Content In Social Work Education Research Articles

Considerations for Marginalized Fathers in Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE) Courses: Insights for Social Work Educators and Students

ABSTRACT Despite the important role fathers play in the lives of their children, social workers report that they do not feel prepared to work with fathers. It is ethically imperative that social workers are equipped to effectively serve diverse groups of fathers in practice, especially those who are marginalized within society. Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE) courses provide an optimal opportunity for the incorporation of fatherhood content in social work education. Based on reflections on our own teaching experiences, research expertise, and existing literature, we recommend father-specific content for inclusion in HBSE courses. We also draw on person-in-environment and intersectionality to describe the lived experiences of specific marginalized father groups. Finally, we provide Council on Social Work Education competency-based course objectives and assignments that can be used by social work educators to incorporate fatherhood content in their respective HBSE courses, along with strategies that social work students can apply in their work with the father groups highlighted in this article.

The Moral Conundrum of Reproductive Justice in Social Work

ABSTRACT As concerns for reproductive rights continue to be debated across the United States, the June 24th, 2022, U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Mississippi case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade essentially upended the disciplinary foundations and ethical underpinnings of helping professions. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) does not mandate the integration of reproductive justice content in social work education. And yet, threats to bodily autonomy burgeon across the United States prior to and after the dismantling of Roe v. Wade, affecting the populations social workers serve. The time has come to talk about, not around, reproductive justice in social work education as well as how social workers are being subverted from using their professional training and ethical commitment to clients. It is the intent of this article to explore approaches for safeguarding professional values and ethical principles during these sociopolitically tumultuous times.

Integrating Financial and Economic Justice Content into Social Work Education

ABSTRACT Teaching financial and economic justice content is an important feature of social work education. Such content helps students effectively address financial challenges with their clients, transform communities, and advocate for appropriate economic policies. Despite initial efforts by CSWE and others, many social work educators still do not teach financial and economic justice content in their courses. Using the diffusion of innovation theory, this paper assesses what sociodemographic, personal, and education related factors impact the odds of teaching financial and economic justice content. The study used original survey data (n = 163) from social work educators and binary logistic regression modeling techniques. Results suggest that the social work educator’s highest achieved education level, as well as the type of course taught, play a meaningful role in determining the odds of teaching the content. Furthermore, perceived relevance has a strong, positive association with the odds of teaching the content. These findings suggest that those seeking to increase the prevalence of financial and economic justice content in social work education can target their efforts on a few key intervention points, and that policy measures supporting the integration of the content have yet to be implemented by educators.

Teaching Note—Innovating the Curriculum: Bringing History Back Into Social Work Education

ABSTRACT History, the major storehouse of information, informs us about the important relationship between people and society and increases our understanding of basic societal values and institutional arrangements. A recent New York Times op-ed described “The Dangerous Decline of the Historical Profession.” Likewise for historical content in social work education, exacerbated by the 1970s‘ rise of neoliberalism and the profession’s long marginalization of historical research and teaching. The Social Welfare History Group renews its call to bring historical content back into social work education and to correct its deep-seated race, class, gender, and colonizing distortions. To ensure that all social work courses include history, we can revive the value historical knowledge; prepare a cadre of historical researchers and instructors; financially support emerging scholars and develop a pipeline of history-informed faculty to teach the next generation of social workers.

Strategies for Teaching Suicide Content in Social Work Education: A Survey of Social Work Instructors

ABSTRACT Suicide is a major public health issue in the United States and schools of social work have an important role to play in educating future social workers in suicide prevention. This article describes the results of a survey of BSW and MSW practice instructors (N = 259) exploring the strategies used to teach suicide content, including resources used to support their teaching and assignments to evaluate student competency with suicide prevention knowledge and skills. Most instructors (74.1%) use written resources such as practice textbooks and journal articles to support their teaching, although there are some differences between the practices of BSW versus MSW instructors. Fewer (34.0%) used an assessment of student competency working with clients with suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Implications for social work practice instructors are described, including the need to stay current on best practices in suicide assessment and intervention, expand the use of written resources for diverse groups, the use of culture in suicide assessment, maintaining up-to-date, current resources for students, and developing assignments which can effectively evaluate student competency and skill working with clients with suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

