Evaluating the Social Environment Component of Social Work Courses on Human Behavior and the Social Environment

SUMMARY

This analysis of 117 foundation of Human Behavior and Social Environment (HB&SE) course outlines gathered from 60 graduate schools of social work is based on the HB&SE standards of the Council on Social Work Education (2001). It draws upon an analytic framework for integrating content related to the social environment. Specific criteria for assessment included how well the course outline reflected the reciprocal nature of human behavior and the social environment, presented a strengths perspective, incorporated diversity content, and covered material related to families, groups, organizations, communities, and political economy. Four types of HB&SE course outlines were identified (lifespan-oriented, systems-oriented, theory-oriented, and combination), and results are presented by course outline type. The findings suggest that increased attention to content related to the macro social environment, human diversity, well-being, and theory for practice is needed to strengthen HB&SE foundation courses.     

Improving Social Work Students' Understanding of Health and Social Justice Knowledge through the Implementation of Service Learning at a Free Community Health Clinic

Service learning is a teaching strategy that involves engaging in a mutually beneficial partnership between a community and students in the classroom. Social work education and service learning share core values of service and social justice and, when unified, can offer students unique opportunities to engage in meaningful application of knowledge and skills in a real-world setting. This article provides an exemplar describing the unique student learning outcomes that resulted from a service learning partnership between graduate-level social work students in a diversity course and a community health clinic serving Latino immigrants and Burmese refugees.     

Photovoice as a Tool for Social Justice Workers

Abstract

This article considers the use of Photovoice as a tool for social justice workers. Photovoice is a technique that affords diverse populations of oppressed individuals the opportunity to take social action by raising awareness in the community and with policy-makers through use of a photographic process. The theoretical underpinnings, goals, and uses of Photovoice are reviewed in relation to social work contexts and values. In addition, the inclusion of empowerment theory and group work literature is explored as a natural expansion of the current theoretical underpinnings. Photovoice is a prime example of participatory research, assessment, and social action. The relevance of Photovoice to social work theory and practice is considered and possibilities for use as an integrated practice tool are explained.     

Social Work Textbooks on Human Behavior and the Social Environment

SUMMARY

This analysis of fourteen foundation frequently used Human Behavior and Social Environment (HB&SE) textbooks is based on the Council on Social Work Education's (2001) guidelines for HB&SE and a framework for integrating content related to the social environment. Specific criteria for assessment included how well the textbook reflected the reciprocal nature of human behavior and the social environment, presented a strengths perspective, incorporated diversity content, and covered material related to families, groups, organizations, communities and political economy. Three types of HB&SE textbooks were identified (life cycle, systems, and theory), and results are presented by textbook type. The findings suggest that increased attention to content related to the macro social environment and to the inter-relationships of macro, meso, and micro forces would strengthen HB&SE texts.     

Standing Up for Science and Social Justice

What does it mean to do social science—perhaps especially for those of us whose research focuses on issues of social justice—during what my students gingerly refer to as “this time we're living in”? Community based participatory research offers one important approach.     

Knowledge Management in Social Work–Towards a Conceptual Framework

SUMMARY

Knowledge management (KM) is receiving increasing attention in the human services such as social work. Social service organizations have started to use information and communication technology for knowledge management purposes with the aim of improving service efficiency and effectiveness. Existing KM studies, particularly in the commercial or industrial sectors, mainly focus on the reductionistic “knowledge-as-object” view, while other perspectives such as “knowledge-as-process” are less discussed. This paper argues that these mainstream conceptions of knowledge in KM do not fully fit with that of social work knowledge, and that a spectrum view may be more useful for future practice and inquiry in the area.     

Towards a Comprehensive Typology of Knowledge for Social Work and Alcohol

This article presents a theoretical model of knowledge acquisition by social workers with regards to alcohol, which formed the propositional element of a recently awarded doctoral thesis submission. It begins by briefly contextualising the relationship between alcohol and social work, the profession's response to the increasing sense of alcohol-related issues in workloads and calls for more effective intervention responses. In considering how this is often reflected in demands for social workers to receive more education about alcohol, it critically examines existing considerations of possible typologies of knowledge for social work, before encapsulating them within a model focusing on alcohol. The model suggests that any such typology is likely to be composed of multiple sources, including both codified and non-codified elements. It concludes by considerations of some of the implications for research approaches that could be used to gain a better understanding of these knowledge frameworks. In doing so it proposes that it is through these alternative considerations that more holistic understandings of social work knowledge will be established. Discussion of the implications of working within more inclusive knowledge frameworks, for social work education, policy, practice and research, are contained throughout the article.     

