Study Abroad,Global Citizenship,and the Study of Nongovernmental Organizations

Nonprofit education and management programs often recognize the efficacy of including experiential learning opportunities such as study abroad in their curricula. In addition, higher education institutions increasingly prioritize global citizenship as a learning outcome. However, challenges abound for educators who want to evaluate study abroad courses that expect students to acquire or deepen their levels of global citizenship. This study seeks to evaluate the impact of a short-course study abroad program on students’ global citizenship orientation. Our qualitative findings suggest that students indeed grapple with the notion of global citizenship in various ways while immersed in such a course. They can also express conflicting views, further confounding scholarly understanding of how to best measure global citizenship. We discuss implications for students expressing more of an observational role than an inclination to act on global issues.     

American Military Government after Two Wars

Researchers have argued for increased collaboration between teachers and museum educators to improve the outcomes of museum education on students; however, significant gaps in understanding between the two remain impediments to effective collaboration. We surveyed fifty-one museum educators, conducted in-depth interviews with ten of these respondents, and analyzed the data with use of an inductive lens. In this article we use a composite dialogue between a museum educator and a teacher to present a series of questions teachers should ask of, and information they should provide to, museum educators. Such questions and information can be used to initiate more effective collaborative relationships that may ultimately improve the quality of museum education for our students. We argue that gaps in museum educators’ understanding about teachers’ needs, objectives, and concerns about museum visits could be bridged if teachers knew what questions to ask and what information to volunteer to museum educators before arranging a museum visit.     

Placement Educators’ Experiences and Perspectives of Supervising International Social Work Students in Australia

International social work students in Australia have reported difficulties in finding quality placement opportunities and dealing with issues such as language and cultural barriers. While placement issues have been mostly investigated from a student perspective, this study explores the experiences and perspectives of placement educators towards supervising international social work students. It draws on an online survey of 83 placement educators working for an Australian university. The majority of placement educators reported that they supervised international students differently to domestic students. These differences were negatively framed as challenges involving students’ language competence, their understanding of cultural norms, and knowledge of Australian welfare systems. This framing implies that cultural and linguistic differences between international students and placement educators are viewed in terms of student deficiency rather than as a positive opportunity for mutual learning and professional development.     

Developing intercultural understanding for study abroad: students’ and teachers’ perspectives on pre-departure intercultural learning

This study reports on students’ and teachers’ perspectives on a programme designed to develop Erasmus students’ intercultural understanding prior to going abroad. We aimed to understand how students and their teachers perceived pre-departure materials in promoting their awareness of key concepts related to interculturality (e.g., essentialism, stereotyping, otherising) during an intercultural education course for mobile students. Twenty pre-departure Erasmus undergraduate students from an Italian university, four teachers and one observer participated in the study. Seven hours of audio/video recordings of classroom discussions and teachers’ retrospective narratives were analysed thematically. Although students initially subverted the goals of one of the tasks, they demonstrated foundations of intercultural thinking; followed by movement from self-interest to intercultural awareness of the other; and finally, developing intercultural awareness, supported through opportunities to express emotions/feelings and discussion and application of key concepts of interculturality. Teachers’/observer’s perspectives confirmed the quality and flexibility of the materials in developing students’ intercultural awareness. The findings suggest that pre-departure materials can help students to recognise variety and complexity in self and others in intercultural encounters. But students’ primary needs for practical information should first be satisfied; interactive spaces for expressing emotion and feelings are important for understanding self and others; and scaffolding activities help students to understand intercultural concepts.     

National Hatred,Female Subjectivity,and the Boundaries of Cultural Discourse

In light of a study in Israel, which found that 28% of secular girls and 63% of religious girls expressed strong hatred toward Arabs (Cal and Maislees 1989), this paper explores the difference in emotional experience between the two groups of girls. Through in-depth interviews, it examines the meaning of national hatred as knowledge produced within a particular cultural discourse. In the case of the religious girls, feelings of hatred are produced through defensive emotion work aimed at securing the position of female religious subjectivity. The experience of the secular girls shows that when no single discourse is afforded privileged status, dissonant forms of knowledge stimulate the transformation of hatred into understanding and taking the role of the other. In both cases, the paper demonstrates the interplay between national discourse (secular and religious), emotional experience (of hatred), and the construction of (women's) subjectivity.     

Projective Identification and the Fear of Failing: Making Sense of Practice Educators' Experiences of Failing Social Work Students in Practice Learning Settings

The study focuses on emotional processes that may arise for practice educators when working with struggling or failing students in practice learning settings. Informed by a thematic review of the literature exploring the phenomenon of ‘failing to fail’, the study draws on two UK qualitative studies that highlighted the emotional distress experienced by practice educators when working with a marginal or failing student. The study draws key examples from these prior studies and argues that the psychoanalytic concept of projective identification offers a plausible and illuminating account of the states of mind experienced and reported by some practice educators in the ‘failing to fail’ dilemma. The notion is proffered as a conceptual framework for practice educators to explore and apply to their own practice as a means of making explicit unconscious states of mind, helping to recognise and rationalise these, thus supporting confidence in making appropriate assessment decisions.     

