Diversity In Social Work Curricula Under Neutrality Pressure: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of German Programs and Its Relevance for Transatlantic Debates

Background and Purpose
In the United States, DEI programs have been dismantled at numerous universities since 2023. In Germany, the attacks take a different form but follow a similar logic: several federal states have banned gender-inclusive language at public institutions since 2024, and far-right party chapters run online platforms where students can denounce educators for alleged political bias. Both put pressure on social work education, a profession committed to human rights and social justice (IFSW/IASSW 2014). Ahmed (2012) has argued that institutions produce diversity commitments substituting for structural change, "doing the document rather than doing the doing." Yet whether this non-performativity extends to the curricular level has not been systematically examined. This study asks how diversity concepts related to migration, racism, and intersectionality are embedded in German social work curricula, and whether demands for political neutrality in teaching are compatible with the profession's normative foundations (Staub-Bernasconi 2018).

Methods
A sequential mixed-methods design was used. First, 87 module handbooks from German social work programs (Bachelor and Master) were analyzed through computational text analysis using R and the quanteda package. A dictionary of 30 diversity-related terms, organized into power-critical (e.g., racism, intersectionality), affirmative (e.g., inclusion, diversity), and descriptive clusters (e.g., migration, gender), was applied to the corpus. Term frequencies, co-occurrence patterns, and distributions across module types were examined. Second, semi-structured interviews with seven professors holding diversity-related chairs in social work were analyzed through qualitative content analysis, focusing on how they experience and respond to neutrality pressures in their teaching.

Results
Findings show a marked imbalance. Affirmative terms dominate: "inclusion" appears 2,893 times across the corpus, while "racism" occurs 267 times and "intersectionality" 109 times. In co-occurrence networks, "power" is barely connected to other diversity-related concepts, suggesting that curricula largely avoid structural power analysis. Power-critical content concentrates in elective modules, which means students can complete their degrees without sustained engagement with structural discrimination. Interview data add an important dimension: educators report increasing pressure to remain "neutral" when teaching about racism. They describe this as a misappropriation of the Beutelsbacher Konsens, a framework for political education that prohibits indoctrination but not professional positioning. Several interviewees argued that neutrality demands function as a delegitimization strategy rather than a protection of students from bias.

Conclusions and Implications
These findings have implications beyond Germany. Where diversity is formally present in curricula but structurally confined to optional spaces and stripped of its power-critical dimension, institutions can maintain the appearance of inclusion while avoiding substantive change. For U.S. social work education, currently facing direct political attacks on DEI, the German case illustrates a less visible but consequential dynamic: the neutralization of diversity through curricular architecture. Practical implications include integrating power-critical perspectives into mandatory core modules and revising national curriculum standards. Findings inform my transnational project SATURN, comparing social work and participation in rural migration societies across Lower Saxony (Germany), Oregon (USA), and Çanakkale (Turkey).

References
Ahmed, S. (2012). On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Duke University Press.
IFSW/IASSW (2014). Global Definition of Social Work.
Staub-Bernasconi, S. (2018). Soziale Arbeit als Handlungswissenschaft. Barbara Budrich.