Seventh-Grade Social Studies versus Social Meliorism

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), in the state of North Carolina, has gone through considerable recent effort to revise, support, and assess their seventh-grade social studies curriculum in an effort to serve three goals: comply with the Common Core State Standards (Common Core), comply with the North Carolina Essential Standards (Essential Standards), and create a curriculum that best serves students. Meanwhile, the curriculum theory of social meliorism was conceived of over a century ago. Since its inception it has influenced curriculum development and provided a foundation for many other curriculum theories that all start from an assumption that social meliorism holds to an accepted truth that the purpose of education is to improve society and address its injustices. Given contemporary discussions about how to achieve social justice, this is a philosophy that seems particularly meaningful when thinking about the ways that schools can help to accomplish the goals of social justice. I intend to investigate the seventh-grade social studies curriculum of WCPSS in 2014 and juxtapose it with the goals and ideals of social meliorism, determine how well the curriculum addresses the goals of that curriculum theory, and make suggestions for how a social meliorist might suggest modifying the curriculum to better serve the needs of society.     

A Conceptual Framework for the Professional Socialization of Social Workers

With the Council on Social Work Education revised Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, professional socialization has become a matter of policy. The social work literature is characterized by a dearth of conceptual models and systematic research regarding professional socialization. The conceptual framework for the professional socialization of social workers presented herein provides a discrete definition and clarifies what was formerly an ambiguous understanding of the elements of professional socialization. Potential applications of this framework include its use as a foundation for systematic research and a bridge between competencies and signature pedagogy and in informing field instructor training and the integration of theory and practice for students and practitioners.     

Coalition-Based Social Change Initiatives

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a model for establishing and maintaining social change coalitions. The model, based on the authors' study of a successful coalition-based social change initiative, highlights the potential contribution of a neutral, external support agency whose goal is to help a group of organizations collaborate in an effort to promote change in social policy in an area of shared concern. The external agency brings knowledge and experience in working with coalitions, needs to be trusted by all the coalition partners, and should be perceived as not competing for recognition or resources, and as having only the common goal in mind. The components of the model and the methodology employed to develop it are presented, followed by assessment of its generalizability to other settings. Experts, from different disciplines, countries and ethnic backgrounds, advised that this model has great potential for solving social problems in many different areas.     

A Gay and Lesbian Congregation Seeks Social Justice for Other Marginalized Communities

SUMMARY

The Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas, is the world's largest gay and lesbian congregation. As an unabashedly liberal church, the Cathedral of Hope views social justice as the foundation of theological beliefs and the heart of community building activities with other marginalized and oppressed people. These actions of social justice and community building have produced an unexpected outcome. Social justice has been returned to this congregation in the form of community affirmation, acceptance, recognition, and advocacy. Thus, one significant way for gays and lesbians to achieve social justice is to work for the same with other oppressed people, devoid of strings or hidden agendas.     

Social work education in Spain: evaluation and challenges for a new generation of social workers

ABSTRACT

The European social integration model was built on two main pillars: employment and access to the welfare state. European social work education was mainly oriented to training professionals in order to promote this inclusion through case management and the provision of benefits. This influence was very intense in the curricular content of Spanish social work programs. The new social risks and the European convergence in higher education have promoted curricular changes, but is it enough?. This paper aims to identify the content and limits of current social work education in Spain. To this end, a comparative analysis of social work education in public universities of Spain was performed. This information has been contrasted with professionals, teachers and social work students. The results evidence the gap of these contents with the real professional needs. This paper proposes several alternatives and approaches in new intergenerational methodologies and technological tools to train a new generation of social workers     

Organizing Self-Help Groups for Empowerment and Social Change

Abstract

Empirical research has shown that self-help groups are not purely about individual change and intra-personal empowerment, but also about policy change and collective empowerment. In North America and Europe, such groups have been in the forefront of social change, and self-help represents a new political potential. However, findings of this study of self-help groups in Hong Kong indicate that social change has never been their common objective. In addition, members of the Hong Kong groups feel unable to impact social policies that affect their lives, despite wanting to do so. It is contended in this paper that this feeling of powerlessness among members might be related to the nature, size and length of existence of the self-help groups. It is further argued that self-help groups should form coalitions and seek professional assistance in order to effect social change and to strengthen and broaden their power base.     

