The future of social work education: beyond the state of the art

David Cox (1995) argues that social work educators need to engage with social issues if they are to move social work away from the doldrums in which it has become trapped. Although this is true, changes of a greater magnitude are required if social work practice is to remain relevant in the twenty-first century. In a globalizing world, social work educators have to play a key role in internationalizing the social work curricula (academic and practicum) and socializing practitioners to embrace emancipatory approaches to social work if they are to counteract the brutalizing forces of industrialism and militarism. Engaging with social change to empower excluded groups requires social workers to work with "clients", policy-makers and international welfare organizations in ways that link the personal and structural dimensions of social life. In short, practitioners need to go beyond the state of the art if their interventions are to respond to the "person-in-their-situation" in a modern context.