Competencies and Their Assessment

This article explores competencies and methods for their assessment in higher education and in social work’s accreditation standards. Many contemporary policy and educational accreditation efforts employ the model of competency assessment. The current emphasis on accountability in higher education, including the Council on Social Work Education’s 2008 and draft 2015 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, is contextualized through a short history of this movement and its purposes. A multipart definition of competencies is offered based on McClelland’s pivotal conceptualization of competency assessment. Within this competency model, several methods of assessing competencies in social work education are described and critically examined. The importance of identifying an appropriate and complete list of competencies is also addressed. Several issues regarding how to assess professional competencies are identified for future professional discussion.     

Social Work Education without Walls: Ethnography as a Lens for Transformative Learning

A call for innovation in social work has been put forth to address our society’s greatest problems. This call applies to social work education, which encompasses multiple functions including teaching, research, and practice. Yet, innovation in social work is constrained by the limits of current social work approaches and methods. Increasing social work’s impact in the real world requires illuminating the complexities of reciprocal forces between human lives and the environment. Understanding such complexities incorporates spatial and interdisciplinary approaches, such as ethnography. Ethnography, as method and metaphor, is a lens for transformative learning in social work education: It is the message. Ethnography illuminates real-world complexities and deepens social work education through its core contributions: methodological holism, methodological engagement, and methodological comparison. In deepening social work education, ethnography renders visible salient links in social work’s field of dialectics, invoking the systems perspective. Yet, ethnography extends beyond and expands on the systems perspective, emphasizing engaged integration. Engaged integration of social work’s dialectics forwards the discourse about the profession’s identity. Thus, ethnography is a tool for advancing knowledge and promoting transformative learning in social work education.     

Education for a sustainable future? Students’ experiences of workshops on ethical dilemmas

ABSTRACT

The goal of education for sustainable development (ESD) is to promote the values, behaviors, and lifestyles that are needed to find solutions to global economic, social, and environmental challenges. Social work and social work education have an important role to play in ESD, and poverty reduction, health, and well-being are important issues for social work as well. UNESCO, as well as the provisions of the Sweden’s Higher Education Ordinance, emphasizes the importance of higher education in meeting the future challenges to creating a sustainable society. Social work education at Örebro University has a long tradition of collaboration with service user organizations, for example by holding workshops on ethical dilemmas. This article describes these workshops and explores the students’ experiences of them. Four themes were identified: the perspective of ‘the other’ (and my own role), the importance of a nonjudgmental approach, the complexity of ethical dilemmas, and awareness of the complexity of social work. The workshops give the students a platform where they can gain practical knowledge and experience. Through the workshops, the students began to reflect on their own inner ethical compass, as well as on their own role and the challenging nature of social work.     

Courage to Teach for Social Work Educators

Teaching social work is a science, an art form and a passion. Within that context, the purpose of this article is to explore teaching as a science/art, and to integrate the work of Parker Palmer into the scholarship of teaching and learning for social work education. Using the narratives of two ‘still learning’ social work educators, Palmer's work will be described and its application experiences shared. The article concludes by making a link between Palmer's ideas and social work education.     

Understanding Social Movements: theorising the disability movement in conditions of late modernity

This article draws upon qualitative research carried out by the author and funded by the ESRC. One of the central aims of this research was to investigate the nature of the UK disability movement's ‘struggle’ and to evaluate critically the idea that it is a ‘new’ social movement. Consideration of the disability movement in relation to both ‘new’ social movements and to wider social movement theorising has suggested that it may not be possible to understand this movement, entirely, by using any of the existing models. This article concludes by outlining the possible starting point for a new approach to understanding the disability movement based upon forging a closer link between citizenship and social movement theory and upon a focus on the nature of engagement. Empirical evidence from the research is included in this article in the form of quotations from respondents, all of whom are/were members of organisations that are run by disabled people. All respondents' names have been removed to maintain their anonymity.     

‘Only Connect’: Unifying the social in social work and social media

‘Only Connect…live in fragments no longer’

(E.M. Forster, Howards End).

This paper utilises ‘Only Connect’, the epigraph from Forster’s novel ‘Howards End’ as the starting point for exploring the challenges and opportunities of integrating social networking with relationship based social work practice. The paper discusses the more deleterious implications of social networking, whilst assuming a deliberately optimistic stance to uncover ways in which the opportunities afforded by online space can be utilised effectively within social work education and practice. Whilst recognising that social networking platforms are transforming constantly, the paper adopts Kaplan’s definition of social media as a ‘group of internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0’. Whilst much of the discussion within the paper relates to Twitter and Facebook, two of the most endemic international social networking platforms, it is also applicable to myriad forms of social networking. The paper begins with a discussion of UK professional conduct cases and explores these both within Klein’s concept of splitting and historical attitudes to new technologies. Drawing from emerging research data and other examples, the positive relational practices educed by social media within social work education and practice are emphasised and discussed. The paper concludes by highlighting Forster’s plea for connection and recommending that social work embraces the renewed opportunities provided by online networking.     

