Unmuting Practice (UNMUTE): a dialogic approach to decolonising practice education
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Unmuting Practice is a dialogic approach to decolonising practice education: the supervised placements, or practicum, through which students learn in social work settings, and the teaching that surrounds them. It asks what can mute knowledge, voice and action in a learning space, and how learners and educators might loosen that muting in their own contexts. Muting can happen through structures, curricula and institutional norms, but also through group dynamics and shame. Unmuting is something participants do for themselves and with each other, and educators are part of the process too. UNMUTE is the memory aid for its six elements: Uncover, Name, Make space, Unlearn, Turn, Enact. UNMUTE is fluid and interconnected. Educators and learners can enter at different points, move between the six elements, return to tensions, and adapt the approach as context, relationships, knowledge and action change over time. Developed from an EASSW-funded workshop at Malmö University, 29 January 2026. School of Education and Social Work and Centre for Social Work Innovation and Research (CSWIR), University of Sussex. Copyright and reuse terms subject to institutional review; please contact the author.
Author: Chen, Henglien Lisa
Institution: University of Sussex
Language: English
Subfield: Public Administration
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7215699294