The impact of training on students' values

The notion that social work is a value-laden activity and that training should help students to practice effectively in this context seems to be generally agreed. However, the great diversity in how courses approach, or even acknowledge the values dimension seems to belie this.

Knowledge of what actually happens to students' values during training should encourage greater clarity and purpose in the approaches which courses take and seven studies of this are reviewed. Their evidence is summarised to draw some general pointers which may help social work educators in working in this area.

This paper partly arises from, and includes, work carried out at University College, Cardiff towards the M.Sc.(Econ) in Applied Social Studies of the University of Wales.