The Path to Social Work: Contextual Determinants of Career Choice among Racial/Ethnic Minority Students

While the importance of multiculturalism to social work education and practice have been extensively theorized in the social work literature, very little empirical attention has been paid to the concrete experiences of social work students with instruction on multiculturalism. The experience of students within the multicultural classroom is one aspect of the professionalization process that must be considered in addressing issues of diversity and inclusion in graduate education programs. This article addresses this gap by describing and analyzing the narratives of 15 minority graduate social work students. It examines their perception and experiences with the graduate multicultural curriculum and the meaning they assign to these experiences. Their narratives illuminate the myriad ways that the curriculum excludes minority students and reproduces social inequality. Social work education has a responsibility to eliminate racism and inequality from the content of its courses and in its teaching methodologies. The identification of these negative socializing messages may assist educators in structuring curricular and pedagogical practices that are compatible with the multiethnic groups that both serve and are served by the profession.     

Recruiting,engaging, and educating social work leaders: an innovative curricular model

Graduate social work student interest in administration or management studies has been low in comparison to their interest in clinical practice. Recruiting graduate students to administration or management specializations in social work education remains a challenge for social work programs. Recognizing the need to attract and prepare MSW students for administration, various curriculum models have been proposed. This study presents a unique model that was designed specifically for social work students who wanted to become competent clinical practitioners, yet were also interested in macropractice. By marketing to, and recruiting, graduate students who have a passion for the dual (macro and micro) focus of social work, the administration specialization in this large, US-based urban graduate social work program has been able to attract over 120 additional students each year, comprising nearly 24% of the graduating class. This qualitative study examined students’ rationale for selecting this specialization, their experiences in the program and their suggestions for improvement. Implications for other graduate social work programs are highlighted.     

Group Work in Graduate Social Work Education: The Price of Neglect

Abstract

Although social work practice with groups is on the rise, social work education has neglected to prepare students for group work practice. The results of a 1991 survey show that graduate education has practically eliminated group work as a specialized area of study. Most schools offer group work only as an elective, and few students graduate with a course in this subject. Additionally, students in foundation courses learn little about group work theory and have limited or no group field work experience in which to develop practice skills. The authors discuss the consequences of this lack on student learning, faculty development, field education, and the social work curriculum. They make recommendations for schools and CSWE to revitalize group work in the curriculum.     

Beyond the Numbers: Institutional Influences on Experiences With Diversity on Elite College Campuses

In this article we bring together the burgeoning qualitative literature on the socializing influence of residential colleges, the survey‐based literature on campus racial climate, and the literature on diversity work in organizations to analyze how two elite universities’ approaches to diversity shape students’ experiences with and feelings about diversity. We employ 77 in‐depth interviews with undergraduates at two elite universities. While the universities appear comparable on measures of student demographics and overall diversity infrastructure, they take different approaches. These varying approaches lead to important differences in student perspectives. At the university that takes a power analysis and minority support approach, students who participate in minority‐oriented activities develop a critical race theory perspective, while their white and nonparticipating minority peers frequently feel alienated from that programming. At the university that takes an integration and celebration approach, most students embrace a cosmopolitan perspective, celebrating diversity while paying less attention to power and resource differences between racial groups. The findings suggest that higher education institutions can influence the race frames of students as well as their approaches to multiculturalism, with implications for their views on a variety of important diversity‐related issues on campus and beyond.     

Assessing Competency in A Specialized Program

This paper discusses the results of fusing different social work education trends in planning a relevant curriculum. These trends include a focus on practice-specific competencies, specialization of graduate programs, and the emerging role of students as consumers and evaluators of their educational experiences. Recommendations for designing processes of evaluation are offered.     

Service user involvement in social work education: experiences from Germany and implications for a European perspective

ABSTRACT

Service user involvement (SUI) in social work education has gained widespread attention in Europe and other continents. Nevertheless, experiences on including service users in social work education have not been reported from Germany or other German-speaking countries to date. This paper reports preliminary experiences with implementing SUI in a bachelor’s programme of social work in a German University of Applied Sciences. The main goals of the current paper are (1) to provide a background for implementing service user approaches in Germany by introducing the structure of social work education in Germany; (2) to report experiences from a weekend seminar where service users worked together with students of social work in the framework of a curriculum of a German University of Applied Sciences and (3) to formulate some implications of these experiences for SUI across Europe. The main results were that introducing service user involvement into a German curriculum of social work is possible but needs careful reflection and planning. Experiences gathered in the weekend seminar with service users were encouraging for service users, students and teachers. We conclude that systematically implementing SUI into German curricula of social work is important.     

The Multiculturalism Debate and Social Work Education

In an article in the Winter 1995 issue of the journal of Social Work Education, Dorothy Van Soest challenged social work professionals to debate competing perspectives on multiculturalism. Van Soest asserted that social work educators have failed to resolve hidden value conflicts about multiculturalism and, consequently, failed to carry out the theme in the social work curriculum. The authors contend that multiculturalism is the wrong construct to debate- that social work educators should be concerned instead with cultural diversity, and that Van Soest’s attack on social work education is unwarranted.     

