Youth and adolescent social work education. Analysis of the impact of the Bologna plan on university study programs in Europe

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe process of developing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) that was initiated after the Bologna Declaration in 1999 led to the harmonization of European university systems and a profound modernization of university. Social work education has been no exception in this regard. Focusing on youth as a group subject to intervention and addressed through documents and references from the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), from the European Social Work Research Association (ESWRA), in specialized literature and through social services, we consider it important to analyse how young social work students are trained in order to work with young people. It should be noted that they are young to all intents and purposes once they complete their studies, thus implying they face the same problems as their target intervention subjects. For this reason, we have undertaken a cross-country comparison between undergraduate study programs that provide training in youth from 16 European universities, namely Spain, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Portugal, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Poland, and the Slovak Republic. The data obtained leads to the following paradox: the relevance of young people as a field of action does not match the creation of study programs and specific courses on the problems young people face and how to tackle them.