Preparing Community Health Workers for Their Role as Agents of Social Change: Experience of the Community Capacitation Center

Current efforts to better integrate Community Health Workers (CHWs) into the health and social service systems are promising, but may be less effective if they fail to support the role of CHWs as social change agents. The way CHWs are trained influences the roles they play. In this article, we review the literature on CHW training and summarize lessons learned to date. We describe how the Community Capacitation Center in Oregon uses a combination of content, methodology, and values to prepare CHWs to make an optimal contribution to health. Recommendations for CHW training programs and policy makers are provided.     

Social Justice in the Social Work Classroom: Applying a Professional Value to Social Work Education

Social justice is a primary value of social work and therefore has a place in discussions of social work education pedagogy. This is especially true for conversations pertaining to students who are underprepared, due to educational inequalities, for successful completion of writing assignments at the undergraduate level. If underprepared students are treated as equals to prepared students, then the social inequalities that contributed to or caused a student to be underprepared are perpetuated rather than challenged. The authors explore responses to underprepared students that are consistent with social work's professional value of social justice.     

Social work through collaborative autoethnography

This paper discusses a research project involving five MA Social Work Students and one member of Social Work Academic Staff. Using narrative and taking a collaborative autoethnographical approach, this project highlights some of the feelings that students articulated following a 70-day placement experience. Findings include anxiety, powerlessness and frustration, together with growing confidence, recognition of their skills and a deeper understanding of the role of ‘self’ in social work. Raising issues of preparedness for practice placement, this paper has implications for both social work practice and social work education. Autoethnography (AE) is both a method of carrying out research and a methodology, specifically a qualitative methodology linked to ethnography and narrative inquiry. AE results in highly personalized narrative accounts of the researcher’s engagement with specific sociocultural contexts in the pursuit of knowing more about a phenomenon. Applying such a methodology to explore collaboratively issues of student lived experience of placement is a new and innovative use of this method.     

Social Justice Approach to Community Development

This article presents a case study examining nonprofit board and director roles in the first 5 years of an organization’s life, using 3 organizational change approaches: contingency, life-cycle, and cognitive-interpretive. Data include monthly board meeting minutes and director’s reports for the first 5 years of a nonprofit human service agency’s existence. The article concludes that although all 3 theoretical approaches are productive explanatory frameworks for organizational change, each one, on its own, is incomplete. The findings point to the need for further theoretical synthesis and paradigm elaboration to inform our understanding of nonprofit director and board relationships.     

Theory for Community Practice in Social Work:

The effort is made to revitalize the search for practice theory which will inform and guide the community practitioner. Ecological theory is used to identify a generic model of community practice and analyze member cohesion in the three traditional modalities. The theory of energy in human ecology is developed to set the stage for an energy assessment, and the selection of strategic energy patterns in phases of organizing. Theoretical propositions with practice implications are offered for research on the relationship between strategic energy-patterns of organizing, energy costs, specialization of function, and styles of intervention.     

Reflecting on the Social Environment Dimensions of HB&SE

SUMMARY

This paper discusses the contributions of three studies of the Human Behavior and the Social Environment curriculum presented in this volume (Mulroy & Austin; Taylor, Mulroy, & Austin; Taylor, Austin, & Mulroy). A key theme across these theoretical and empirical pieces is that content related to social environment may not be coherently or consistently presented across courses. This finding is discussed in light of the general move toward contextualism in the social sciences in recent decades. Implications for social work pedagogy, research, and theory development are discussed.     

Social work guanxi: a reflexive account of the social work relationship in the Chinese context

ABSTRACT

In a guanxi-driven acquaintanceship, the worker, the client, and the community are tied together more closely than they are in mutually agreed-upon service contracts. This paper re-examines the contemporary boundaries in the social work relationship, especially in Asian nations such as China, where ‘relationships’ are generally translated and perceived as ‘guanxi’. The indigenisation of social work must be managed with care when translating from West to East. Drawing from the experiences of community development projects in rural Hong Kong, this paper discusses how guanxi among social workers, clients and other stakeholders in Chinese communities might challenge the professionalism of social work and breach the boundaries of social work relationships.