ABSTRACT
bell hooks is an influential feminist educator and cultural critic. Her theories, stories and pedagogical examples can be read across the boundaries of race, gender, class and educational levels. Her teaching trilogy (1994, 2003, 2010), which covers a lifelong exploration of anti-racist, anti-colonial, multi-cultural and critical and feminist pedagogies, is pivotal to a transformative approach to social work supervision, especially as the current student population is increasingly multi-cultural and with varying levels of educational competence and positional power. Her work promotes community, a pedagogy of hope, self-reflection, critique of power in and outside of the classroom and, importantly, critical thinking, as key qualities to undergo a transformative learning experience. By applying bell hooks’ engaged pedagogy as a basis for a transformational learning for social work supervision, students and practitioners are provided with both the theory and skills to practice criticality and model a critical practice when a progressive transformative response to the current practice context and social issues is most needed.