Exploring graduate students’ perceptions about social work licensing

Social work practice is regulated in all the 50 USA, 10 Canadian Provinces, Great Britain, and Australia, to name a few. Though practitioners, educators, and researchers are increasingly attentive to regulatory dynamics, there remains a dearth in the literature related to social work licensing, specifically within the context of social work education. This exploratory study examined the US graduate social work students’ (N = 223) general knowledge and perceptions about social work licensing. Data suggest that though students value and have a desire to be licensed, some ambiguity and ambivalence persist around the topic. This paper explicates key findings and discusses implications derived from this study.     

Violating Boundaries

This essay begins by questioning the role that the word “boundary” plays when we say that a “sexual boundary violation” has occurred in an analytic treatment. Boundaries are bright lines drawn to separate lawful from unlawful, consensual from coerced, free from exploited, ownership from trespass, fantasy from reality. But the notion of boundaries fails in a profound and fateful way to capture the inescapable circulation of erotic transference and countertransference feelings in an analysis. Instead, this essay proposes that we look to the notion of sublimation for insights into the psychic dynamics of sexual behavior between analyst and analysand. It explores the ambivalence and mourning that surround the sublimation of desire. This discussion of sublimation sheds light on sexual violations in other types of professional relationships as well as recently adopted affirmative consent laws and policies on college campuses.     

Ethos of the Day—Challenges and Opportunities in Twenty-first Century Social Work Education

Most of the social work education literatures center on epistemological and pedagogical issues underpinning curriculum design and teaching methods. There is less attention paid to the socio-economic and technological context of the society that has a significant impact on both teachers and students. This paper brings forth a discussion on such impact in terms of the political economy and electronic-mediated mode of communication in the twenty-first century. Social work educators find themselves engaged in a consumption cycle involving industry, higher education and students. The students become the ‘updated nomads’ with an instrumental and entitlement mentality. The paper also discusses the specific challenges and opportunities to social work educators in such a scenario. Preparing students to practice in the market-driven welfare field, helping students to build up a professional identity that finds personal meaning and significance, and understanding students' search for continuity between life and professional experiences present social work educators with worthy tasks in a trying scene. They are to accomplish these tasks in a co-creation process with their students in a trustful and responsible partnership.     

Four Public Declarations of the Revolutionary Period

In our complex, interdependent world, it is critical that educators prepare students for global citizenship. One way to develop students’ awareness and understanding of the world is through global literature. Through exposure to this type of literature, students gain multiple perspectives and learn about the social, political, and moral conditions under which people around the world live. They also develop respect and understanding of socially and politically oppressed peoples and learn why it is important to promote social justice. The authors discuss global literature for elementary students and describe an example of a lesson taught in a third-grade classroom using these books. Finally, the authors share the outcomes of the lesson based on their observations and analysis of the students’ oral responses and written reflections.     

A preliminary look at relationships between married gay men and lesbians and their parents-in-law: Five case studies

With marriage between lesbians and between gays now legal in the United States, it is important to gain an understanding of how in-law relationships function for this population. Five case studies, part of a larger study of in-law relationships, are presented that help further knowledge of the potential obstacles that some couples may face in relation to their in-laws. Common experiences include relationships improving over time; struggling with acceptance; feeling closer to parents-in-law because other adult children or adult children-in-law have fallen out of favor; recognizing the significant role that the child-in-law’s spouse plays in the relationship between the child-in-law and the parent-in-law; understanding the role that the larger community plays; considering both parents-in-law as separate voices in the in-law dyad; and experiencing feelings of ambivalence that arise between family members. Practice implications for clinicians are included as are implications for future research.     

Teaching research methods to social work students in India and Australia: reflections and recommendations

This paper draws on the reflections of two social work educators who have, for many years taught research methods to undergraduate and postgraduate social work students in India and Australia. The intent is to suggest measures for enhancing the quality of social work research education. The reflections are embedded in a social justice and human rights framework, privileging the educators’ unique social and cultural contexts and their commitment to engage with indigenous knowledge. The authors recommend effective social work research education requires the educator to draw on a deep understanding of their own context, as well as globally accepted research traditions. Particularly, we encourage research teachers to adopt student-centred approaches that emphasise a broad ‘research mindedness’ (in their students and themselves), building students’ practical capacities and confidence to become effective, research informed practitioners; capable of contributing to their own communities and to the social work profession more broadly.     

Otherness and empathy—implications of Lévinas ethics for social work education

This paper examines the concept of otherness in Lévinas’ ethics and raises related issues regarding the limits of empathy on philosophical grounds. This study also identifies and discusses a number of linguistic, social and cultural barriers that can establish such limits on practical grounds. This paper raises various considerations for social work educators teaching empathy. Such considerations suggest that social work educators could adopt a stance of ‘understanding and not understanding’ and a dialectical approach in using knowledge and skills. Furthermore, this study challenges the common assumption that empathy leads to compassionate action. Apart from empathy, moral commitment is necessary to engage in such action. This article discusses such moral commitment in relation to Lévinas’ notions of face and responsibility that place ethics before knowledge. Hence, the present study brings the attention of social work educators back to the importance of nourishing virtue and the moral character of students.     

