Epiphanies and learning in a postcolonial Malaysian context: A preliminary evaluation of international social work placements

Abstract

This article discusses preliminary findings from a study of international placement learning of British social work students in social welfare settings in Malaysia. Research data generated focuses on the learning processes experienced by the students placed in an unfamiliar, postcolonial context with an emphasis on issues relating to diversity and developing critical cultural competence. Future sustainability and benefits of such placements are also reviewed.

Keywords

international placement Malaysia meta-learning practice learning

Introduction

This article reports the first-year outcomes of a planned three-year study of short international practice placements by students from Bournemouth University (BU), UK. Students were placed in Malaysian social welfare/care agencies, with each year forming a self-contained part of the study. Underpinning this collaborative placement programme was a funded research study into student practice learning in unfamiliar cultural contexts.

Here we seek to both evaluate the success of the first stage of the collaborative placement programme, as well as critically exploring wider debates relating to the nature and effectiveness of practice learning in social work. These critiques refer to the contentious issue of international placements, particularly those located in developing countries, such as Malaysia; and where such issues resonated with the experiences of students on the placement programme.

The cultural and historical context of Malaysia provides a backdrop to post-colonialism and ethnocentrism in practice education, particularly within developing countries. The discussion offered here is informed by the research findings of the study, where the students were requested to document their learning experiences and prepare critical incident narratives on placement as a core task in their participation. The learning opportunities and commensurate challenges offered by the Malaysian placements are therefore discussed in response to the overarching research question seeking to examine issues of culture, power, values and ethics, in relation to the perceptions of students towards practice learning in new cultural contexts.

Context of international practice placements

Practice learning is often accepted as integral to social work education and represents an unquestioned positive ‘given’ (Doel and Shardlow, 2009; Parker, 2006), but there is little evidence concerning what works to effect desired outcomes. According to Rai (2004), social work education has always emphasized the importance of field experience within the curriculum for preparing students for practice. This, she believes, is constant throughout the world, although reflects Western practice. The purpose of practice learning is to contextualize classroom learning. Accordingly, it is almost taken for granted that practice learning is an integral and effective component of qualifying social work education.

In the UK, the Department of Health (2002) requirements for social work education fuel this received emphasis on the centrality of practice learning. However, the reasons why practice learning is considered so important have not been adequately explained or questioned. This centrality and the cost to social work programmes demand that we are clear about the reasons why it is considered so important; and must move beyond purely instrumental ones concerning award requirements. Instead, what practice learning achieves in terms of professional and practice development must be considered. As well as how it contributes to learning and skills development and what the evidence base is in this regard.

Practice learning in social work in the UK is based on the assumption that learning arises from action and problem-solving in the work environment, and sees knowledge production as a shared or collective activity. The acquisition of a meta-competence (learning to learn) is central to developing social work practice and to continuing professional education. This is evidenced by the continuing debates concerning reflection in, on and about social work as an integral feature of integrating theory and practice (Ixer, 1999; Ruch, 2005).

The growing interest in international social work, and commensurately international placements, is linked to an increasing awareness of the impact of globalization regarding political influence and the flow of finance, together with the political migration of populations (Baba et al., 2010; Hugman, 2010). However, globalization also underpins the ideal of the mobile, transcultural and marketable professional equipped with an arsenal of knowledge-based, transferrable skills, embodied by the idealized concept of the ‘global citizen’ (Caruana, 2007). As well as producing graduates with the requisite ‘glocal’ perspective, which, for the purpose of this article, we define as an awareness of how global issues impact upon the fragile interconnections between people and their environment (Caruana, 2007). For many universities the iconic creation of a ‘global citizen’, equipped with ‘competences and tolerances’ fit for culturally diverse contexts, is aspired to in terms of the graduate end product of tertiary education (Montgomery, 2009). Tangentially, and crucially linked to this ideal, is the issue of internationalization, which has captured the imagination of many Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in their bid towards the development of their profiles regionally, nationally and internationally (Caruana and Handstock, 2008).

