A Design for Teaching Human Behavior in a Generalist Undergraduate Program

This paper presents a design for teaching human behavior to undergraduate social work students that is multidisciplinary in its knowledge base, employs a comparative and analytical approach to a variety of theoretical concepts, and is directly linked to the problem-solving competencies of practice. The design assumes that practitioner skills must rest on a broad base of behavioral knowledge that not only integrates large system, sociologically oriented theory with a range of smaller system social and psychological theories, but critically evaluates them in terms of their implications for human welfare and for their validity and utility in the assessment of client problems.