Implications For Social Work Education Research Articles

‘Even if Martians exist, they’re far from our everyday life’: faculty perspectives regarding gay and lesbian students in social work education

Following a study on gay and lesbian students’ experiences in a Social Work Department in Greece, this qualitative study explores faculty perspectives regarding lesbian and gay students in social work education. Perceptions of gay and lesbian students’ invisibility and low level of comfort were held in common by participants, although some faculty members referred to the more inclusive and accepting climate of the Social Work Department compared to other higher education Departments and Greek society in general. Most participants reported that same-sex sexuality issues are inadequately covered in the curriculum. Displays of heterosexist behaviour by students were reported by most participants and so were conflicts among students when same-sex sexuality issues were discussed in class. The lack of official anti-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation was highlighted. In the absence of a common strategy regarding the teaching of same-sex sexuality content, faculty determined on an individual level how and to what extent to discuss such issues in the classroom. At times the faculty appeared willing but not adequately prepared to approach gay and lesbian issues. Implications for social work education are discussed.

Brief mindfulness training in the social work practice classroom

Social Work educators are increasingly concerned with discerning how to help students develop the affective, relational, and meta-cognitive skills needed for effective, resilient, and sustainable social work practice. A small but growing literature supports mindfulness training as a path to those ends. However, most mindfulness intervention studies, even those mentioning ‘brief intervention,’ have typically used fairly lengthy training programs, often 2–3 h per week for 6–8 weeks. It is unlikely that already over-committed social work practice classes would devote this amount of class time to these strategies. This concurrent mixed methods study examined whether very brief mindfulness training in undergraduate social work practice classes (100 min over the course of a 3.0 semester credit hour course) would influence outcomes on measures of mindfulness, emotional regulation, and empathy, as well as student perceptions of helpfulness in managing stress and meeting course goals. No significant differences were found on quantitative measures at post-test. However, results of the qualitative analysis suggest that even brief mindfulness exercises in social work practice classes are perceived by students as helpful for managing anxiety, staying present-focused with clients, reducing premature judgment, and feeling safe and connected in the classroom. Implications for social work education are discussed.

PRACTITIONERS’ EXPERIENCES OF STUDENT SUPERVISION IN THE BACHELOR OF SOCIAL WORK DEGREE

The developing and evolving social welfare system in South Africa coupled with inadequateM human and material resources and high staff workloads, all impact on student learning in the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) degree. This paper focuses on the challenges experienced by social work practitioners with regard to student supervision in the BSW. A qualitative case study design was used, in which the researcher purposively selected social work practitioners involved at third -year level teaching and learning in the BSW at a selected South African university. The findings point to challenges relating to limited agency resources, institutional–agency cooperation and students’ personal challenges. These findings have implications for social work education and practice in South Africa as well as for continued professional development of social workers and agencies who offer student placements to universities.

Field Education in the Present Moment: Evaluating a 14-Week Pedagogical Model to Increase Mindfulness Practice

ABSTRACT Social work practitioners increasingly use mindfulness techniques, and research into the impact of this practice is being explored by multiple related disciplines, such as psychology and education. Cultivating the potential benefits of mindfulness at multiple practice levels necessitates curricular integration of mindfulness training. This article reports on the evaluation of a 14-week mindfulness-based pedagogical model implemented in two sections of social work field seminars. Using a pretest and posttest survey design that included an existing five-dimension mindfulness scale, students exhibited significant change in three facets of mindfulness: observing, nonjudgment of inner experience, and nonreactivity to inner experience. Implications for social work education and directions for future research are explored.

Social Workers and Resilience Revisited

The topic of social workers and resilience has received a considerable amount of attention in social work research and literature in recent years. Resilience has also been incorporated into the ‘official discourse’ of social work education and practice. However, many definitions of the concept have been offered. It has been also subject to some criticism, primarily because of the alleged focus on the individual worker at the expense of the structural, political, policy and organisational context. This paper critically reviews research focused on resilience, social work students and social workers. Implications for social work education, social work organisations and social work practice are explored. Consideration is given to developing social work students, social workers and social work managers’ knowledge and understanding of resilience and the means to maintain and develop resilience, based on wide ranging ecologically based approaches and by locating the topic within a broader theoretical context.

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.