The endeavour to embed internationalization at curriculum level is problematic, especially because this is a contested and ill-defined concept for many HEIs (Caruana and Handstock, 2008). A number of different strategies have been used at the British HEI under discussion, including adaptation of the curricula to reflect global concerns and international evidence-based research. In this vein, Williams and Nelson (2007) comment on the importance of encouraging students to reflect upon their own cultural assumptions to address hegemonic constructions. This is a point with which we would wholeheartedly concur, and would argue that this process is engaged with in the international placements discussed here, forming another important strand of internationalization (Panos et al., 2004).

For UK social work education, despite one of the paradoxes of globalization in leading to devolution, a tendency towards an ethnocentric and often highly localized viewpoint is being broadened. This recognizes the wider influences of cultural diversity in relation to multi-ethnic/multi-faith perspectives within multicultural societies and the consequent implications for anti-oppressive practice (Ashencaen Crabtree et al., 2008; Gilin and Young, 2009). However, Razack (2009) draws attention to the lack of critical discourse on the topic of international social work, especially where this relates to developing regions of the world. Following Williams and Nelson (2007), Razack (2009) argues that this is particularly the case when Western hegemony and ‘superior positioning’ remains unquestioned in the classroom in reference to colonization, imperialism and postcolonialism, including the cultural imperialism inherent in ‘universal social work values’ (Razack, 2009: 12). Hugman (2008) expands this point to contemplate the scope of social work internationally, which has developed in response to the enormous diversity of societies and social needs. For example, the micro-level technicalities that could characterize social work in the UK, can be usefully compared to the meso- and macro-level models in practice elsewhere (Hugman, 2008). Accordingly, internationalized social work curricula must seek to adequately engage with these thought-provoking models, but also to consider the polarities of ethical positions; and the postcolonial rise of indigenized and authenticized practice (Hugman, 2009, 2010).

These issues demand close consideration by social work academics, for as Razack (2009) also notes, in common with the UK, in North America, there is an increasing demand by students wishing to undertake practice placements in international settings. Panos et al. (2004) observe that international practice learning placements offer an excellent opportunity to gain cross-cultural competence; a rationale that has fuelled our own endeavours in this direction. However, Wehbi (2009) raises concerns rehearsed here: that a lack of insight into the personal motivation of students (and academics) may lead to a replication of power imbalances that are implicated in cultural hegemony. Where this happens, the transformative potential of international placements may remain insufficiently realized. Although international placements are a popular enterprise among students, administrative, supervisory and logistical problems create barriers to developing further placement initiatives; as do language barriers (Panos et al., 2004).

Similar to the situation in the USA (Gilin and Young, 2009), in the UK due to the heavily practice orientated, and arguably, somewhat restrictive degree requirement opportunities, the development of a sustainable portfolio of international practice placements that are integrated into the social work degree and curriculum timetable is a demanding prospect. It requires evangelism towards the benefits of international placements, coupled with a commitment towards developing mutually beneficial international partnership, where reciprocation needs to be more than a token invitation to return a host’s favour. This is a particularly important point for partnerships where the cost of living varies widely across nations. These may be especially advantageous for students from the Western hemisphere, but highly problematic for others; and consequently, symmetrical reciprocation is unlikely to take place.

Establishing practice learning placements in Malaysia

A three-year British Council PMI2 grant to promote UK student mobility provided a foundation to negotiate a partnership with social work colleagues at two Malaysian universities: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS). This enabled social work students from BU to receive a 20-day placement in Malaysian agencies, under the supervision and tutelage of Malaysian academics. In response to the research question, the research element of the study involved participation of the students in gathering data and constructing critical incident narratives based on their learning processes.