Sensory language (SDM) to foster empathy in social work students

Assessment and management of emotional situations are generally discussed in academic studies in the field of social work through verbal interventions, while the art of developing awareness to nonverbal feelings has yet to see widespread use. Sensory experience based on nonverbal communication and body language can highlight complex feelings and problems that the social worker confronts. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of an intervention of sensory body language using a modified Sherborne Developmental Movement (SDM) model, in a course for social work students. The course’s multidimensional process involved cognitive and affective components of understanding and identifying thoughts, feelings, and emotional states of others. The intervention combined art activity and focusing to foster empathy among social work students in the group setting. Twenty social work students attending college in the north of Israel participated in the course, writing reflective diaries throughout the course, which were collected and analyzed. The findings suggest that sensory language and movement through the group experience enhanced social work students’ empathy and their awareness of its importance for practice. Learning to be empathic through nonverbal communication also challenged perceived barriers to empathy such as cultural and language differences.     

Learning Through Teaching: A Study of Social Work PhD Students in Their Roles as Educators and Learners of Research

PhD social work education programs train students to become effective researchers. Less recognized are the potential opportunities for PhD students to develop in their role as educators and the possible benefits of honing doctoral students’ knowledge of research through their role as educators. This study explored these opportunities for social work PhD students who taught an introductory research methods course to MSW students. Findings suggest that potential strong, mutual benefits for PhD and MSW students exist, and institutional supports improved PhD students’ confidence as educators and researchers. Finally, integration of Kolb’s experiential learning theory and Feynman’s mental model in the doctoral social work curriculum may enhance the profession’s development of future leaders.     

Negotiating transnational ambivalence: how ageing parents grapple with family separation across time

ABSTRACT

This article uses older parents of parachute kids as an example to explore the ways in which the heads of transnational households assess intergenerational intimacy at a later stage of their life trajectories. I argue that transitioning to a later life stage motivates or even demands older parents reorient their perspectives on the separation from their children overseas. Specifically, I offer the concept of transnational ambivalence to analyse the processes whereby older parents grapple with the meaning of being physically separated from their children. This study demonstrates how the interplay between extended family separation and human ageing provokes complex feelings and emotions among parents. In addition, this research chronicles the factors that explain the variation in parental ambivalence. In so doing, this article contributes to the literature on transnational families by illuminating the temporal reflexivity of parents ‘left behind’.     

Using Experiential Learning to Help Students Understand the Impact of Food Insecurity

Experiential learning theory suggests that students increase their understanding when given the opportunity to experience a particular situation in addition to learning about it intellectually. This theory was used to construct an assignment to assist social work master’s students in better understanding food insecurity and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Through coding previously collected reactions to the assignment, the researchers discovered multiple reoccurring themes: increased understanding of SNAP, feelings about the program, realizations regarding individual privilege, client stigma, the social experience of eating, and empathy for those who experience food insecurity. Through this exercise, students increased their knowledge of the program and also gained a better understanding of how food insecurity personally affects individuals and families.     

The Social Studies—a Slogan or a Service

This article discusses the role that teacher educators can play in helping their students develop a fuller understanding of world history. Trends such as globalization have led to calls for increased teaching about the diverse cultures and peoples of the world. However, prospective teachers’ educational backgrounds have in most cases not adequately prepared them to teach world history effectively. The article begins with a discussion of the historical evolution of the course in world history; it then defines different approaches to this field, and concludes by providing suggestions for how teacher educators can help their students bring a true version of world history to their classrooms.     

Educators and synoptic prudentialism: Educator reflections on educator training,student surveillance and using technology for student outreach

Surveillance plays several interrelated and essential roles in contemporary education. In the current article, we explore the understandings and experiences of educators related to surveillance; especially the ‘vertical’ surveillance ‘from below’ students themselves direct towards educators both inside and outside of the classroom (referred to as ‘sousveillance’). We also explore the prudential ‘intrapersonal’ and reflexive surveillance undertaken by educators to align and adjust to the expectations of educator professionalization, including during educator training, especially in terms of their social media use and under a context of synoptic prudentialism in schools. Synoptic prudentialism refers to the reflexive actions and adjustments by individuals and organizations in response to an acute awareness of widespread social surveillance—the many watching the few. Educators noted risks posed by surveillance, including sources of potential harm, both personal and professional. Findings reveal that, reinforced by the legal scare stories encountered during educator training programs, educators feel overwhelmingly vulnerable to the potential sousveillance of students, and are receiving little advice beyond the requirement to ‘be careful’. We explore educators’ privacy management strategies in response, for example, in response to concerns over students capturing videos in the classroom where situations may be taken out of context. This prudential framework, moreover, may also be inhibiting educators’ ability to conduct outreach with students to detect and respond to online mediated conflict and harm.