Alexis Jemal
Biographic Data
| ID | 198712 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexis Jemal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexis |
| FAMILY NAME | Jemal |
| SIGNATURE | JEMAL A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hunter College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5723-5060 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 90 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Theatre in social work education (TIS WE): A pedagogy for living critical-radical social work to bridge the micro-macro divide
The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief account of my journey to implement applied theater in an elective social work education course in New York City, encouraging creativity, risk-taking, and methods for challenging oppression. The experience described supported my process of becoming a creative educator and my pedagogy for teaching critical-radical social work. Critical social work incorporates dialogue and self-reflection to excavate …
Social Work Literature and Gendered Racism: A Scoping Review
A formal evaluation of social work literature on the topic of gendered racism has yet to be undertaken. Accordingly, authors present a scoping review of peer-reviewed social work literature on gendered racism. Guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework, databases were searched for peer-reviewed journal articles including the term “gendered raci*” and published by social work scholars or journals since 1991. In the sample of 33 artic…
Honoring Women of Color Practice Wisdom as Epistemic Disobedience within Methods for Social Work Education Research
Critical Consciousness Measure Development and Testing
Critical consciousness is the ability to identify inequity, appraise its impact, and act toward transforming unjust systems. The current study presents initial psychometric testing of the Critical Consciousness Measure (CCM). Following community-based participatory research principles, a community board conducted the study. Secondary baseline data was analyzed from a randomized controlled trial with 602 formerly incarcerated men with histories of…
Critical Dialogue and Capacity-Building Projects Reduced Alcohol and Substance Use in a Randomized Clinical Trial Among Formerly Incarcerated Men
Background: Rates of alcohol and/or substance use (ASU) among residents of predominantly Black and marginalized communities are similar to ASU rates in White communities. Yet ASU has worse consequences in predominantly Black and marginalized communities (e.g., higher incarceration). Objective: We randomized participants to one of 16 intervention conditions using a 24 full factorial design to optimize a multilevel intervention reducing ASU among 6…
Time and Place for Counter-Storytelling as Liberatory Theory and Collective Healing Practice in Academia: A Case Example of a Black Feminist Psycho-Socio Cultural Scholar-Artivist
The institution of slavery engineered racialized gendered capitalism that locks Black women in multiple social identity-labeled boxes on the sociocultural and economic hierarchy. Acts of cultural invasion have produced controlling images and oppressive narratives to maintain the status quo of white male wealth and power. Critical race theory scholars have offered counter-storytelling as a theorizing method to study the impact of intersectional op…
Cultivating Critical Consciousness: Ways to Support and/or Constrict the Magic of Critical Dialogue
Anti-Black racism, rooted in white supremacy, is a public health crisis in the US that infects and affects every aspect of life. Critical consciousness (CC) and its derivatives, such as Transformative Potential, have been elucidated as the antidote to the disease of white supremacy. Further, with the current focus on anti-racism and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives, strategies aimed at raising CC are becoming the nor…
Igniting Pathways for Land-Based Healing: Possibilities for Institutional Accountability
U.S. based post-secondary educational institutions usually have violent origin stories that include land theft, genocide, and the participation in slavery. Schools of social work are no exception. In recent years, colleges and universities, including schools of social work, have started to confront their histories of and participation in racial-settler colonialism. The severance of land as kinship, and land theft, have been a significant part of …
Reproductive Justice for young Black women aging out of foster care
In this paper, we apply the reproductive justice framework to discuss how gendered racism disadvantages pregnant and parenting young Black women aging out of foster care. Specifically, we highlight the reversal of Roe v Wade as reflective of the United States’ long legacy of efforts to control Black women’s reproduction. We then discuss the structural factors contributing to the reproductive injustices of young Black women aging out of care, incl…
From the Margins to the Center: Cultivating Collective Healing with Soulcial Work Praxis
Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWOC) educators working in predominantly White institutions (PWIs) disproportionately experience violence rooted in historical, structural, and interpersonal oppressions that negatively impact mental and physical health which necessitates multi-level healing. In response, a BIWOC educators’ healing circle incorporated Critical Transformative Potential Development (CTPD) to create a collective and collaborat…
Work-in-progress: Focus groups evaluate and inform revisions of a socio-behavioral health intervention
Linking critical consciousness and health: The utility of the critical reflection about social determinants of health scale (CR_SDH)
The CR_SDH is a standardized measure that can assess critical reflection about the impact of SDH on health among providers and consumers of health care. The CR_SDH can be used to identify critical reflection related training needs and inform decisions about development and testing of critical reflection related health interventions and health care policy
The Critical Dialogue Cornerstone: Suggested Practices to Guide Implementation, Facilitation and Evaluation
There has been an increased focus on utilizing critical consciousness-focused interventions to address complex, multidimensional socio-cultural problems, particularly health inequities. These interventions usually incorporate a critical dialogue component. However, there's little guidance on how to implement, facilitate and evaluate critical dialogue to develop critical consciousness (i.e., reflecting and acting on sociopolitical inequities). Thi…
Liberation-based social work theory in progress: Time to practice what I teach
Social work education integrates theory and practice to bridge the micro-macro divide. The theoretical framework of intersecting identities reveals hidden inequities related to health consequences. The global pandemic, reflecting a colliding of personal and professional worlds, interrupted an elective social work course designed to: 1) develop transformative potential (i.e., critical consciousness of and critical action against white supremacy, a…
Transforming social work’s potential in the field: A radical framework
If social work’s ethical commitment to social justice activism unearths and eradicates the root causes of inequity, then radical practice should describe the field of social work. Stemming from this commitment, social workers have an obligation to interrogate and deconstruct barriers to radical practice within themselves, their relationships, and societal structures. Two persistent tensions pose a challenge to social work’s professional identity …
Healing Lives in Community: The Integrated Transformative Potential Intervention Development (InTrePID) Method
This conceptual paper introduces the Integrated Transformative Potential Intervention Development (InTrePID) Method. InTrePID is a method that social problem solvers can use to develop interventions (practices, programs, policies, culture) that translate the critical transformative potential development framework into concrete practice steps: (1) dialogue, (2) critical participatory action research initiatives, (3) skill building, and (4) critica…
The Intrepid Elective: Transforming Potential for Consciousness to Action in and With Social Work Education
The field of social work has a professional and ethical commitment to social justice. However, scholars have identified potential dangers that may threaten that commitment. To transform dangers into opportunities that strengthen social justice service, schools of social work could incorporate critical pedagogy within the Master of Social Work (MSW) curriculum. By training future social workers in critical social work practice, social work educati…
Transformative Consciousness
This paper outlines the development of the Transformative Consciousness (TC) of Oppression and Privilege (COAP) Scale created to address the conceptual and measurement limitations of the critical consciousness (CC) construct. Unlike prior CC measures, this scale was developed for the general population, integrates identities that are oppressed and privileged, incorporates the social-ecological framework, assesses cognitions, and attempts to reduc…
Transforming responses: Exploring the treatment of substance-using African American women
This article explores how intrapersonal and structural oppression may impact treatment and the recovery process of 23 self-identified African American women with histories of incarceration and substance use. Using a critical consciousness (CC) framework and content-based thematic analysis, researchers systematically coded and extracted themes and patterns from focus group data to evaluate how marginalizing processes-such as race-based discriminat…
Perceived Race as Variable: Moderating Relationship Between Perceived Discrimination in the Workplace and Mentally Unhealthy Days
Transformative Consciousness of Health Inequities: Oppression Is a Virus and Critical Consciousness Is the Antidote
The Opposition
Although social workers have an ethical and professional mandate to address inequity, theoretical and treatment approaches usually fail to address historical and structural contexts. In opposition, radical social work bridges individual and community practice by acknowledging that macro forces have micro consequences; micro practices are reflective of macro socio-political processes; and, by opposing the socio-structural forces underlying individ…