The Malaysian placements were designed to follow on from the students’ placements in the local, English setting, completing the requisite number of practice days. In order to facilitate the transition across cultures and agency profiles and expectations, the same practice teachers continued to carry out long-distance supervision for those students travelling to Malaysia. Furthermore, students received daily supervision from agency representatives and weekly group supervision by Malaysian academic colleagues, in addition to having access to BU practice learning coordination support.

The selection of students was rigorous, where 10 candidates were selected from a larger group of volunteers. In keeping with the demographics of the BU Social Work student population the majority of applicants were White British/European. Ultimately, due to logistical issues, only one of two minority ethnic (ME) students selected was able to participate in the programme, which numbered six female and four male students

Selection depended on the demonstration of a genuine interest in international social work, sound motivation and a proven ability to adapt to challenging or unfamiliar situations. Students were also expected to show evidence of good academic ability, where all previous assignments had been passed prior to undertaking the final 20-day international placement. This was considered by Malaysian and UK partners to be very important given the unfamiliar context and the expectations attached to this learning opportunity.

Matching successful candidates to their placement was undertaken by the practice learning coordinator and followed similar procedures used for local placements, based on student learning needs, preferences and available resources in Malaysia. Due to language barriers primarily, social welfare placements required careful selection to ensure that students would be able to achieve their learning objectives. The final list of suitable agencies offered by our Malaysian partners included one state-run social work agency, with the remainder being non-government agencies and charities. Accordingly, students were offered the choice of a placement in an HIV/AIDS needle exchange programme, one of two charitable Christian-based children’s residential homes, a community-based rehabilitation services for children with developmental needs, an NGO dealing with young adults with learning disabilities, and finally, a community-based supported living programme for adults with mental health problems. The majority of students chose to be placed in pairs in each agency, although solo placements were also provided at the HIV/AIDS agency with staggered start dates for two students.

The socio-cultural context

Malaysia is a postcolonial multicultural nation of broad ethnic and religious/spiritual diversity, where the state religion is Islam but where a wide number of organized religions and faiths are practised. Thus Malaysia offers a multifaith environment steeped in religious nuances. This stands in contrast to the largely secularized culture in the UK where religious observance is becoming confined to certain communities. Accordingly, this led to a greater interest by the students in spirituality/faith in social work as an important aspect of minority culture; as well as in relation to how agencies constructed and organized services against the backdrop of both state religion and the foregrounding of other faiths (Ashencaen Crabtree et al., 2008; Furness and Gilligan, 2010; Holloway and Moss, 2010).

Malaysia is roughly divided into two geographically separate regions: the Peninsula and the two Malaysian States of Sarawak and Sabah on Borneo. With respect to the student placements, students were offered the choice of two locations where our Malaysian host universities were situated: USM located in Penang on the Peninsula; and UNIMAS situated in Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak. USM has a long established social work programme at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and carries the status of a premier research establishment in the region. UNIMAS by contrast is a comparatively young university but where social work at undergraduate level has been offered since its inception. However, academics at both institutions are fluent in the discourses of academic and global social work, as well as localized and indigenized practice.

The natural domain of social work education in Malaysia is viewed as belonging to the social sciences, as opposed to being subsumed under the alternative agendas and values of the health disciplines in some UK universities, where social work as an academic study may be marginalized, duly impacting on students (Gray et al., 2008; Parker, 2007). Social work in Malaysia remains on the cusp of professionalization in many respects (Baba et al., 2010). However, despite the formation of a professional body in 1973, similar in outlook and mission to that of BASW (UK) or NASW (USA), the Malaysian Association of Social Workers (MASW) has been unable to ensure that social work posts in the government sector are preserved for qualified/trained social workers work (Baba and Azman, 2008). In consequence, the employment rate for graduating social workers from USM into social work posts stands at a mere 10 per cent, in contrast to BU where over 90 per cent of social work students find posts in the profession upon qualification.

