as a professional. |