Current Realities and Future Opportunities for Social Work Education

An undergraduate social work curriculum has been enriched to include specific content for students training to work with deaf clients. The unique aspects of deafness examined in this paper include the characteristics of the deaf population, communication skills, and sensitivity to the minority status of deaf people. Content in each of these areas is reviewed as an illustration of specialty material in a generalist curriculum and as a plea for social work education to become more responsive to the special service needs of the deaf.     

Feminist Mentoring and Female Graduate Student Success: Challenging Gender Inequality in Higher Education

There has been much research on gender inequality in higher education and the benefits of mentoring. However, since mentoring has been a predominantly male experience, most research with female students focuses on advising relationships. For women, there is a significant difference between experiences of advising and mentoring with problematic effects for them. Attrition rates are high for both men and women but the causes of female attrition are unique and possibly related to their mentoring experiences. Mentoring remains largely an informal activity in most graduate departments, and due to the patriarchal nature of graduate education, it has been a predominantly male experience ( Lovitts 2001 ). In this paper, I provide an overview of the different types of advising/mentoring relationships for women in doctoral programs and the benefits of these for them. The paper concludes with a discussion of policy implications for graduate departments, suggestions for future research, and a call for developing and implementing feminist models of mentoring for all graduate students.     

Learning Global Social Conditions: A Broader View for Social Work Students

Today, students are increasingly interested in global issues. To meet this need, social work education must find models to incorporate international content into social work curriculum. This article presents a pedagogical experience to familiarize social work students with comparative social welfare from a global perspective. In a graduate seminar, students utilized data from the United Nations and the World Bank to examine social conditions in different parts of the world in order to gain a broader view of global social conditions. The result was a compilation of profiles highlighting the social conditions of developing countries across different regions of the globe. Furthermore, based on students’ feedback, the benefits of doing such comparative study and the implications for internationalizing social work curriculum are discussed.     

Action Learning in the Indian Village as an Alternative to the Traditional Field Practicum in the Foundation Year of the MSW

This paper captures the experiences of the faculty members of a relatively new graduate social work program situated in the largely rural state of Haryana India in reframing the foundation year practicum through community-based and engaged action learning in small villages. Located within Bhagat Phool Singh Vishwavidyalaya (BPSMV), north India's first all women public university, the mission of which is to enhance women's engagement in the greater society through post-secondary, professional and character education, the department is educating social workers for community engagement in social development and in the development of women as an empowered group in society, particularly at the village level. Over a three-year period, the faculty has successfully launched and sustained action learning as an alternative to the traditional practicum in social work education, enhanced civic engagement among students and faculty in three rural villages, and further developed community social work as a principal focus of social work education in India. The paper offers a rationale for action learning in the graduate social work curriculum, describes and documents the department's strategy of action learning, and lays out lessons learned from action learning as a central focus of pedagogy, research, and service within BPSMV Department of Social Work and the rural villages it serves.     

Emerging Social Work Field Education Trends in China

MSW field education in China has been adopting Western models. However, this adaptation cannot address all educational and professional training needs in China. This study used an exploratory qualitative study design and interviewed 54 MSW students regarding their field experiences at a university in Shanghai. Results revealed six key themes: field education curriculum design’s influence on student field experiences, faculty advisers’ influence on student field experiences, field agencies’ expectations toward MSW intern performance, field agencies’ capacity to host MSW interns, student perceptions of their professional competencies, and students’ coping strategies to manage challenges in field practicum. Competency-based social work field education is a potential solution to address the current social work field education challenges in China.     

Reading Rites: Teaching Textwork in Graduate Education

The ability to comprehend, discuss, and use disciplinary texts is central to graduate education. Although techniques for teaching writing have been well-discussed, and even incorporated into graduate curricula, the same is not true for techniques of scholarly reading, a crucial skill that is largely untaught and which students must learn independently or through shared culture. We argue that more explicit training in reading has potential benefits for graduate student education. Drawing on thirty-six in-depth interviews with students in the social sciences, we focus on the routines of managing academic reading, necessary for accessing information for research. Graduate students develop techniques and schedules that permit them to read rapidly or carefully, to read for different academic purposes, and to make information retrievable through notating. We suggest how graduate programs might incorporate reading education into the curriculum.     

The Implicit Curriculum: Student Engagement and the Role of Social Media

This article presents results from an exploratory study conducted as a component of an assessment of the implicit curriculum in one master’s-level social work program. Web-based surveys were used to collect data from 80 graduate social work students in online and face-to-face programs. Findings indicate students who perceived social media as more useful reported higher levels of engagement and participation in program governance. The implications for social work education deal with the ability to competently use social media as a tool to increase student engagement. Students will only be exposed to elements of the implicit curriculum if they are active participants in their academic environments.     