Regardless of the challenges, the fluidity of social work in Malaysia paradoxically offers scope and many opportunities for further development in terms of practice and education, the reinforcement of the profession, and (germane to the research findings discussed in this article), in respect of the growth of the individual professional.

In terms of social welfare provision and the meeting of social needs these are met across Malaysia, albeit unevenly, through state-run provision, as the main employers in the country. In addition, the independent sector, in relation to NGO input and to a lesser extent charities, also contribute valuable services. The state-run Social Welfare Department is responsible for casework, foster care and adoption, juvenile probation and parole, protective services for the aged, juvenile care and child protection (Baba et al., 2010). However, NGOs make a prominent contribution in relation to most of the above service user areas, including mental health work community-based services, and those pertaining to disability.

The religious foundation of many organizations in the independent sector, originally premised upon early colonial models of welfare, have since been transformed by the processes of indigenization. State-run services, conforming to a Minimal State ideology towards intervention, have also been subject to similar processes during the transition from imperial implementation of rudimentary welfare services to the evolution of the current postcolonial landscape (Baba et al., 2010). It is in this context that British students experienced their learning and meta-learning.

The study

The emphasis on developing and inculcating reflective skills and learning provides a rich vein of evidence to excavate in practice learning (Ruch, 2005). The complexities and problems recognized in assessing and adequately defining reflective practice (Eraut, 1995; Ixer, 1999) indicate the need for further focused, systematic research, especially in linking reflective practice skills with longitudinal benefits in competent practice, and in being able to integrate theory and practice.

Critical incident analysis is frequently used to develop understanding in professional education (Fook and Askeland, 2007; Parker, 2010). This provides a useful process through which to identify assumptions underpinning actions, to question them and develop alternative actions. In so doing, it makes explicit conscious values and assumptions; and therefore critical incident analysis formed a useful backdrop to considering feelings related to exposure to a diverse, postcolonial setting, power relations and structural factors.

Accordingly, in addition to completing required course work based on their Malaysian placements, successful candidates were asked to write a critical incident analysis and to keep a reflective diary, these forming the basis of research data discussed in this article. Students were asked to describe their reactions to daily events or experiences on placement in diary form, taking into account the cultural context in which they were placed, as well as emotional, cognitive and belief factors. They were encouraged to explore the phenomenon to gain a deeper level of insight and understanding. For example, this could be achieved by linking critical incident phenomena to other similar experiences prior to or during the placement; in addition, to reflecting on what could be learned from the situation, in respect to self and identified areas for development or change; and finally by drawing on theoretical learning.

Students gave informed consent for their anonymized data to be analysed and disseminated. Analysis involved subjection to thematic coding strategies where recurrent instances form the basis of codes, although single or contradictory instances are also noted in a comparative exercise of data evaluation (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Saturation of data was deemed to have been achieved once no further codes could be developed into themes. These themes formed the basis of the research findings under discussion.

Data: Student learning experiences

Experiencing ‘otherness’

The data provided rich accounts of the students’ diverse experiences. In this respect, several students mentioned the ‘friendliness’ of the Malaysian people encountered. To counterbalance a potentially anodyne and homogenizing impression of the naïve approachability of the ‘Other’, two female students described an incident of group rejection. This encounter in turn fed into a number of accounts in both the critical incidents and the diary pertaining to the experiences of being minoritized, in terms of ethnicity, language and gender.

Although the unfamiliar minoritization of the students in the new cultural context clearly bristles with power implications, this experience was not regarded as necessarily pejorative. Instead, one student noted his surprise at how well regarded his British national heritage was perceived to be in Malaysia. Another student referred to her discomfort as being viewed as being inherently more skilled and knowledgeable than her Malaysian colleague, and once again this belief appeared to relate to her cultural heritage. A further observation by a student was made in reference to an agency worker’s perceived discomfort of undertaking the supervisory role with him: ‘My placement “supervisor” is very kind and friendly but doesn’t feel too comfortable with the role and has a few times said that she is “helper” not my supervisor.’

