Dexter Voisin presents the Keynote address at the Boston College School of Social Work’s annual Equity, Justice, and Inclusion Lecture

On February 1, Dean Dexter Voisin presented the keynote address at the Boston College School of Social Work’s annual Equity, Justice, and Inclusion Lecture. His talk, titled “Honoring our Common Humanity: Overcoming Anti-Black Racism in Social Work Education,” discussed how white supremacy is situated in social work and transformative versus performative strategies to address anti-Black racism in the field.

In addition to his role as Dean of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty, Voisin holds the Sandra Rotman Chair in Social Work. Prior to his appointment at the University of Toronto, he was Professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago for two decades where he was a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for the Study of Race, Culture, and Politics and the Center for Health and the Social Sciences. He was also the Director of the STI/HIV Intervention Network (SHINE) and Co-Director of the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination (CCHE).

A central focus of Voisin’s scholarship is examining the impact of structural, neighborhood and police violence on the life chances and behavioral trajectories of urban youth and the protective factors that protect youth in the presence of such adversities. His research demonstrates that the problems of structural and neighborhood violence exposure are correlated with youth mental health problems, school failure, negative peer networks, and high rates of HIV-related risk behaviors. His latest project is a book entitled America the Beautiful and Violent: Black Youth and Neighborhood Trauma in Chicago, was published by Columbia University Press in August 2019.