Internet-Based Instruction as an Innovative Approach to Managing Prerequisite Curriculum Content in a Graduate Social Work Program

SUMMARY

Students admitted to graduate social work programs possess varying levels of understanding of prerequisite curriculum content. Compounding this situation is that social work educators teaching at the foundation level are now required to provide an expanded array of curriculum content in their courses. This article conceptualizes an Internet-Based orientation course as a unique tool for preparing students with prerequisite curriculum content necessary for successful integration and mastery of a graduate curriculum. Several steps are presented in the design and development of the course: obtaining support and approval, identifying and collecting data, designing and developing course components, and implementing and evaluating the course. Although course development occurs within a social work education setting, findings from this Internet-Based orientation course are applicable to other educational and human service settings.     

Transforming Korea into a multicultural society: reception of multiculturalism discourse and its discursive disposition in Korea

Since 2005, multicultural-based words such as multicultural society, multicultural family, and multicultural education have grown explosively in Korean society. Due to this social trend, adoption of the term multiculturalism has become a trend within the government and press to explain current social changes in Korea. Nevertheless, there have been few efforts to tackle multiculturalism as a crucial political project or a considerable academic theme of discussion. Thus, this study aims to examine how multiculturalism discourse in Korea has been received and draws its discursive disposition. It argues how the media, especially the press, incorporate other crucial issues such as ‘diversity’, ‘human rights’, and ‘minority politics’ in terms of multiculturalism. To analyse, a total of 275 journal articles were selected and scrutinised. This study contextualises Korean multiculturalism and suggests a meta-picture of the discursive economy of multiculturalism in Korea.     

Whole Curriculum Mapping of Assessment: Cartographies of Assessment and Learning

Approaches to curriculum design often occur at the unit or course level within social work education. Only rarely have ‘whole of curriculum’ approaches been discussed in the literature. This paper describes the creation of a ‘whole of curriculum approach’ to social work teaching and learning within an Australian University. The project involved the creation of a methodology and conceptual framework to map assessment across an entire social work curriculum. In doing so, the mapping exercise provided a way to evaluate the sequencing and integration of assessment tasks across the four-year degree pathway, and judge the effectiveness that such assessments fit with theories and research on assessment more broadly, and with the graduate outcomes for a social work degree. This paper outlines the background to the 2013 assessment project and its alignment to the curriculum mapping. It argues and explains how a systematic approach to mapping and improving social work curriculums can be achieved.     

Homophobia within schools of social work: the critical need for affirming classroom settings and effective preparation for service with the LGBTQ community

Social work programs must effectively meet the needs of their diverse lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) student populations as well as effectively train all students to work with minority groups including the LGBTQ community. While many undergraduate and graduate social work programs provide open, supportive, and affirming experiences for LGBTQ students, there remain ongoing challenges related to hostility, stigma, heterosexism, and homophobia within classroom settings across programs in the US and Canada. This study examines classroom experiences of homophobia among 1,018 social work students. Qualitative data associated with three optional open-ended questions were analyzed utilizing grounded theory. Main qualitative findings identified several major themes associated with social work student experiences of homophobia in the classroom including: (1) Coming out; (2) Faculty inaction; (3) Implicit and explicit content; (4) Direct language and actions; and (5) Religious rationalizations and non-affirming positions. Conclusions and recommendations for social work education are discussed that center around creating safe and affirming classroom settings; the vital role of out faculty, students, and allies; impactful integration of diversity content within curricula, policies, and accreditation standards; ongoing training and mentorship; understanding the role of power and oppression; and a call to action among social work educators and the profession.     

Application of Psychological and Sociological Theory to Teaching Social Work with the Group

Ethnic minority content as a substantive curriculum area in social work education evolved as a response to the times. However, the “what” and the “why” have never been fully addressed. In fact, ethnic minority content is not based on any discernable theoretical framework. A questionnaire was mailed to all ethnic minority doctoral students in the United States. The responses supported the need for a theoretical framework. A curriculum model was proposed utilizing the concepts of socialization, pluralism, and sociocultural dissonance. The focus was on the presentation of seminal ideas that would propel others toward development of more definitive models appropriate for their educational situations.     

Getting to Know the Piece of Fluff in Our Ears: Expanding Practitioners' Cultural Self-Awareness

Israel being a multicultural society with a variety of ethnic groups, the delivery of culturally competent services is a crucial issue in social work practice. This paper describes the outcomes of a training model for cultural competence applied with social work graduate students in Israel. The model, based on work with immigrants' narratives, increased the cultural self-awareness of the trainees. Presented are conceptual and technical aspects of the training model as well as outcomes of an evaluation study. Fifty-one trainees submitted a short account of their personal experiences following the training. The reports indicated expansion in the trainees' cultural self-awareness: awareness of their own and their families' immigration experiences as well as of other transitions in their lives. Training elements that made this outcome possible are discussed.