scholarly journals Addressing Sexual Minority Issues in Social Work Education: A Curriculum Framework

10.18060/168 ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Gezinski

This paper will explore a curriculum framework that explicitly addresses the reduction of heterosexism as a means to produce students that are culturally competent of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Van Den Bergh and Crisp (2004) place great importance on addressing beliefs/attitudes, knowledge, and skills when broaching culturally competent practice with the LGBTQ population. Beliefs/attitudes, knowledge, and skills in an educational approach will be advocated in this paper. Specifically, the creation of a constructivist environment will be endorsed as a means for students to critically assess their own beliefs/attitudes, knowledge, and skills. A curriculum framework that utilizes classroom activities related to heterosexual privilege, policy, and practice role plays will be discussed. This curriculum framework is intended to prepare social work students to work with LGBTQ clients.

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-178
Author(s):  
Claire L. Dente

The Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) included the goal of competency in the ability to “engage diversity and difference in practice.” This goal continued efforts to raise awareness of diversity issues for clients articulated in earlier EPAS. Social work education has included cultural competence in areas of difference including sexual orientation and religion and spirituality. Undergraduate social work students should understand the complexity of this intersection to provide culturally competent services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer clients, and to understand religious backgrounds that may not include affirmative messages on sexual orientation. This article presents an overview of the intersection of religion/spirituality and sexual orientation, and recommends audiovisual materials that can highlight salient issues for BSW students in pedagogy on this intersection.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. SA85-SA111
Author(s):  
Heidi Lie Eriksen ◽  
Mikhail Gradovski

The study reported in this paper focuses on social work students’ experiences of ethical challenges, including dilemmas, during their field placements. Moreover, drawing on dialogical approach and the results of the thematic analysis, the authors discuss what ethical dilemmas the students experience during their in-field practice, and what implications the handling of these ethical dilemmas can have for the organization of social work education. The findings that are reported in this article are the results of the analysis of six sets of data collected with the help of interviews. The interpretive framework used in this study is a dialogical approach. The research strategy has been a qualitative approach, and the data collection has taken place in semi-natural settings. The thematic analysis of the data lead to four major themes of ethical challenges that the students experienced in their field placements. The first theme concerns structural conditions on a macro level that the students were confronted with when in practice. The second theme is about ethical challenges due to the students´ lack of knowledge and experience in the field. The third theme presents challenges in direct work with service users related to the students´ awareness of values and perspectives. The fourth theme concerns ethical challenges that occurred when students interacted with others in the organizations where the field placements took place. We argue that due to the fact that the authorial agency of any learner consists of personal attitudes, goals, values, knowledge, competences, and skills, it is important to organize supervision activities in a way that allows discussions in free and fearless environments so that the student could learn and unlearn knowledge and skills. This means that in-field placements should be viewed as learning arenas for various types of knowledge and skills, including knowledge on themselves, and not just places where the students can gain only strictly professional practical knowledge and try out their theoretical knowledge.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pinar Zubaroglu ◽  
Marciana Popescu

To promote international social work education and prepare MSW graduates for international careers, several teaching models have been developed, including intensive teaching in international settings, hybrid teaching with study abroad components, and applied learning through service learning and international internships. Benefits of international social work education range from increased knowledge and skills in addressing global issues through policy and advocacy, to significant improvements in multi-cultural competence and awareness upon participation in structured cultural immersion programs. Current challenges for social workers in international development careers point to the need for an interdisciplinary approach to best address complex global social issues. This paper proposes an international interdisciplinary teaching model that aims to prepare social work students for international development practice. Based on a pilot study of the proposed model, students showed significant increases in the self-efficacy of interdisciplinary international knowledge and skills. 


Affilia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 088610992110682
Author(s):  
Heather Witt ◽  
Maha K. Younes ◽  
Erica Goldblatt Hyatt ◽  
Carly Franklin

Despite social work's stated commitment to abortion rights, research on this topic is not prolific within the discipline (Begun et al., 2016). If we are to live up to our ethical principles, this should be changed. The authors posit that increasing students’ exposure to and understanding of abortion is necessary in the preparation of competent social work practitioners. Using Begun et al.’s (2016) Social Workers’ Abortion Attitudes, Knowledge, and Training questionnaire, the authors expanded the survey by creating additional questions about social work curriculum coverage and training experiences, as well as further content on abortion. Findings indicate that most social work students believe abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances, and also that abortion laws should be less restrictive in the United States. Reported religion and political affiliation had significant effects on several of the abortion attitude statements. Only 7.2% of respondents indicated that abortion is regularly discussed in social work classrooms, and only 2.7% of respondents report they have received training on the topic of abortion in their field placement. The results suggest that social work curriculum coverage on reproductive justice is tenuous and inconsistent at best, leaving students to grapple without the necessary professional foundation.


Social workers have played a key role in political settings from the profession’s historic roots to present day. Their knowledge, skills and values position social workers to practice in political settings. Social work faculty and students were interviewed to assess a) how field placements in legislative offices and participation in Campaign School and NASW-sponsored Legislative Education and Advocacy Day (LEAD) impacted students’ professional development and perspectives on political social work, and b) social work faculties’ perception of these activities in students’ social work education and necessary political social work knowledge and skills. Initial results demonstrate a high level of support for these activities among faculty and students with opportunities to further include them in the explicit and implicit social work curriculum.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 100
Author(s):  
Paulette Andrea Henry

<p>The understanding of human rights are important to social work education and practice especially since the global definition of social work highlights the dual role of social work as a practice based profession and academic discipline emphasizing the principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversity. Concomitantly, social work education must ensure that students know and understand human rights laws especially since human rights are inherent to all human beings and are often expressed and guaranteed by international law which Governments are expected to uphold. Social workers have a commitment as duty bearers in supporting governments in the upholding of those agreements pertinent to the wellbeing of the people. Using the University of Guyana as a frame of reference this paper examined students’ knowledge on international agreements prior to leaving the University since these laws not only speak to nation states but to universal practices and many social work issues transcend borders. This paper utilized a mixed method approach to ascertain students’ awareness of international human rights laws and their perceptions on the applicability to practice. The findings show that there is limited knowledge amongst social work students on human rights covenants and conventions. This assessment is instructive to social work educators locally and internationally pointing to the need for integration into the curricula. It is imperative that generalist practitioners leave the University with a clear understanding of these laws as many practice issues are transnational. There will be the need for international social work to be a taught course for undergraduates training to become generalist practitioners.</p>


Author(s):  
Sugiono Sugiono

Social justice across curriculum is believed to entail changes in society, and thus the integration of social justice into curriculum comes to be crucial. Socially just curriculum deals with the principles of inclusive practices at schools, access to important knowledge and skills to all students, and the empowerment of students to act for socially just change. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the English curriculum in Indonesian secondary schools, year 10, is socially just.  This study focused on documentary research, analysing the collected documents – the curriculum framework and school-based curriculum development – from the lens of socially just curriculum indicators. These indicators were constructed based on the state ideology, Pancasila (Five Principles) and prominent scholars’ viewpoints of social justice covered in relevant literature.  The results showed that most of all, those documents reflected the indicators for socially just curriculum. Nevertheless, to make a judgment as to whether the English curriculum is socially just is not a simple matter, since further research, which promotes talks with teachers and students, observation of classroom activities, analysis of methods of assessment, student textbooks, workbooks, and other resources, would be necessary to be done.


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