School social work has been embedded in U.S. education for more than a century, but its deeper ideological roots are now coming under scrutiny. In an article published in Abolitionist Perspectives in Social Work, Brandon Mitchell and Krystal Folk-Nagua trace how school social work evolved alongside ideologies that locate problems inside the individual while ignoring the social and institutional conditions that shape behavior. Drawing on historical research and contemporary case analysis, they argue that the field remains tied to punitive disciplinary frameworks and a medicalized view of student distress.
The current model of school social work (SSW), the authors note, emerged from the early 20th-century “visiting teacher movement,” which was explicitly designed to identify and “correct” problem behaviors in children who failed to conform to school norms. These children were seen as deficient, and SSWs were tasked with remediating their behavior. As Mitchell and Folk-Nagua explain, this individualizing mindset took hold early:
“Even in a school system representing the most advanced educational thought, there was still a child who failed to make the prescribed progress or who failed to measure up to the expected standard of behavior. These children were frequently called difficult or problem children.”
“Schools often focus myopically on externalized (viewable) behaviors,” the authors write, “influenced by a medical model that can lead to a narrow, pathologized view of youth development… This mindset emphasizes individual deficiencies, where behaviors are seen as evidence of a mental health issue… School social workers have a responsibility to challenge pathologizing policies, practices, and perspectives in order to advocate for appropriate and holistic mental health support for youth.”
Mitchell and Folk-Nagua do not argue for dismantling education or social work itself. Instead, they propose an abolitionist reimagining of the field that moves away from surveillance and diagnosis, and toward practices rooted in prevention, collective care, and structural change.
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