Lived Experiences of Moral Injury In Social Work Education: A Qualitative Study

Background and Purpose: Moral injury (MI) may occur when individuals’ ethical and moral codes are violated and/or when they are betrayed by leaders and institutions, causing severe distress and functional impairments. Multi-disciplinary interests in MI have proliferated in the last decade, and research has highlighted the prevalence of workplace MI, which includes social work and higher education settings. Despite the increased focus on this emergent phenomenon, a lack of conceptual clarity persists, and intervention evidence remains undeveloped to precisely address this form of psycho-spiritual distress.

This paper helps to address these gaps by investigating the lived experiences of MI among social work educators within US higher education institutions. By drawing from social work educators’ MI experiences, this study deepens insight into how social work academia may contribute to workplace harm.

Methods: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to examine this sensitive and complex phenomenon. In alignment with IPA’s smaller sample size, ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with social work educators who had self-identified as having experienced MI in a US higher education institution within the last five years. Participants represented geographic locations across the country. Most were aged 50 or older (50%), came from Research 1 public universities (50%), and were tenured (70%). The sample was primarily White (40% White, 20% Black, 10% Asian, 10% Hispanic, 10% Native American/White, 10% Unspecified) and equally identified as male (50%) and female (50%). Participants were recruited via a Master of Social Work listserv invitation and a snowball sampling technique. Semi-structured interviews elicited participants’ lived experiences with MI in social work education, including factors that contributed to their MI and implications for their functioning. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded thematically using IPA’s seven-step cross-case analysis process.

Results: Findings reveal a complex and nuanced landscape of moral injury (MI) in social work education across six themes: (1) personal and structural antecedents, (2) marginalized identities and amplified exposure, (3) value dissonance, (4) spectrum of suffering, (5) organizational exclusion, and (6) post-injury growth. Experiences varied by vulnerabilities and protective factors; trauma histories and strong ethical identities heightened risk, while institutional betrayal, including unclear policies and protection of perpetrators, exacerbated harm. Marginalized positionalities often intensified exposure within hierarchical systems. MI manifested as identity incoherence, loss of purpose, and ontological homelessness, as assumptions about ethical practice were fractured and institutional trust diminished. Consequences ranged from disruption to enduring psychological and existential suffering, often alongside organizational alienation and career loss. Some participants engaged in meaning-making and growth, while others carried persistent MI residue.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings underscore how social work educators experience workplace harm from MI in higher education and the need for increased attention into the relational and organizational factors that contribute to systemic betrayal, erosion of organizational trust, and value incongruence, leading to the occurrence of MI. Illuminating the moral and organizational dimensions of social work faculty distress is critical for envisioning multi-systemic interventions to support social work educator well-being, which ultimately is central to students’ learning and the profession’s ethical viability.