Reading beyond the Label Implications of the Critical Race Theory for the Social Work Practice with Roma People
Reading beyond the Label Implications of the Critical Race Theory for the Social Work Practice with Roma People

Summary/Abstract: The current article uses the Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a backdrop for exploring the meaning and impact of diversity on the everyday life of persons that are identified and labeled as ‘others’ based on their ethnic belonging. It discusses the results of a recent research on discriminative attitudes and behaviors against Roma persons in the light of three (of the six) principles of CRT, with the purpose of providing research evidence on how racist judgments and behaviors manifest in everyday life and produce social identities and power relations which maintain oppressive structures and social inequality. The article starts with a social work practice-inspired example on how things can go wrong when social workers are unaware of their own negative race-based stereotypes. It continues with a general description of the situation of Roma persons in Europe and Romania, as an otherized and excluded group, confined at the outskirts of society (second section); a synthesis on the use of the Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework in social work practice (third section); and the presentation of the results of a recent research on discriminative attitudes and behaviors against Roma persons in Romania, explained in connection with the first three principles of CRT (fourth section). The fifth section concludes the paper by discussing the potential implications of CRT for the social work practice with Roma persons.

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