Narrating Experience: How Undergraduate Social Work Students See Themselves in the Social Justice Curriculum

Authors

• Emily C. Soener, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

First Advisor

Crystal E. Garcia

Committee Members

Elvira Abrica, Taeyeon Kim

Date of this Version

5-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Citation

Presented to the faculty of the Graduate College at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Major: Educational Administration

Under the supervision of Professor Crystal E. Garcia

Lincoln, Nebraska, May 2026

Comments

Copyright 2026, Emily C. Soener. Used by permission

Abstract

Social justice is widely recognized as a foundational value of the social work profession, yet research indicates inconsistencies in how social justice is defined, taught, and experienced within social work education. This study examines how undergraduate social work students make meaning of social justice learning in relation to their own lived experiences. Using a critical narrative inquiry approach grounded in constructivist qualitative methodology, this study explores how students narrate their experiences of social justice education and how those narratives reveal tensions between professional ideals and classroom realities. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with eleven undergraduate social work students enrolled in a Bachelor of Social Work program at a mid-sized Midwestern public university. Interviews were analyzed using significance analysis and narrative restorying to examine how students communicated meaning through evaluative language and narrative structure.

Findings indicate that students frequently draw on personal lived experiences as a foundation for the formation of professional identity and social justice motivation. However, classroom participation is mediated by what this study identifies as informational confidence, the relational process through which students assess whether their experience-based knowledge is legitimate to share within classroom discourse. Students described classroom dialogue as both a site of learning and a space of political risk shaped by identity, power, and institutional norms. These findings suggest that lived experience functions as a form of pedagogical infrastructure in social work education and that intentionally supporting students’ informational confidence may strengthen justice-oriented pedagogy. The study offers implications for social work educators seeking to align classroom practice more closely with the profession’s social justice commitments.

Advisor: Crystal E. Garcia