“Thrown to the lions” - a reflexive exercise with social work students on their early practice experiences

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents an exercise aimed at stimulating the students’ critical reflective thinking and reflexivity in a seminar course from a Social Work undergraduate program. The exercise, deployed through collaborative methods and focus groups, sought to foster the students’ inter-subjective recollection and sharing of their first contacts with professional practice. The integration in the institutional setting, the contact with newly-met routines of practice and the experiencing of complex situations and critical incidents were key dimensions subject of attention. The exercise was focused on three interrelated key dimensions: how students experienced the process of integration in the organization; how students conceptualized intervention problem(s); how students represented the (dis)continuities between academic knowledge and practice-based learnings. The exercise resulted in perceiving the most important challenges students faced in their internship conveyed on their own terms. It also allowed access to the students’ accounts of their first contacts with practice.