Promoting Resilience Through Social Work Practice with Groups: Implications for the Practice and Field Curricula

ABSTRACT The realities of contemporary social work practice often push social workers toward a deficit-focused orientation. The article begins with an overview of the major tenets of resiliency and adversarial growth theories and related research findings. We suggest that the group modality epitomizes the application of resiliency theory and adversarial growth to social work practice. A primary focus of this article is on articulating and illustrating the unique contribution group work makes for promoting client resilience. The article provides a theoretical and empirical framework that students, practitioners, and educators alike can use to identify, understand, and capitalize on client strengths through group work. Implications for social work education, specifically the practice and field curricula, are discussed.

Advancing Human Rights and Social and Economic Justice: Developing Competence in Field Education

Social workers advance human rights and social and economic justice through their practice and policy work. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) mandates that social work students develop knowledge, values, and skills in this area, as one of the core competencies of their professional training. This qualitative study analyzed learning contracts of four cohorts of BSW seniors (n = 114) to identify the stated activities for advancing human rights and social and economic justice through field education. Fifteen of these students also provided their understanding of the connection between their activities and this core competency. The findings revealed the types of activities that social work students engage in to develop and demonstrate readiness for practice. More than other core competencies, some students struggled to identify specific activities related to their practice setting, client population, or social work role. Implications for social work education and the implementation of CSWE’s 2015 Education Policy and Accreditation Standards are discussed.

Sexual Harassment in Social Work Field Placements

Addressing sexual harassment in educational environments is integral for Title IX compliance; however, there are few estimates of prevalence of the phenomenon in social work’s signature pedagogy, field education. A survey of 515 bachelor of social work and master of social work students revealed that 55% of participants had experienced at least one incident of sexual harassment on the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire. Those participants who were younger, Latina/Hispanic, or in a committed relationship were more likely to report harassment. The most common perpetrators were other staff at the field placement and clients. Implications for social work education and practice are addressed.

Cultural representations in Walt Disney films: Implications for social work education

Summary This article investigates images of race, sex, ethnicity, and consumerism in contemporary Walt Disney productions. The purpose is to discuss the reinforcement of critical thinking skills in social work students through mutual examination of multicultural images presented in Disney movies. The films selected for close critical examination – The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Princess and the Frog – are those with multicultural themes and characters. In recognition of the fact that the one who controls the arts controls the message, this article is informed by bell hooks’ methods of critique of racialized and sexualized representations in children’s film. Findings The hidden messages in the popular Disney films should not be overlooked. The methods of critique applied to these earlier films also have resonance for the newer films, such as Frozen. Applications The case is made in this article that social work educators can enhance the critical thinking of students concerning culturally offensive, stereotypical images conveyed in the media.

“Using the other side of my brain”: creativity in the research classroom

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to present the outcomes of integrating student creative projects in social work research methods classes as a strategy to increase student engagement. Researchers propose that integration of literary arts into courses that students sometimes find daunting will provide an alternative to traditional modes of education, thus enhancing opportunities for student learning. Results from a qualitative classroom study will be presented to show student interpretation of their own creative projects and student evaluations of the assignment. Implications for social work education will be offered.

Competency‐based Education: Evidence from Social Work Postgraduates from Five Universities in China

Social work education in China has undergone rapid development during last two decades. However, methods to define, measure, and evaluate social work students' competency remain largely unexplored. In this study, we evaluated competency in graduate social work students in China and examined factors that impacted competency, based on learning theory. Findings indicated that knowledge and skills learned in class, field placement, and social context all have effects on competency. How students think about individual development and the social work profession has the most significant effect. These findings carry implications for social work education in the Chinese context. The rapid development of social work education in China requires the effective measurement and evaluation of students' core competencies.

Debunking macro myths: findings from recent graduates about jobs, salaries, and skills

Research suggests that interest in macro social work practice is declining, a trend that has been well documented in the United States. Studies find that social work educators and practitioners may foster beliefs among MSW students that discredit macro practice and associated skills while asserting macro graduates are likely to face poorer employment prospects and lower salaries than micro counterparts as they start their careers. This study builds on and extends this literature by examining 27 skills in their current job using a five-point Likert-type scale among the early career trajectory of MSW alumni (N = 182) who graduated between 2008 and 2012 from a public social work institution in the southeastern United States. The skills included in the survey, as well as decisions about how to group them into scales, were made based on theoretical links between the skills by macro faculty members. Findings highlight the use of macro practice skills regardless of concentration focus, no differences in salary, or the time it takes to find employment between micro and macro alumni. Implications for social work education are discussed.