Such experiences serve to place students in the role of cultural and professional ambassador, owing in part to the baggage of colonialism, and thereby overturning the expected learning hierarchy that had to date coloured their experiences of practice placements. However, these incidents also highlight Razack’s (2009: 19) point concerning the ‘superior positioning’ of those from the Western hemisphere, where even under the overt circumstances of Westerners being placed in a learning environment, this hegemony of knowledge is assumed.

In relation to language barriers, although English is widely spoken in Malaysia, this nevertheless constituted a problem for most students in agency settings. It also represented a valuable opportunity for further reflection on the implications for practice and the potential experience of service users, as articulated in the following direct quote from one individual’s critical incident analysis:

Going through the process; experiencing barriers at almost every turn, leading to a feeling of isolation. . . swinging from frustration to elation depending on the ability of the listener to understand me; being grateful and happy when only a part of what I was trying to communicate was understood; finally the feeling of exhaustion and ability to absorb any further information. Through these experiences I feel I have a far greater understanding of what people with different communication methods to my own experience when engaging with service, i.e. how exhausting an assessment must be) and I am aware of the need to maybe split a lengthy assessment over a number of meetings – this is something I could have been told but I would not have felt the importance for myself).

Although there is a level of inchoate thinking evident in this account, the epiphanic moment of insight is revealed. Arguably this could not have emerged into the conscious and embodied experience without being embedded in direct experience.

Values in tension: Reflections on Malaysian children’s services

Student visits to children’s residential homes/orphanages provided intriguing data recounting the challenge to received professional values internalized by students, alongside ethnocentric notions. It is clear from many accounts that many of these experiences were not open to early or superficial resolution.

One critical incident analysis records the confusion felt by the student in relation to how well behaved and polite the children seemed on a recreational trip, in sharp comparison with the student’s experiences of children in British and American holiday camps. The student’s conflict stemmed from the knowledge that corporal punishment was administered, in contrast to Western holiday care. This created a certain crisis of values for the student, who adhered to the ethical belief systems she was familiar with, while commending the results in terms of the excellent behaviour of the Malaysian children observed.

In this vein, another student recorded her astonishment and awe at having her immediate assumptions challenged in the following account of a visit to an orphanage:

From the outside, the home looked very institutionalized as there were big iron gates and metal poles on the windows to stop the children from getting out. However, when I went into the home, I was able to speak to some of the children and saw how happy they were. It was so overwhelming! There were forty-eight children in the orphanage and they all spoke very good English. There was one girl who I spoke to who was twelve-years-old. She told me that she wanted to go to England to study medicine and become a doctor. . . What a goal!

Elsewhere in the diary, this particular student reports dismay at seeing how crowded the home was where children slept two to a bed, with others napping on the floor. With regards to bed-sharing great surprise was expressed that the issue of sexual abuse of children by children, particularly older bed-mates, had evidently not been considered an issue, as it would be in the UK. Second, these encounters represent a crisis of professional values, where an institutional setting is immediately connected to a number of negative associations, but is belied by the contentment and academic abilities of the children cared for therein.

These accounts indicate culture shock at encountering difference, such as the notion of individual privacy as an uncontested ‘good’ (where sharing a bedroom is virtually regarded as a form of privation in the UK under many circumstances). Second, and perhaps more significantly to the focus of this article, these encounters represent a crisis of professional and personal values.

This response, however, was counter-balanced by the acute observations of one student placed in a similar residential setting, where transitional work for older girls leaving the institution was lacking in preparing them for independent living in the community. This generated the development of a time-limited intervention with a teenager imminently about to leave residential care, with a mid-term goal of creating some useful practice guidelines for the home adapted from UK intervention work with young adults. The student expressed frustration about her ability to tackle perceived oppressive practices that did not offer a balanced measure of protection and promotion of independence, such as staff control over the young person’s money and mobile phone use. However, overall a feeling of satisfaction ultimately prevailed.

