Douglas College is the largest public degree-granting college institution in British Columbia, Canada. Close to 17,000 credit students, 8,500 continuing education students and 4,210 international students are enrolled here. Douglas College offers bachelor's degrees and general university arts and science courses, as well as career programs in health care, human services, business and the creative arts.
This research study examined the experiences of racialized social workers in Canada through semi-structured interviews with five participants. Grounded theory analysis revealed six themes: participants' experience with racism; bearing the burden: professional and personal responsibility; progress, regression, and stagnation: addressing racism; participants' personal response to racism; participants' experiences reporting racism; and identity, role and resilience in social work. Across all themes, participants described pervasive racism. The findings highlight the emotional labor of racialized practitioners who must advocate for racialized clients, shoulder microaggressions, and challenge racism without organizational support. Implications for social work and policy include the need for culturally responsive leadership, formal reporting mechanisms, and anti-racism training developed by racialized professionals. Future researchers should expand the sample size and compare experiences across settings. The findings from this study reinforce the importance of an anti-racist frameworks in social work education and practice.
Adolescence can be a difficult time for many, and avoiding unwanted attention such as teasing, bullying, and unwanted sexual attention can often prevent negative downstream effects. In study 1, we used act nomination to develop a taxonomy of protective behaviors that participants (N = 164) remembered using or observing during middle/high school to avoid unwanted attention. Participants also described the social risks these behaviors were used to avoid. The acts were consolidated into a taxonomy yielding 53 distinct behaviors. Thematic analysis of the social risks being managed produced four themes consistent with fundamental motives: status/esteem, affiliation, mating, and self-protection (Griskevicius & Kenrick, 2013). Study 2 (N = 249) examined whether individual differences in social support, HEXACO emotionality, vulnerability, coolness, socioeconomic status (SES), and formidability predicted the frequency of use, perceived cost, and perceived effectiveness associated with the retrospective use of the 53 protective behaviors. Use of protective behaviors was positively related to emotionality, vulnerability, and perceived costs, while social support, SES, coolness, and formidability were negatively related to behavior use. Qualitative responses revealed that while some protective behaviors may provide short-term relief, they can also facilitate social withdrawal, suggesting that supportive environments and strong social networks may help reduce adolescents’ reliance on costly avoidance strategies.
Given the rapid integration of genomics into health care, educational innovation is necessary to equip the nursing workforce with the knowledge and skills required to deliver safe and equitable genomics-informed care. This commentary presents an online, open-access genomics education resource for nursing students, outlining the curriculum structure, pedagogical approach, core content, and strategies to support nurse educator implementation. By offering a customizable, credit-based curriculum aligned with existing competencies, this resource addresses the high-priority need for a harmonized genomic nursing curriculum that can be disseminated internationally. As such, this course helps to overcome some of the global challenges to integrating genomics into nursing education and practice.
