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Reported pass rates reveal a discriminatory licensing system that repeatedly fails Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) while enabling white social workers to pass. Using critical race theory and abolitionist social work practice, the article evaluates five licensure pathways—performance assessments, oral exams, portfolios, jurisprudence exams, and provisional licensure—finding persistent inequitable outcomes that further marginalize BIPOC candidates. The authors argue for abolishing the ASWB exam to achieve fairer overall results and challenge white supremacy.",{"@graph":69,"@context":126},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/from-alternative-pathways-to-abolition-abolish-the-association-of-social-work-boards-exam/328779/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/from-alternative-pathways-to-abolition-abolish-the-association-of-social-work-boards-exam/328779.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Jasmine","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-09-21",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":39},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118,122],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What data did the ASWB release in 2022, and why is it significant?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"In 2022, ASWB provided demographics on pass rates for all five examinations covering 2011–2021 for the first time. The release matters because it made racial outcome disparities visible and measurable.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"Which licensure pathways does the article analyze as alternatives to the current system?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The article examines five routes to social work licensure: performance assessments/simulations, oral examinations, portfolios, jurisprudence exams, and provisional licensure.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How do first-attempt pass rates differ across racial groups on the exams?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The article reports sharp gaps by race—for example, white candidates have higher first-time pass rates than Latinx, Native American, and Black candidates across clinical, master, and bachelor exams.",{"name":123,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":124},"What solution do the authors ultimately advocate?",{"text":125,"@type":113},"The authors advocate abolishing the social work exam administered through the ASWB process, arguing it would produce the most equitable overall outcome and challenge white supremacy in the field.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":128,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":130,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":132,"site_id":62},328779,1790088359,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":135},{"doc_id":132,"user_id":136,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":137,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":138,"file_id":139,"file_url":140,"file_type":141,"file_size":142,"view_count":39,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":46,"language":143,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":144,"faqs":145,"seo_title":146,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":147,"read_time":31,"preview_page_count":4},2336478487870,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","From Alternative Pathways to Abolition: Abolish the Association of Social  \nWork Boards Exam  \nPaddy Farr  \nScott Wilson  \nKatia Duncan  \nJonathan Dominguez  \nDelmar Stone  \nAbstract: In 2022, the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) provided for the first time the demographics on all five of its examinations between the years 2011 and 2021. The pass rates demonstrate a foundationally discriminatory system that routinely fails Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) while passing white social workers. Implementing critical race theory and abolitionist social work practice to analyze the foundations of the ASWB exam, this article investigates five routes to social work licensure including performance assessments/simulations, oral examinations, portfolios, jurisprudence exams, and provisional licensure. However, the analysis demonstrates that each of these alternatives produces inequitable overall outcomes leading to further marginalization of BIPOC social workers. Instead, the authors advocate for the abolition of the social work exam. Abolition would establish the most equitable overall outcome for social workers within the social work licensure examination process, for all social workers, while simultaneously challenging white supremacy within the social work field.  \nKeywords: Critical race theory, abolitionist social work, ASWB exam  \nLicensing social workers is a central regulatory task of social work boards (Thyer & Biggerstaff, 1989). Across the United States, social work boards are tasked with regulating social work practice. The purpose of such social work regulation is “to protect the public from incompetent or unethical practitioners by ensuring a minimal level of competence”(Nienow et al., 2021, para. 1) . Thyer and Biggerstaff (1989) identify this phase of stateregulated social work practice as the highest stage of development within the profession (Association of Social Work Boards [ASWB], 2021). Regulations for the practice of social work began to take shape in the 1930s, however, the current makeup of social work regulation within the United States really was formed in the 1960s and 1970s with social work licensing profession (ASWB, 2021; Nienow et al., 2021).  \nIn this context, the Association of Social Work Boards formed in 1979 “to provide support and services to the social work regulatory community to advance safe, competent, and ethical practices to strengthen public protection”(ASWB, 2021, p. 6) . Representing sixty-four regulatory boards across the United States and Canada (ASWB, 2022c), the ASWB developed the examination process as an “assurance that people who are licensed to practice social work share certain competencies”(ASWB, 2025, p. 2). It provided its first examinations in 1983 in Oklahoma, New York, and Virginia, and has since offered licensing examinations in all fifty United States, and the District of Columbia (ASWB,  \n2022c) . Widely considered a critical part of the licensure process (Hirsch et al., 2023), the ASWB now administers five examinations offered including the associate, bachelor, master, advanced generalist, and clinical exams for more than fifty thousand test takers every year (ASWB, 2022a) .  \nThe purported drive for assessment is to ensure public safety, however, social work activists have long worried that the ASWB exam leads to racially inequitable outcomes for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) (Senreich & Dale, 2021) . Although the ASWB had “been unwilling to release [the demographics of pass rates] for decades,” in the wake of social activism following the murder of George Floyd, social workers across the US joined together in a concerted effort to push the ASWB to release the data (NASW, 2022b, para. 1) . Finally, after decades of activist calls for transparency, in 2022 the organization relented and provided for the first time the demographics on all five of its examinations between the years 2011 and 2021 (ASWB, 2022a) . Confirming the accusation","cbCaif6j7RgeWauF","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaif6j7RgeWauF","pdf",337425,"English","# Introduction\n## Regulatory role of social work boards\n# ASWB examination system\n## History and exam structure\n# Data release and evidence of disparity\n## Activism and transparency\n# Exam outcomes by race\n## First-attempt and eventual pass rates\n# Analytical framework and abolitionist proposal\n## Alternative pathways and their inequities","[{\"question\":\"What data did the ASWB release in 2022, and why is it significant?\",\"answer\":\"In 2022, ASWB provided demographics on pass rates for all five examinations covering 2011–2021 for the first time. The release matters because it made racial outcome disparities visible and measurable.\"},{\"question\":\"Which licensure pathways does the article analyze as alternatives to the current system?\",\"answer\":\"The article examines five routes to social work licensure: performance assessments/simulations, oral examinations, portfolios, jurisprudence exams, and provisional licensure.\"},{\"question\":\"How do first-attempt pass rates differ across racial groups on the exams?\",\"answer\":\"The article reports sharp gaps by race—for example, white candidates have higher first-time pass rates than Latinx, Native American, and Black candidates across clinical, master, and bachelor exams.\"},{\"question\":\"What solution do the authors ultimately advocate?\",\"answer\":\"The authors advocate abolishing the social work exam administered through the ASWB process, arguing it would produce the most equitable overall outcome and challenge white supremacy in the field.\"}]","From Alternative Pathways to Abolition - Abolish the Association of Social Work Boards Exam | PDF",1789980950]