Empowering Identities
Open Access DepositedThe Journey to Anti-Oppressive/Anti-racist Supervision in Master’s Level Practice
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This dissertation examines how master’s-level supervisors develop anti-oppressive and anti-racist supervisory identities across diverse clinical and community counseling settings. Recognizing the limited training, institutional support, and scholarly attention given to supervisors outside doctoral-level programs, this research explores the developmental processes, challenges, and contextual factors that shape how supervisors cultivate and enact anti-oppressive practice.Constructivist grounded theory was used to collect and analyze data from fifteen supervisors through two interviews, reflective journals, and interpretive drawings. Coding and constant comparison revealed that supervisors’ identity development unfolded through a recursive process involving four interconnected components
rupture, relational risk, resistance, and reflexivity. These processes captured how supervisors navigated systemic inequities, power and positionality, and parallel processes with supervisees while working to align their values with their supervisory actions. Findings underscore the emotional labor, institutional barriers, and relational tensions that influence supervisors’ growth, as well as the need for organizational and educational structures that better support anti-oppressive supervision. This study contributes to the field by centering the experiences of master’s-level supervisors and offering a grounded theoretical model that illustrates how anti-oppressive and anti-racist supervisory identity develops over time. Recommendations for supervision practice, counselor education, and future research are presented.
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