Black Feminist Social Work: Centering Black Women's Knowledge in Social Work Theory, Education, Research, Policy, and Practice

Vanessa M. Talley

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Abstract: Social work acknowledges Black Feminist Thought as a framework and praxis, yet the profession has not established a social work framework that explicitly centers Black women’s epistemologies as foundational to education, theory, research, policy, and practice. Although social work maintains a historical commitment to social justice, person-in-environment, and human rights perspectives, dominant theories and knowledge systems continue to reflect Eurocentric assumptions regarding knowledge production and professional expertise. This article introduces Black Feminist Social Work (BFSW) as a conceptual framework that centers Black women’s individual and collective lived experiences, intellectual traditions, historical resistance, and knowledge to inform social work theory, education, research, policy, and practice. Drawing upon Black feminism, Black Feminist Thought, Womanism, Intersectionality, and the profession’s ethical commitments, the BFSW framework proposes a necessary shift from positioning Black women primarily as a population to be studied to recognizing them as producers of transformative knowledge. This article introduces four organizing principles, the Four C’s: Centering, Contextualizing, Co-Creating, and Changing, as foundational processes for Black Feminist Social Work and discusses the implications for curriculum development, clinical practice, research methodologies, policy advocacy, and future scholarship. Rather than positioning Black Feminist Social Work as an alternative specialization, this framework argues that centering Black women’s knowledge expands the social work profession’s capacity to pursue equity, liberation, and social transformation.

Date: 2026-08-24
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:khn9f_v1

DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/khn9f_v1

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