Critical Consciousness: A Critique and Critical Analysis of the Literature
That’s not me anymore: Resistance strategies for managing intersectional stigmas for women with substance use and incarceration histories
Significant previous research has focused on how individuals experience stigma when interacting with the public sphere and service agencies; the purpose of this grounded theory study is to explore how formerly incarcerated mothers with histories of substance use experience stigmas from their intimate relationships with family and romantic partners. Using an intersectionality lens, this study reveals that the women perceived multiple stigmas due t…
Cognitive behavioral therapy: A meta-analysis of race and substance use outcomes
Critical Consciousness: A Critique and Critical Analysis of the Literature
Transformative Consciousness of Health Inequities: Oppression Is a Virus and Critical Consciousness Is the Antidote
That’s not me anymore: Resistance strategies for managing intersectional stigmas for women with substance use and incarceration histories
Significant previous research has focused on how individuals experience stigma when interacting with the public sphere and service agencies; the purpose of this grounded theory study is to explore how formerly incarcerated mothers with histories of substance use experience stigmas from their intimate relationships with family and romantic partners. Using an intersectionality lens, this study reveals that the women perceived multiple stigmas due t…
Transforming responses: Exploring the treatment of substance-using African American women
This article explores how intrapersonal and structural oppression may impact treatment and the recovery process of 23 self-identified African American women with histories of incarceration and substance use. Using a critical consciousness (CC) framework and content-based thematic analysis, researchers systematically coded and extracted themes and patterns from focus group data to evaluate how marginalizing processes-such as race-based discriminat…
Perceived Race as Variable: Moderating Relationship Between Perceived Discrimination in the Workplace and Mentally Unhealthy Days
The Critical Dialogue Cornerstone: Suggested Practices to Guide Implementation, Facilitation and Evaluation
There has been an increased focus on utilizing critical consciousness-focused interventions to address complex, multidimensional socio-cultural problems, particularly health inequities. These interventions usually incorporate a critical dialogue component. However, there's little guidance on how to implement, facilitate and evaluate critical dialogue to develop critical consciousness (i.e., reflecting and acting on sociopolitical inequities). Thi…
The Opposition
Although social workers have an ethical and professional mandate to address inequity, theoretical and treatment approaches usually fail to address historical and structural contexts. In opposition, radical social work bridges individual and community practice by acknowledging that macro forces have micro consequences; micro practices are reflective of macro socio-political processes; and, by opposing the socio-structural forces underlying individ…
Igniting Pathways for Land-Based Healing: Possibilities for Institutional Accountability
U.S. based post-secondary educational institutions usually have violent origin stories that include land theft, genocide, and the participation in slavery. Schools of social work are no exception. In recent years, colleges and universities, including schools of social work, have started to confront their histories of and participation in racial-settler colonialism. The severance of land as kinship, and land theft, have been a significant part of …
From the Margins to the Center: Cultivating Collective Healing with Soulcial Work Praxis
Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWOC) educators working in predominantly White institutions (PWIs) disproportionately experience violence rooted in historical, structural, and interpersonal oppressions that negatively impact mental and physical health which necessitates multi-level healing. In response, a BIWOC educators’ healing circle incorporated Critical Transformative Potential Development (CTPD) to create a collective and collaborat…
Community Wise: The Development of an Anti-Oppression Model to Promote Individual and Community Health
Communities with histories of oppression have shown great resilience. Yet few health interventions focus on structural oppression as a contributor to health problems in these communities. This paper describes the development and active ingredients of Community Wise, a unique behavioral-health intervention designed to reduce substance use frequency, related health risk behaviors, and recidivism among individuals with a history of incarceration and…
Cognitive behavioral therapy: A meta-analysis of race and substance use outcomes
That’s not me anymore: Resistance strategies for managing intersectional stigmas for women with substance use and incarceration histories
