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.