Social Work Students’ Perceptions of Eco-Social Work in the Curriculum

ABSTRACT Despite the growing number of publications focusing on eco-social work, there remains a lack of eco-social work approaches taught in social work degree programs. Social workers are often at the forefront of responding to the needs of communities post natural disasters, and it has become apparent that the natural environment is increasingly a major influence on social work practice. However, the apparent dearth of eco-social work content in social work education leaves practitioners uncertain about how they might respond to environmental issues. This study explored social work students’ perceptions of eco-social work, the extent to which they felt prepared to respond to environmental issues, their desire to learn more about eco-social work, and where they felt those lessons might fit within their degree. This research contributes to a growing body of literature by arguing that to adequately prepare social workers to practice in a world increasingly impacted by environmental changes, eco-social work must be embedded in the coursework of Australian social work degrees. IMPLICATIONS Social work students understand environmental issues as a key factor influencing the individuals and communities they work with. For social workers to address environmental injustice, they need to learn about eco-social work practice approaches. Social work educators need to include eco-social work approaches in their curricula.

The Non-Indigenous Educator Teaching Australian Aboriginal Content in Social Work Education

ABSTRACT Social work in Australia requires educators to teach skills, knowledge, and Aboriginal ways of knowing, doing, and being to ensure graduates are culturally responsive and potential allies when working with Aboriginal peoples and communities. This education should include an accurate teaching of Australian Aboriginal history and sharing of Aboriginal knowledge. Currently, non-Aboriginal educators are more likely to teach Aboriginal content, which can foreclose opportunities for Aboriginal educators. On the surface this appears to be a continuation of colonialism where white privileged groups speak for, speak about, and occupy, in this instance, the educational spaces related to Australian Aboriginal peoples and other minority racial groups. This occupation of the educational space in social work is an interesting predicament when considering whether social work educators are allies to the processes of decolonisation. This article explores the experiences of non-Aboriginal educators and asks the question—how do we decolonise social work to create culturally responsive practitioners? IMPLICATIONS Universities need to be aware of and address the continuation of colonising practices in teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content. There is the potential to create a transformative future in social work education with the sharing of two world views.

Shamed into Action?: The Historical Avoidance of Pursuing Anti-racist Educational Policies and Content in Social Work Education

ABSTRACT Linguistic norms concerning issues of social injustice, racism specifically, vary by discipline. In this study, the authors used content analysis to examine discourse in the social work profession related to racism and anti-racist action. Our investigation found that the usage of forthright terms such as racism, white supremacy, and oppression in the description of social work courses, authoritative disciplinary statements, and educational standards, was uncommon prior to the uprisings that occurred worldwide following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. In contrast, we find the pervasive promulgation of anti-racism as an explicit social work priority across multiple high-profile educational venues since this time. In our discussion, we interrogate the implications of this contrast as it relates to the ability of social work students and practitioners to both conceptually and practically engage in effective anti-racist action.

Teaching disability using problem-based learning in the international context: utility for social work

ABSTRACT Through their anti-oppressive professional practice and commitment to social justice and human rights, social workers can ensure people with disability exercise voice and agency and claim full citizenship in society. Yet, international research shows that ‘disability’ is often inadequately included in social work education, and that students may not graduate with the skills and knowledge needed to engage appropriately with people with disability. This article evaluates the effectiveness of using a short five-day hybrid course that integrated problem-based learning (PBL) and traditional teaching methods to deliver disability content to 42 German social work students. A qualitative SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) method was utilised. Written responses from students were collected and thematically analysed. The analysis indicated that the PBL format was well-liked by students, many of whom showed evidence of increased self-directed and deep learning, better communication skills, and synthesis of theory and practice. Importantly, students were able to internationally contextualise and challenge discourses that perpetrated stigma and discrimination, positioning them as effective advocates for people with disability. The social justice focus of social work justifies the inclusion of the critical examination of the lived experience of people with disability in social work curriculum. The research findings suggest that PBL short courses can provide an effective and flexible means of delivering disability content in social work education.