Significant previous research has focused on how individuals experience stigma when interacting with the public sphere and service agencies; the purpose of this grounded theory study is to explore how formerly incarcerated mothers with histories of substance use experience stigmas from their intimate relationships with family and romantic partners. Using an intersectionality lens, this study reveals that the women perceived multiple stigmas due t…
The Opposition
Although social workers have an ethical and professional mandate to address inequity, theoretical and treatment approaches usually fail to address historical and structural contexts. In opposition, radical social work bridges individual and community practice by acknowledging that macro forces have micro consequences; micro practices are reflective of macro socio-political processes; and, by opposing the socio-structural forces underlying individ…
Critical Consciousness: A Critique and Critical Analysis of the Literature
Transformative Consciousness of Health Inequities: Oppression Is a Virus and Critical Consciousness Is the Antidote
Transforming responses: Exploring the treatment of substance-using African American women
This article explores how intrapersonal and structural oppression may impact treatment and the recovery process of 23 self-identified African American women with histories of incarceration and substance use. Using a critical consciousness (CC) framework and content-based thematic analysis, researchers systematically coded and extracted themes and patterns from focus group data to evaluate how marginalizing processes-such as race-based discriminat…
Perceived Race as Variable: Moderating Relationship Between Perceived Discrimination in the Workplace and Mentally Unhealthy Days
Transformative Consciousness
This paper outlines the development of the Transformative Consciousness (TC) of Oppression and Privilege (COAP) Scale created to address the conceptual and measurement limitations of the critical consciousness (CC) construct. Unlike prior CC measures, this scale was developed for the general population, integrates identities that are oppressed and privileged, incorporates the social-ecological framework, assesses cognitions, and attempts to reduc…
Liberation-based social work theory in progress: Time to practice what I teach
Social work education integrates theory and practice to bridge the micro-macro divide. The theoretical framework of intersecting identities reveals hidden inequities related to health consequences. The global pandemic, reflecting a colliding of personal and professional worlds, interrupted an elective social work course designed to: 1) develop transformative potential (i.e., critical consciousness of and critical action against white supremacy, a…
Transforming social work’s potential in the field: A radical framework
If social work’s ethical commitment to social justice activism unearths and eradicates the root causes of inequity, then radical practice should describe the field of social work. Stemming from this commitment, social workers have an obligation to interrogate and deconstruct barriers to radical practice within themselves, their relationships, and societal structures. Two persistent tensions pose a challenge to social work’s professional identity …
Healing Lives in Community: The Integrated Transformative Potential Intervention Development (InTrePID) Method
This conceptual paper introduces the Integrated Transformative Potential Intervention Development (InTrePID) Method. InTrePID is a method that social problem solvers can use to develop interventions (practices, programs, policies, culture) that translate the critical transformative potential development framework into concrete practice steps: (1) dialogue, (2) critical participatory action research initiatives, (3) skill building, and (4) critica…
The Intrepid Elective: Transforming Potential for Consciousness to Action in and With Social Work Education
The field of social work has a professional and ethical commitment to social justice. However, scholars have identified potential dangers that may threaten that commitment. To transform dangers into opportunities that strengthen social justice service, schools of social work could incorporate critical pedagogy within the Master of Social Work (MSW) curriculum. By training future social workers in critical social work practice, social work educati…
Work-in-progress: Focus groups evaluate and inform revisions of a socio-behavioral health intervention
Linking critical consciousness and health: The utility of the critical reflection about social determinants of health scale (CR_SDH)
The CR_SDH is a standardized measure that can assess critical reflection about the impact of SDH on health among providers and consumers of health care. The CR_SDH can be used to identify critical reflection related training needs and inform decisions about development and testing of critical reflection related health interventions and health care policy
The Critical Dialogue Cornerstone: Suggested Practices to Guide Implementation, Facilitation and Evaluation