I have contributed to promote best social work practice as I have set up some guidelines as well as begun the process of change and development. . . This has been taken on and the home seems excited with this new way of looking at transitions into adult and independent life.

The juxtaposition, and frequently the collision, of cultural values formed one of the main themes emerging from the overall data. Immersion into a very different cultural context permitted these reflective encounters, where different perspectives and value bases surfaced. Where these were not dismissed as a cultural anomaly (as occurs in a minority of accounts) they remain problematized and open to continuous engagement. This, to our mind, is encouraging in that it suggests that these issues may be revisited by individuals at a later date, permitting a more critical and in-depth reflection to take place, commensurate with meta-learning. This conjecture, however, remains an untested hypothesis on our part and requires subjection to further and longitudinal research.

Cross-cultural comparisons of professional practice

The international placements predictably provided a wealth of comparisons with service provision and professional values in the UK. Evidence of epiphanic student learning was revealed through the processes of how encounters with unfamiliar practice were integrated into wider theoretical perspectives, in addition to the forming of deeper insights into service user concerns and cross-cultural perspectives. Not all students achieved this level of deeper learning and this was evident in accounts that noted practice differences in Malaysia, but did not succeed in moving beyond a relatively superficial comparison, notably instrumental in outlook and based on professional regulation/standards regarding competency.

One such critical incident analysis focused on a social work interview with a single parent father, discussing the needs of his teenage daughter with hemiplegia. Criticism was offered in the account over the perceived omission of the daughter’s views, which was regarded as congruent with a local cultural context as ‘a very traditional society that is still very family orientated’. The somewhat judgemental inference is that both the prevailing social family contract and social work practice in Malaysia require further evolution to become commensurate with UK models. It fails to recognize that the responsibility of care and protection of vulnerable people throughout their lives generally falls to the family unit. Thus the cultural dimensions of care and whether the professional intervention that took place was congruent with indigenous approaches remain unexplored.

The different value bases of practice in Malaysia were regularly commented on, such as in terms of the issue of confidentiality, for example. This was seen as impossible to enforce, even if considered desirable, in agency settings where of logistical necessity more than one service user and their family were being worked with in a room.

To balance this observation, however, a number of students reported that they had been exposed to practice opportunities and encounters that are apparently unexceptional in Malaysia, but unusual given the increasingly specialized remit of social workers in the UK. Students were given opportunities to acquire knowledge about diagnostic tools and to enhance their counselling skills, as both types of intervention form part of the social work remit in Malaysia. Consequently, some students were invited to participate in a workshop on trauma interventions, such as monsoon-related disasters. It appears that this training session seemed highly experimental compared with the pedagogical processes students had been exposed to in the past. One student commented that ‘I still find the concept of what we are doing a bit strange as I have never been asked to imagine anything before now.’

Arguably, the use of the imagination is integral to the inherent nature of empathy: a principle that is highly emphasized in social work education yet may stand in a vacuum where it is not taught as fundamentally harnessed to the actual ontologies of service-user lives and personal circumstances. In this regard, the international placement was able to offer an alternative and in some ways more expansive view of social work practice than many students had been exposed to before. One individual placed in the needle exchange programme formed some clear and critical impressions of the differences between social work in Malaysia and the UK in the following observation.

. . . In my opinion they still practice social work in this organization, offering counselling, support, education, services, and advice. Rather than what social work appears to have become in some departments in the UK, where social workers are grandiose paper pushers who refer people to other services after an assessment and do minimal therapeutic work.

