Abstract
The publication of the current issue coincides with the conference of the European Association of Schools of Social Work (EASSW) entitled ‘Social Work Education in Europe: towards 2025’. Although, in this issue we maintain our broad international focus, we have decided to include more articles related to the main themes of this important conference. Therefore our readers will notice an emphasis on social work education, with a focus on Europe but from a global perspective.
The global dimension of social work and its implication for social work pedagogies is explored by Diana Rowan, Ulrika Järkestig-Berggren, Innette Cambridge, Donna McAuliffe, Annis Fung and Michael Moore in the first article of this issue. Their paper is based on an innovative comparative study which made use of an asynchronous video uploading project that was constructed to link social work classrooms on six continents. Students in social work classrooms around the world video-recorded their responses. This involved students from Australia, Sweden, Hong Kong, Trinidad and Tobago, Lesotho and USA, who had the opportunity to prompt questions and upload them to a project webpage. All classrooms had access to this webpage and a response through video was available. According to the authors this pedagogical approach was designed and implemented to broaden students’ intercultural competence, perspectives on international social work, and awareness of global social problems.
The complexity of social work education and embedded epistemological tensions are also discussed in the next article. Kathleen Jane Collins examines the multi-level transitions within social work education in South Africa, and places a particular focus on the contradictions characterizing the dynamics between principles of deep learning and expectations from outcomes-based education. The author explores how lecturers and students from different departments have adapted to outcomes-based education. Conclusions indicate that statutory requirements and institutional pressures militate against the development of deep learning.
As the discussion about welfare services in the UK intensifies, young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) have become the focus of a contentious political debate. In their article, Katy Sadler, Jane Akister and Sarah Burch focus on this topic and present their research findings on how the factors may contribute to a young person becoming NEET, and apply these to the demographics of a rural area in England. The authors suggest that poor educational attainment and low socio-economic status are key factors, with the mental well-being of young people as a proposed underpinning mechanism. Finally the authors highlight the important role of social workers who work with many of the young people failing in education.
Youl-Kwan Sung, Jung-Sook Kim and Mi Ok Kang successfully connect the two themes discussed in the previous articles (social work education and the support of vulnerable young people). In their research they evaluate the implementation of the South Korean systematic school social work program known as the Education Welfare Priority Zone Plan (EWPZP). The EWPZP was designed to enable all related educational and social agencies in a zone to serve students in need by situating schools within the communities’ welfare networks. The authors also conclude that the EWPZP project needs to institutionalize greater collaboration between schools and welfare organizations and to make networks tighter.
The broader issue of clients’ self-determination as a central the notion of social work theory and practice, is explored by Thomas Maeseele, Rudi Roose, Maria Bouverne-De Bie. In this article the authors discuss the dominant interpretation of ‘voluntariness’ as an individual characteristic, highlighting the fact that the dominant conceptualization runs the risk of becoming a tool to select those clients for whom short-term reachable goals can be set, and that clients are obliged to accept the conditions which are set by social work initiatives. Exploring relevant research into homelessness care, the authors argue for an understanding of voluntariness as an appeal to social work’s commitment to social problems and aim to encourage dialogue about the grounds for, and meaning of, interventions in people’s life stories.
In the next article, Gil Sharon and Michael Weinberg, expand on a rather unexplored theme in social work literature. They discuss how implications of Secondary Trauma (ST) among social workers treating trauma survivors expose therapists to profound emotional and psychological pressures. Focusing on a population of 160 social workers in Israeli public agencies treating victims of trauma, the authors explore the association between coping strategies, internal resources, demographic and work characteristics, and secondary trauma symptoms. The authors suggest that findings in this study provide further evidence of the importance of directing the attention of therapists who treat trauma survivors to coping strategies and internal resources with regard to the development of ST symptoms.
Social work in a multicultural society represents new and different challenges for practitioners. In order to further explore this statement, Bente Puntervold Bø turned to social workers in the field to find out how they experience working with clients from diverse backgrounds, cultures and nationalities and how they respond to the challenges with which they are faced. Frontline practitioners provided the researcher with more concrete picture of the challenges and how they experience working with clients of diverse backgrounds, cultures and nationalities in this timely study. The author reflects on these narratives and concludes that social work in a multicultural society demands more from practitioners than social work within the majority culture.
Karen Smith Rotabi, Nicole Footen Bromfield and Patricia Fronek argue in their article that social work has only begun to engage in empirical research on the phenomenology of global surrogacy arrangements in low-resource nations, in which people from wealthy nations travel to engage in surrogacy arrangements with economically disadvantaged women. In their brief note they discuss the state of social work literature in addition to the International Federation of Social Workers’ position statement, identifying a lack of empirical grounding in social work research. Global surrogacy is framed against previous social work research and policy development related to inter-country adoption and international private law. In the concluding section the authors include recommendations for a research agenda that includes the voices of surrogates and the children.
In the following article, Susie Costello and U Taik Aung, reflect on the multiple social and political transitions in Myanmar and discuss implications for social work education. The government in Myanmar plans to strengthen the national capacity for social welfare and social work training. Drawing on their experiences in developing and teaching Post-Graduate Diploma in Social Work in Yangon since 2006, the authors consider what forms of social work are relevant to Myanmar in its context as an emerging democracy in the Asia-Pacific region. The authors contend that, grounded in principles of human rights and social justice, Myanmar social workers have key roles to play in determining the future of social work and development in Myanmar.
In the concluding article of this issue, Luca Fazzi brings to our attention a very timely and critical topic. As far right parties are (re)emerging across Europe, the author highlights the relationship between political populism and social work. This article reports the results of research conducted by means of in-depth interviews and questionnaires on a sample of 90 social workers employed by municipalities governed by populist parties in Italy, where the phenomenon of xenophobic politics has recently grown to particularly worrying proportions. The article describes the effects of populist programmes on social work and highlights the different reactions of social workers in response to the new scenario. The author concludes that the challenge facing social worker education and training systems is that they must incorporate the knowledge necessary to teach new professionals how to counter the drift towards populism and xenophobia.