Enhancing social work education’s diversity-oriented perspective by integrating refugees into higher education: Experiences from the ‘refugee crisis’ in Germany

Social work education in Germany: Often-homogeneous groups of students in a heterogeneous field

In some regions in Germany, social work students at universities of applied sciences often form a homogeneous group of white women with rather limited international experience and without any experience with migration. The group’s composition thus seems to starkly contrast the self-proclaimed orientation toward diversity in social work as a profession (Akintayo et al., 2018; International Association of Schools of Social Work [IASSW], 2020; International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW], 2014).

The reason for that sociodemographic trend in some regions is twofold. First, despite the possibility of studying social work as a special form of social pedagogy within the science of education at regular universities in Germany, most students who study social work do so at a university of applied sciences (Meyer, 2020). In Germany, all universities of applied sciences were established during the reform of the higher education system in the early 1970s with the aim of establishing practice-oriented scientific education. In that sense, Germany’s universities of applied sciences are comparable to professional schools in other countries’ systems of higher education. Relative to established universities in large cities in Germany, the universities of applied sciences are more regionally oriented, and, at least in more rural areas, up to 90% of the students tend to come from the local region. The most recent study on the social, regional, and economic background of students in Germany, namely ‘21. Sozialerhebung of the Deutsches Zentrum für Hochschul- und Wissenschaftsforschung’ (Middendorff et al., 2017: 7, 42, 47), revealed that students at universities of applied sciences were more locally oriented than students at other universities, as well as of lower socioeconomic status, and have little interest in incorporating any form of international experience in their studies. As for the second reason, although 26% of Germany’s population has a migrant background – either being born abroad or having a parent who was (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2020) – the regional differences are vast. In some cities in West Germany, for example, approximately 50% of the population has a migrant background, compared with little more than 10% of the population in some rural regions (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2020).

In effect, those sociodemographic differences mean that social work programs in Germany’s universities of applied sciences, often situated in rural areas, tend to have homogeneous student bodies – typically, white women in their early 20s without any migrant background and with little international experience. That lack of international interest, coupled with the homogeneous composition of students and their inexperience with any culture other than their own, remains a challenge for instructors of social work education at rural universities of applied sciences, who cannot draw from the same diversity of perspectives that they need to promote.

The 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ and the integration of refugees in Germany’s higher education system

Much has been written about the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ beginning in 2015 in Europe. From 2015 to 2017, more than 1.5 million refugees arrived in Germany, many of whom, after applying for asylum, were distributed throughout the country in accordance with a distribution formula called ‘Königsteiner Schlüssel’ to various Bundesländer (‘states’) and, from there, to various regions. The current law in Germany restricts asylum seekers from leaving their assigned regions, and if a decision regarding asylum status has not been reached by the authorities, which can take up to 3 years, the refugees are not allowed to settle in Germany. For its part, civil society sought to integrate refugees into German society by launching initiatives at universities and universities of applied sciences that would enroll qualified refugees in programs of higher education, as overviewed by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD, 2021). As refugees were restricted to their assigned regions, those prospective students often had no choice but to apply to programs of study in those regions. As a result, although many were primarily interested in studying engineering, some who had encountered social work during their flight showed interest in studying the topic.

For the administrations of those rural universities of applied sciences, integrating refugees in their systems proved challenging. Unaccustomed with managing situations of uncertainty, they often had to do what had long been unthinkable: enroll students without complete documentation, certificates, or paperwork, which many of the refugees had lost in transit and could not provide. In such cases, finding solutions required a certain degree of flexibility. For many rural universities, it was also the first time that a key component of the Lisbon Convention from 1997 became applicable, namely the part indicating under which circumstances qualifications from foreign countries are accepted (Council of Europe, 2021). Anticipating the paradigm shift in recognizing qualifying documents for enrollment in higher education, the German Rectors’ Conference stated that ‘differences should be considered in a flexible way, and only substantial differences in view of the purpose for which recognition is sought . . . should lead to partial recognition or non-recognition’ (Hochschulrektorenkonferenz [HRK], 2013: 4).

Such flexibility accommodated a more lenient approach to enrolling refugees in Germany’s system of higher education (Borrmann et al., 2017). Due to those efforts from university administrations, the number of students with refugee background at Germany’s universities has risen substantially in recent years. Although only a few hundred students with refugee background enrolled as first-year students in 2015, 2016, and 2017, approximately 3000 students have enrolled each year since 2018 (HRK, 2020). Beyond that, the initiatives to help refugees to integrate into the higher education system involved having universities develop programs to tutor the refugees and provide language courses as well as mentoring programs. Soon enough, it became clear that the new programs should not be exclusively for refugees but extended to other students as well, which opened Germany’s universities to a whole new group of prospective students without any academic background (Borrmann, 2017).

Changing perspectives: From care receivers to professional colleagues

For the social work programs at rural Germany’s universities of applied sciences, the integration of refugees had an intriguing side effect. Briefly put, students with refugee background introduced new perspectives on diversity in their social work courses. At first, local students were curious about their new classmates. For them, it was a novel experience to be in contact with someone from another culture, and, in several cases, conflicts between the different groups arose. However, when given the time and opportunity to reflect on those experiences in seminars, the local students learned that they had to dismantle their stereotypes and prejudices, for some had viewed the refugees as clients of social work, not as future colleagues. Working together in class for several years and reflecting on personal prejudices prompted a change in their perspectives. In time, the integration of the refugees not only benefited the refugees themselves but also tremendously enhanced the quality of education, precisely because new perspectives could be explored in class (cf. Chau, 1990; Dean, 2007; Fraser and Baker, 2014; Pulla, 2017). In turn, understandings of the concept of global mindedness (Anand and Das, 2019) in social work improved, as did personal belief systems and the recognition of personal prejudices.

Lessons learned: Changing perspectives changes structures

After introducing the system of social work education in Germany and presenting empirical findings about the socioeconomic background of typical social work students in the country’s rural areas, this brief note highlighted the ‘refugee crisis’ beginning in 2015 in Europe and its impact on higher education in Germany. In showcasing how refugees have integrated into German society, it has highlighted the effect of the growing diversity of students in social work programs and the shift in viewing refugees as care receivers and clients of social work to viewing them as fellow social workers. As shown, the quality of social work education improved when students received opportunities to reflect on the real-life experiences and undue stereotypes of other students in their classes.