Social work education in Cyprus: prospects and challenges in developing an indigenous character

The evolution of the social work education and welfare system in Cyprus is inextricably linked to the country’s recent turbulent history. Social Work in the Republic of Cyprus, although shaped by the country’s turbulent political past and present, is also influenced by Western theory as in many other countries in the Asian and African continent [Gray, M., & Fook, J. (2004). The quest for a universal social work: Some issues and implications, Social Work Education, 23(5), 625–644; Rankopo, M. J., & Hwedie, K. O. (2011). Globalization and culturally relevant social work: African perspectives on indigenization. International Social Work, 54(1), 137–147; Yip, K. S. (2007). Tensions and dilemmas of social work education in China. International Social Work, 50(1), 93–105]. In contrast with social welfare which has a long history (since late nineteenth century), social work education is still at an early stage of development in Cyprus. A non-surprising situation given that social work practice and education, in its early stages, is essentially a modernist Western invention which has a history of silencing marginal voices and importing, into diverse cultural contexts across the world, Western thinking primarily from the UK and the USA (Gray & Fook, 2004). However, if an indigenous social work character is to be developed in Cyprus, and a more distinctive identity with regard to the social work academic curricula is to be demonstrated, then Payne’s [(2001). Knowledge bases and knowledge biases in social work. Journal of Social Work, 1(2), 133–136] views on social work knowledge need further exploration.     

Science as a Strategy for Social Work

For more than one hundred years, various forms of science have been promoted to boost social work’s status as a profession. Evidence-based practice and talk about the science of social work are only the most recent manifestations of this pattern. Counter to this trend, this article argues that the latest upsurge of interest in scientific social work is no more likely than any of its predecessors to address the problems of the profession. Beginning with a linguistic analysis of the words science and scientific as positive signifiers, the article traces social work’s long history of science talk as a means of reassuring funding agencies and bolstering the profession’s status. Drawing on a critique of this discourse as the latest example of abstracted empiricism, it then contends that while scientific social work can only rarely capture what occurs in the field, its attempt to do so actually undercuts practitioners’ professional judgment and discretion. Last, after rejecting science talk as counterproductive, the article concludes with recommendations for an alternative strategy that might better position social work to reconcile its advocacy of social justice with its concerns about its professional status.     

Developing education on problematic substance use in Norwegian social work bachelor’s degree

This commentary article is based on a mapping of education on problematic substance use (PSU) in the Norwegian social work bachelor’s degree (SWBD). The results show that national discussions are necessary to ensure that Norwegian SWBD students are provided with consistent and adequate education in preparation for work with PSU issues in social work practice. A practical starting point for development is presented. A discussion concerning social work’s role in future theoretical, practical, and research developments in the field of PSU is paramount.     

The Engaged Academic: Academic Intellectuals and the Psychiatric Survivor Movement

This paper considers some political and ethical issues associated with the ‘academic intellectual’ who researches social movements. It identifies some of the ‘lived contradictions’ such a role encounters and analyses some approaches to addressing these contradictions. In general, it concerns the ‘politico-ethical stance’ of the academic intellectual in relation to social movements and, as such, references the ‘theory of the intellectual’ associated with the work of Antonio Gramsci. More specifically, it considers that role in relation to one political ‘field’ and one type of movement: a field which we refer to, following the work of Peter Sedgwick, as ‘psychopolitics’, and a movement which, since the mid- to late-1980s, has been known as the ‘psychiatric survivor’ movement—psychiatric patients and their allies who campaign for the democratisation of the mental health system. In particular, through a comparison of two texts, Nick Crossley's Contesting Psychiatry and Kathryn Church's Forbidden Narratives, the paper contrasts different depths of engagement between academic intellectuals and the social movements which they research.     

Applying Critical Consciousness and Evidence-Based Practice Decision-Making: A Framework for Clinical Social Work Practice

Social work education is increasingly driven by the established movement of evidence-based practice (EBP) that drives the delivery of mental health care with the promise of providing treatments that work and greater efficiency. This emphasis on EBP coexists with the profession’s expressed commitment to social justice. Social work literature rarely addresses the complexities of EBP decision-making in relation to social justice. Rather, separate conversations either explore the commitment to social justice through a reflective approach to practice decision-making or take a positivist approach to scientific inquiry. This article offers a framework to apply critical consciousness and EBP decision-making that integrates reflective and positivist approaches to facilitate processes and outcomes that amplify social justice aims in social work practice.     