Re-envisioning Psychoanalytic Content in Social Work Education

ABSTRACT While psychoanalysis played an important role in social work practice and education as far back as the 1920’s, the period from the 1960s through the 1990s led to its diminishing presence. We believe incorporating psychoanalytic theory into social work education is now necessary to prepare students for contemporary direct practice and should be a priority. In this paper, we frame psychoanalysis within evidence-based practices, trauma-informed care and cultural competency, and offer illustrations for teaching it in accessible non-rhetoric filled ways.

Review of Teaching Group Work Content in Social Work Education by Dominique Moyse Steinberg

Review of Teaching Group Work Content in Social Work Education by Dominique Moyse Steinberg

Human Rights in Chilean Social Work: Lessons from Chile to Prepare Social Work Students for Human Rights Practice

This article presents findings from two studies conducted in Chile to examine the link between human rights and social work practice. The focus of this paper was to explore the role of undergraduate education in preparing future social work practitioners for human rights practice. Data from a qualitative longitudinal study to understand the role of social workers during the dictatorship in Chile (1973–1989) were used; then, in October 2019, as civil unrest and police and military brutality erupted across the country, the authors created a commission to register and document narratives and testimonies of current human rights violations in Chile. The research team utilized a qualitative approach to analyze data from the in-depth interviews that were conducted in the longitudinal study and from the 2019 commission. Findings suggest a need to cover more in-depth human rights content in social work education and to teach students to create community collaborations in the field. Implications for social work education and practice in the current political climate are explored.

Social Workers Being Effective in Disaster Settings

ABSTRACT Research about social workers’ impact during disasters is not widely recognized. Among the various roles social workers play during disasters are to handle asurge of clients and to support peers and leaders in their respective departments by filling in gaps in services. Dissemination of social workers’ best practice approaches during actual disasters is important because their collective contributions facilitate their own resilience and improve their ability to care for their clients, which could inform other fields in the helping professions as well. Qualitative findings from (N = 8) US Department of Veterans Affairs social workers and social work leaders across the nation in regions that experienced hurricanes during 2017 and 2018 suggested the following best practices during disasters:1) adapting new roles;2) collaboration and organizational support; and3) practicing self-care. Findings suggest the need to enhance content in social work education and training with the knowledge and skills pertaining to providing services in disaster settings. During disasters, it is important for social workers to both collaborate with their team and to practice self-care in order to be most effective for their clients.

Do US Social Work Students View Social Work as a Human Rights Profession? Levels of Support for Human Rights Statements Among BSW and MSW Students

Social work practice not centered on human rights may unintentionally perpetuate human rights abuses, and these abuses can have global implications. US-based social work educators have made efforts to directly focus social work education on human rights since 2008, when the US-based Council on Social Work Education included a human rights competency. However, insufficient data exists regarding US-based social work students’ views on human rights, as well as the possible relationship between exposure to human rights content in social work education and student endorsement of human rights. The present research attempts to address both issues: Using McPherson and Abell’s (2012) 25-item Human Rights Engagement in Social Work scale (HRESW), the author assessed the overall endorsement of human rights perspectives by students in a social work program in the western United States, and examined differences between students at different levels in the program to evaluate the effectiveness of increased exposure to human rights content. Descriptive results from 171 BSW and MSW students showed overall endorsement of human rights. Ten of the 25 HRESW items showed stronger agreement among upper-division BSW and MSW students when compared with their lower-division BSW peers at statistically significant levels; these items were related to social and economic rights. When comparing online and face-to-face students, one HRESW item showed a statistically significant difference. Overall results indicate that social work students have a relatively high level of human rights endorsement, which has the potential to increase with continual exposure to human rights content in social work courses.

Teaching Note—Course Models for Increased Competency for Practice Integrated With Financial Capability and Asset Building

ABSTRACT The Financial Capability and Asset Building (FCAB) for All Grand Challenge provides an impetus to increase financial content in social work education so that students and practitioners are prepared for practice that includes finances. This teaching note will describe the rationale for including FCAB within social work education and the fit with the profession. To provide guidance on curricular integration, the implementation of 4 course models will be described—online intensive course, stand-alone full course, an infused course, and a continuing education model. Course overviews and detailed FCAB content taught in each is described. Course content is mapped to the Council on Social Work Education’s Education Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). Educational implications about EPAS and policy suggestions are discussed.