Peer-Learning Networks in Social Work Doctoral Education: An Interdisciplinary Model

ABSTRACTPeer-learning networks (PLN) can be valuable tools for doctoral students. Participation in these networks can aid in the completion of the dissertation, lead to increased scholarship productivity, and assist in student retention. Yet, despite the promise of PLNs, few studies have documented their effect on social work doctoral education. This article explores aspects of an interdisciplinary PLN focused on child welfare. This study used a questionnaire with scaled survey items and open-ended questions to examine the use, benefits, and challenges to participating in the PLN. After a brief review of the literature, this article presents findings from the study, discusses the implications for social work education, and concludes by explicating strategies for developing PLNs in social work education programs.

Adverse Childhood Experiences Among MSW Students

ABSTRACTAlarming rates of burnout, compassion fatigue, and turnover in the social work profession have focused attention on factors influencing risk and resilience among professional social workers and, more recently, social work students. This article explores the prevalence and relevance of early trauma among social work students and describes a cross-sectional, exploratory study aimed at determining frequency of adverse childhood experiences among Master of Social Work (MSW) students. Results reveal rates of adverse childhood experiences are much higher than those found in general population samples, university students, and child welfare employees. Implications for social work education are discussed.

Conceptualizing anxiety among social work students: implications for social work education

Student anxiety is frequently discussed within social work education. Due to its potentially devastating impacts, social work educators need to have a full understanding of anxiety in this context, in order to determine the best way to support students. Research on student anxiety from a broad body of literature provides implications for social work classrooms and field education. Key underlying concepts from previous social work and related research on student anxiety inform a conceptual model to help educators develop a more complex understanding of student anxiety. Implications for further research and important next steps in the development of support strategies for social work students are identified.

Attitudes toward poverty among exit students of undergraduate social work programs in eight Latin American countries

What is the attitude of Latin American undergraduate social work students toward poverty? An earlier study from Europe and other countries worldwide found that most graduating social work students who participated in the research were clear about the socio-structural causes of social problems such as poverty. Still, no data on this topic is available for Latin American countries. The aims of this study were: (1) to describe and to compare eight Latin American graduating undergraduate social work student groups regarding their attitudes toward poverty, as measured by two scales: Causes of poverty scale and Ways of dealing with poverty; and (2) to discuss some of the implications of the study for social work education and practice. Using a quantitative transnational-comparative design, a total sample of 525 nonrandomly selected, graduating undergraduate social work students from eight Latin American countries responded to a self-administered questionnaire. An individualistic attitude to understanding and to dealing with poverty emerged in the majority of the student groups. Multivariate procedures and inferential analyses demonstrated variations across the student groups. Implications for social work education and practice are discussed.

Development and Validation of the Poverty Attributions Survey

ABSTRACTThis article describes the process of developing and testing the Poverty Attribution Survey (PAS), a measure of poverty attributions. The PAS is theory based and includes original items as well as items from previously tested poverty attribution instruments. The PAS was electronically administered to a sample of state-licensed professional social workers. The three scales of the PAS—individual, cultural, and structural—demonstrated strong internal consistency reliability. We conducted exploratory factor analyses and forced three-factor analyses and retained items with factor loadings at or above .50. The items on each scale loaded as predicted with few exceptions. The PAS is a new tool for standardizing poverty attribution research. We discuss implications for social work education, research, and practice.

‘Cultivating our humanity’ in child and family social work in England

The goal of the social work reform process was to provide a generic framework and single professional body within a broad conception of generic social work. However, debates about the role and nature of social work continue to exist. This paper explores whether contemporary child and family social work is inclined at times to make use of a less humane social work practice with families and children. The policy context and the culture of child and family social work are considered. Implications for social work education are identified. The key message of this paper is twofold. There is a tendency in contemporary child and family social work to become synonymous with a particular version of child protection. The type of child protection adopted tends to be authoritarian with at times a limited consideration of the humanity of parents and adult carers in particular.

Teaching Note—Evaluation of an Avoiding Plagiarism Workshop for Social Work Students

ABSTRACTA 1-hour workshop on how to avoid plagiarizing when writing academic papers was developed and delivered at an orientation session for BSW and MSW students at a university in the northeast United States. Six social work instructors led the workshops at the university’s main campus and two extension centers. Before and after the workshop, students read an original passage from a social work text and were asked if the material were paraphrased in four different ways would it constitute plagiarism. Pre- and posttest results indicated that the workshop increased the percentage of students who could correctly identify examples of plagiarism versus ethical writing. Implications for social work education are discussed.