Teaching Note—Asserting Social Work’s Role in Developing an Interprofessional Education Project

ABSTRACT

Interprofessional (IP) education is an essential component of today’s health care education. IP education has been recognized and supported for its potential to educate workforce-ready health care clinicians with the knowledge and skills, necessary to collaboratively deliver high-quality, client-centered care. While social work’s reflective, patient-centered, and holistic approach to care is invaluable in addressing healthcare challenges at all levels, social work’s lack of involvement in IP health care team practice is evident in the development of IP education curriculum with other health care disciplines. This article describes how one School of Social Work at a regional public university became part of a longitudinal IP education project in collaboration with a large R-1 research university, creating an IP opportunity for Master’s in Social Work (MSW) students. It also discusses the process taken for social work inclusion in the IP project, an experiential elective course designed to supplement the project, as well as Transformative Learning Theory, the conceptual framework used.     

Business in Social Work Education: A Historically Black University’s Social Work Entrepreneurship Project

The destabilization of the current economy has sparked increased interest in entrepreneurship, especially for underrepresented minority social work students. The entrepreneurial thinking of these social work students entering social work programs at historically Black colleges and universities needs to be fostered in a learning environment. This article describes a historically Black university’s creative social entrepreneurship venture in response to the Social Work Congress’s 2010 imperative “Business of Social Work—Infuse models of sustainable business and management practice in social work education and practice.” The social entrepreneurship project uses the interprofessional collaborative educational model and attempts to provide meaningful and relevant education to social work students interested in social entrepreneurship through the collaborative efforts of the university’s School of Social Work and the School of Business and Management.     

Reviews

A multitude of influences have affected the development of social work education, one of the earliest of which was the settlement movement in British inner cities. This article explores the early impact of the settlements on social work education and presents the results of a survey of current settlements and their relationship with UK social work. Ideas from the settlement movement have continued to fertilise British social policy and community development practice but their numbers and influence have waned. In contrast, British social work and social services organisations exert a major influence on settlements both directly and indirectly. As part of the longest established sections of the voluntary sector within the UK, the settlement movement's survival may also offer suggestions about the organic development of welfare organisations which are of wider relevance in a rapidly changing social environment.     

Unobtrusively Stretching Law: Legal Education,Activism, and Reclaiming Title IX

We often understate the work that activists put into crafting movement tools. This article examines the space between legal texts and movement resources in a study of early activism surrounding Title IX. Though often hailed as a feminist law, the Title IX statute and regulations lay out a narrow set of individual rights and incorporate several conservative principles. In an analysis of early social movement mobilization surrounding Title IX by the Connecticut Women's Educational and Legal Fund (CWEALF), we identify a distinctive legal framing technique tied to the often overlooked practice of lay legal education. In a legal education campaign that targeted schools, CWEALF placed Title IX's actual requirements alongside broader feminist ideas about gender socialization and civic responsibility to imply that the law mandated substantially greater reforms, a tactic we call unobtrusively stretching law. This article contributes to research on social movements and legal mobilization by illustrating how legal education can serve as part of the tool-making kit for social movements as they struggle to transform legislative compromises into movement resources.     

An Integration Project in Civics and English

The intent of this article is to examine the significance of Carter G. Woodson to the historical development of the fields of curriculum and social studies, particularly as they relate to the evolution of the modern multicultural movement. The authors focus on Woodson's contributions through his curriculum and his pedagogical efforts in establishing a more rigorous and historically accurate social studies framework through his community education initiatives, the Negro History Bulletin, and his textbooks. They conclude the article with a discussion of how Woodson's efforts can have direct implications for social studies educators.     

A “Jewish Study Hall” Influenced Approach to Social Work Professional Identity Development: A Qualitative Study

The article presents the findings of a qualitative research study focused on the ancient “Jewish study hall” (Beit Midrash in Hebrew) approach. The research was conducted in the context of the Beit Midrash for Social Work and Judaism established at one school of social work in Israel. Twenty participants were included in the study. Content analysis of transcribed Beit Midrash sessions revealed four central themes: reflection on participant identities; expansion, stabilisation, and acceptance of one’s personal identity; clarification of professional identity; and convergence between Jewish and professional identity. Study results raise questions as to both the place and the space for exploration of religious and spiritual identity in social work education. Findings suggest that alternative learning spaces such as the Beit Midrash can enable social work students and practitioners to reflect honestly and profoundly on their religious and spiritual identity, helping them to integrate their different identities towards becoming “whole persons” better prepared to meet the challenges of the social work profession.