Evaluation of the international placement

The experience of placing students on international placement in Malaysia at this stage of the programme was viewed as successful from the perspectives of both BU and participating Malaysian HEIs. There were no reports regarding irresolvable difficulties in respect to learning or supervision; while all participating students confirmed that this has proved to be a very stimulating if at times challenging experience. One question raised by the data has revolved around the issue of whether future cohorts should receive additional tuition in cultural knowledge specific to the international setting in order to further prepare them before departure. This may be of benefit to some students; nonetheless, concerns can also be framed in terms of the dangers of fostering cultural stereotypes and essentializing a widely heterogeneous population (Laird, 2008). To some extent the need for further information is also true of those supervisory staff who were unfamiliar with Malaysian culture and lifestyle. Nonetheless, it has become apparent that returning students would have benefitted from more formalized debriefing sessions to enable them to assimilate their new experiences, as well as to reflect upon received theory and practice that was duly open to comparison with the new indigenized values and models of work encountered (Hugman, 2010; Razack, 2009).

Thus, in keeping with the original research question, data indicated that the emerging and frequently inchoate cognitive processes of the students placed in unfamiliar settings in a new cultural context provided valuable learning opportunities. These were gained not least through the high levels of discomfort experienced through grappling with and the dissecting of cherished personal and professional belief systems pertaining to ethics and values. This provided an experiential, visceral and cognitive counterpoint to the social work ‘givens’ many students had uncritically absorbed (Wehbi, 2009). For example, the connections made by students between text book ‘anti-oppressive practice’, or communication skills were rigorously tested in the new practice situation. For students who were able to cope with and reflect upon the sudden displacement of familiar anchoring devices and assumptions learned in the home culture, classroom setting and in earlier placements in the UK – these experiences provided the most intense and extensive learning opportunities. Additionally, they provided the direct potential for transferability into other unfamiliar professional situations.

In terms of sustainability, this forms a two-fold consideration, related to reciprocation and justification of international placements. Unfortunately, owing to the high cost of living in the UK, BU has yet to receive Malaysian social work students on a reciprocal basis. However, the relationship with our Malaysian partners has resulted in a number of links related to research collaboration, proposed staff exchanges and the development of Memoranda of Understanding to formalize relationships between HEIs. This study has raised further research questions regarding the justification of expanding international placements relating to what extent international placements continue to shape and influence social work practice following graduation. Finally, feedback from this first cohort of students has made a valuable contribution to the current social work curriculum review, as well as to the ongoing internationalization process underway at BU.

In conclusion, for BU students, the international placement programme is an excellent opportunity to gain new experiences and an understanding of different cultural backgrounds. This has facilitated the awareness of the importance of international and indigenous social work perspectives, as well as enabling students to build cross-national networking capabilities. As evidenced within the literature, these placements represent an enormously fruitful opportunity for students to gain a deeper understanding of the hegemonic assumptions underpinning ‘universal’ social work (Hugman, 2010; Razack, 2009). Undeniably as well, agencies receiving BU students have benefitted in terms of the tapping into new and alternative perspectives. This exchange programme however, relies greatly on the understanding and cooperation across HEIs, to ensure a shared vision of practice learning. One, furthermore, where the role of the Malaysian social work educator as mediator is viewed as imperative in order to establish professional relationships between the international students and local human service agencies. Even at this early stage in the study, it has generated the development of knowledge and skills in participating students that have direct application to the multi-faith, multicultural context of the UK, as well as carrying clear relevance beyond the national border. Our longer-term aim, therefore, is to ensure the future sustainability of the programme, while developing closer collaborative links of mutual benefit to the pedagogical and research needs of each respective institution.

Footnotes

Funding

The exchange on which this research was based was funded by a British Council PMI2 grant. The views expressed are entirely our own.

Author biographies

Sara Ashencaen Crabtree is a senior lecturer and Deputy Director of the Centre for Social Work and Social Policy at Bournemouth University, UK.

Jonathan Parker is Deputy Dean for Research and Enterprise and Director of the Centre for Social Work and Social Policy at Bournemouth University, UK.

Azinda Azman is a senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.

Dolly Paul Carlo works in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University Malaysia Sarawak, Kuching, Malaysia.

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