There has been an increased focus on utilizing critical consciousness-focused interventions to address complex, multidimensional socio-cultural problems, particularly health inequities. These interventions usually incorporate a critical dialogue component. However, there's little guidance on how to implement, facilitate and evaluate critical dialogue to develop critical consciousness (i.e., reflecting and acting on sociopolitical inequities). Thi…
Igniting Pathways for Land-Based Healing: Possibilities for Institutional Accountability
U.S. based post-secondary educational institutions usually have violent origin stories that include land theft, genocide, and the participation in slavery. Schools of social work are no exception. In recent years, colleges and universities, including schools of social work, have started to confront their histories of and participation in racial-settler colonialism. The severance of land as kinship, and land theft, have been a significant part of …
Reproductive Justice for young Black women aging out of foster care
In this paper, we apply the reproductive justice framework to discuss how gendered racism disadvantages pregnant and parenting young Black women aging out of foster care. Specifically, we highlight the reversal of Roe v Wade as reflective of the United States’ long legacy of efforts to control Black women’s reproduction. We then discuss the structural factors contributing to the reproductive injustices of young Black women aging out of care, incl…
From the Margins to the Center: Cultivating Collective Healing with Soulcial Work Praxis
Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWOC) educators working in predominantly White institutions (PWIs) disproportionately experience violence rooted in historical, structural, and interpersonal oppressions that negatively impact mental and physical health which necessitates multi-level healing. In response, a BIWOC educators’ healing circle incorporated Critical Transformative Potential Development (CTPD) to create a collective and collaborat…
Critical Dialogue and Capacity-Building Projects Reduced Alcohol and Substance Use in a Randomized Clinical Trial Among Formerly Incarcerated Men
Background: Rates of alcohol and/or substance use (ASU) among residents of predominantly Black and marginalized communities are similar to ASU rates in White communities. Yet ASU has worse consequences in predominantly Black and marginalized communities (e.g., higher incarceration). Objective: We randomized participants to one of 16 intervention conditions using a 24 full factorial design to optimize a multilevel intervention reducing ASU among 6…
Time and Place for Counter-Storytelling as Liberatory Theory and Collective Healing Practice in Academia: A Case Example of a Black Feminist Psycho-Socio Cultural Scholar-Artivist
The institution of slavery engineered racialized gendered capitalism that locks Black women in multiple social identity-labeled boxes on the sociocultural and economic hierarchy. Acts of cultural invasion have produced controlling images and oppressive narratives to maintain the status quo of white male wealth and power. Critical race theory scholars have offered counter-storytelling as a theorizing method to study the impact of intersectional op…
Cultivating Critical Consciousness: Ways to Support and/or Constrict the Magic of Critical Dialogue
Anti-Black racism, rooted in white supremacy, is a public health crisis in the US that infects and affects every aspect of life. Critical consciousness (CC) and its derivatives, such as Transformative Potential, have been elucidated as the antidote to the disease of white supremacy. Further, with the current focus on anti-racism and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives, strategies aimed at raising CC are becoming the nor…
Social Work Literature and Gendered Racism: A Scoping Review
A formal evaluation of social work literature on the topic of gendered racism has yet to be undertaken. Accordingly, authors present a scoping review of peer-reviewed social work literature on gendered racism. Guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework, databases were searched for peer-reviewed journal articles including the term “gendered raci*” and published by social work scholars or journals since 1991. In the sample of 33 artic…
Honoring Women of Color Practice Wisdom as Epistemic Disobedience within Methods for Social Work Education Research
Critical Consciousness Measure Development and Testing
Critical consciousness is the ability to identify inequity, appraise its impact, and act toward transforming unjust systems. The current study presents initial psychometric testing of the Critical Consciousness Measure (CCM). Following community-based participatory research principles, a community board conducted the study. Secondary baseline data was analyzed from a randomized controlled trial with 602 formerly incarcerated men with histories of…
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (16 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Community Health and Development (10 works) · Critical consciousness (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Pedagogy (10 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (9 works) · Social Work (8 works) · Transformative learning (8 works)