Engaging Students in Social Policy and Social Justice: The Use of Candidate Debates in Canadian BSW Education

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social work pedagogy recognizes the educational value of experiential learning for the professional development of social workers, with a particularly rich experiential learning literature related to clinical work and field education. This study evaluates an experiential learning activity for large undergraduate courses in another area: social policy and social justice. We ask: How effective are electoral candidate debates in building BSW students’ understanding of social justice and its relationship with social policy? Using a constructionist approach, we qualitatively analyzed reflection data from 73 students on their experiences of two in-class electoral candidate debates (one municipal, one federal) held in consecutive offerings of a first-year survey course. Findings indicate that in-class electoral debates have the potential to effectively support learning and engagement related to social policy and social justice, especially foundational concepts such as Canadian federalism, ideologies that inform policy responses, and equity analysis of different policy responses. Learning was primarily limited to formalized conceptualizations of social justice. Recommendations to maximize learning include assessment and accommodation of the diversity of prior student knowledge and inclusion of briefing and debriefing activities. The study suggests that in-class electoral debates, if done properly, can be an effective experiential teaching tool for policy courses.