Creating a Culturally Safe Space When Teaching Aboriginal Content in Social Work: A Scoping Review

ABSTRACTTeaching Aboriginal content in social work education presents risks of retraumatisation for students. There are international calls for a trauma-informed teaching model that creates cultural safety in the classroom. This study aimed to develop a trauma-informed model for social work education by reviewing the literature on cultural safety for Aboriginal peoples. This model incorporates key aspects of ensuring Aboriginal cultural safety: de-colonise social work education; collaborative partnerships; build relationships; critical reflection; develop cultural courage; and yarning and story-telling. It provides a valuable framework for creating a more equitable teaching and learning environment that also ensures the essential academic content is covered.IMPLICATIONSTrauma underlies the historical, contemporary and cultural narratives of Aboriginal peoples. Students engaging in Aboriginal content that is traumatic can mean connecting with trauma that has occurred in their own lives.Trauma-informed teaching and learning will ensure that educators create culturally safe spaces that enable students to engage well with content.The adoption of the framework proposed in this paper may lead to the creation of a culturally safe space for teaching and learning in social work education.

Developing common ground for a sustainable knowledge base for social work education in the Netherlands

ABSTRACTThis article is about a research project focused on the development of a common knowledge base for social work education in the Netherlands. Recent substantial changes in society and social policy were the reason for a reconsideration of the educational content of social work education. A great urgency was established with regard to the adaptation of the study programs, including a higher level of knowledge. The aim of the project was to provide a knowledge base that creates a bridge between theory and practice and between social work practice and the societal context. The project started with an exploration of literature focusing on the significance of knowledge for professional practice and on existing classifications of the knowledge base in social work education. Subsequently a design-based empirical study was carried out using the Delphi-method. Experts agreed about the definition of the knowledge base and about the design requirements: practice-based, science-based, usable and sustainable. After an exploration of the content, a model was developed consisting of seven building blocks (BBs). The common knowledge base has been established by the Dutch Council of Schools of Social Work and is being used as the basis for the body of knowledge in all curricula of social work education in the Netherlands.

Educating against all odds: The context and content of social work education in times of national crisis in Greece

Greece is 6 years into a socio-economic crisis, during which oppression has increased as a result of unjust austerity measures. Reflecting on the need for an anti-oppressive practice, a qualitative study of pre-qualifying social work education was carried out in one of the four national Departments of Social Work (subsequently abolished). This article reports the findings of semi-structured interviews with final year students ( n = 14) and academic staff members ( n = 10) on the content and context of social work education in relation to anti-oppressive practice. The study revealed the need for a radical shift in social work education based on the emancipatory values of the profession.

Teaching Note—Teaching Intersectionality: Transforming Cultural Competence Content in Social Work Education

ABSTRACT Intersectionality has been gaining momentum among social workers as a framework to allow a fuller understanding of the complexity of diverse social identities and the impact of social structures on power, privilege, and oppression. However, the application of intersectionality to teaching in social work education has been relatively absent in the literature. This article describes a 3-hour graduate-level classroom exercise designed to increase knowledge and proficiency of intersectionality. Critical self-reflections of the participants’ experiences are provided to illustrate the evolving growth and awareness that can result from the educational process using this framework. Examples and suggestions for reading assignments and classroom activities are offered. Implications for social work education and future directions are discussed.

Social Work: A Profession in Search of Its Identity

Micro social work practice can be understood in the context of its historical professional traditions and dialectics as well as the environmental pressures and demands placed on the profession. In becoming a profession, social work relied heavily on principles drawn from medicine and science. Although these bodies of knowledge provided the profession certain credibility, their application may have clouded social work’s distinctive social purpose and professional identity. In its search for a distinctive function and identity, the profession of social work has struggled with numerous dialectics, as discussed in this article. These help us to better understand the profession’s search for its distinctive identity and status and the importance of including this content in social work education.