Social Work in Higher Education: Internships in Opportunity Programs

ABSTRACT

Field education is essential to the development of professional social workers. Despite the significant overlap in social work’s and higher education’s missions and values, there is a scarcity of social work internships specifically in higher education settings. The placement of social work interns in institutions of higher education provides a setting where they can develop new knowledge and skills and increase their capacity to support college students toward academic success. This conceptual article discusses the role of social work in higher education and provides a model social work internship in an opportunity program, including its creation, development, challenges, outcomes, and future direction.     

Developing and Supporting Faculty Training for Online Social Work Education: The Columbia University School of Social Work Online Pedagogy Institute

ABSTRACT

With the growth of online and distance education in social work, faculty training and support need to be provided to ensure high-quality online social work education. A model for training social work educators in online teaching is outlined that focuses on pedagogy, technology, and social work values. Columbia University School of Social Work’s Online Campus provides a five-week Institute on Pedagogy and Technology for Online Courses for prospective social work instructors. The Institute provides a faculty training model that can be adopted in other social work programs, and seeks to model best practices in online education.     

Utopianism,transindividuation, and foreign language education in the Japanese university

Abstract

This article examines the current state of foreign language education in Japanese universities as illustrative of the troubling conditions facing the liberal arts (i.e. the transformative arts) in a globalized neoliberal milieu. The utopian ideal in education has always insinuated, at the least, a pedagogy that inspires personal agency, creative investment, challenge to power and social change. This imagining of incalculable futures, however, has been undermined by the seemingly inevitable and confluent forces of a networked world, represented most forcefully by the socioeconomic reductionism of neoliberal globalism. In the context of contemporary Japanese higher education, these forces are joined by Japan’s uniquely ambivalent relationship with the ‘outside’ world, and manifested in the rigid conceptualizations that motivate deeply problematic government and institutional initiatives for the ‘globalization’ of higher education. Within the frame of Bernard Stiegler’s work on transindividuation (psychosocial transformation), this article critiques these influential practices as fundamentally antithetical to the challenge of engaging Japanese learners of foreign languages in sustainable ‘economies of contribution’—economies which foster critical engagement and which open paths to transindividuation. The article concludes by arguing for a radical reimagining of the landscape of foreign language pedagogy in Japan and for a repositioning of learners from ‘short-circuited’ semiotic consumers to ‘long-circuited’ semiosic participants.     

Haredi education in Israel: fiscal solutions and practical challenges

ABSTRACT

With a fertility rate that nearly triples the national average and increased political power that accompanies demographic growth, Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews in Israel are becoming an increasingly important piece of the country’s diverse national mosaic. This raises economic concerns: Haredi women earn low wages, while most Haredi men do not work. Meanwhile, like all Israeli citizens, Haredim receive expensive government services, including funding for ultra-Orthodox schools.

Haredi schools focus on religious instruction at the expense of core subjects, and comprise a barrier to economic and social integration. Whether other Israelis should be responsible for financing an education that provides limited positive externalities is debatable. More importantly, Haredi population growth and attitudes towards work and education might jeopardise Israel’s long-term economic outlook. Potential policy solutions include decentralisation of governmentservices, including education or financial incentives for curricular modernisation.     

Education and nationalism in Scotland: governing a ‘learning nation’

Abstract

Nationalism is a key resource for the political work of governing Scotland, and education offers the Scottish National Party (SNP) government a policy space in which political nationalism (self determination) along with social and cultural forms of civic nationalism can be formed and propagated, through referencing ‘inwards’ to established myths and traditions that stress the ‘public’ nature of schooling/education/universities and their role in construction of ‘community’; and referencing ‘outwards’, especially to selected Nordic comparators, but also to major transnational actors such as OECD, to education’s role in economic recovery and progress. The SNP government has been very active in the education policy field, and a significant element of its activity lies in promoting a discourse of collective learning in which a ‘learning government’ is enabled to lead a ‘learning nation’ towards the goal of independence. This paper draws on recent research to explore recent and current developments in SNP government education policy, drawing on discourse analysis to highlight the political work that such policy developments seek to do, against the backdrop of continuing constitutional tensions across the UK.     

Military Sexual Trauma: Considerations for Social Work Education

ABSTRACT

Military sexual trauma (MST) is an experience unique to veterans, and it is essential that social workers receive military-specific education in preparing for work with this population. This article discusses the impact of MST on veterans, cultural considerations for social workers working with this population, and the Veterans Administration’s efforts to address MST. In addition, the need to emphasize the utilization of evidence-based practice in social work education and the importance of incorporating military specific curricula material is discussed.     

Improving the Research Climate in Social Work Curricula

Abstract

Research courses are associated with performance anxiety and educational insecurity for many social work students. This paper makes the case that student anxiety associated with research courses is rooted in the history of the social work profession, and this history sheds light on the present day climate of research in social work education. The authors suggest that improvement to the research climate in social work education requires an “institutional” response. To that end, this paper describes a committee process that resulted in changes to one school's curriculum policy by revamping student learning objectives for a sequence of five research courses that spanned BSW and MSW programs. The committee produced a continuum of student learning expectations based on Bloom's taxonomy, which represents a logical progression of knowledge and skill competencies as students advance through their course work.     

Social enterprise,education and work: entrepreneurialism on the margins

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the rise of social enterprise in relation (and in response) to the contemporary nexus between education and work. Contextualising social enterprise within the broader trend toward private influences in education, the paper explores how diffuse networks driven by both market ideals and a social conscience are shaping new sites of education and work on the margins. Drawing on in-depth research undertaken on the experiences of homeless street press sellers of the social enterprise The Big Issue, I bring focused attention to the lived experience of these transformations in policy and practice. The analysis reveals how entrepreneurialism intersects with precarious poverty to frame sellers’ cultivation of their skills and techniques as enterprising workers on the margins.     

Cultural Humility in Physical Education Teacher Education: A Missing Piece in Developing a New Generation of Socially Just Physical Education Teachers

ABSTRACT

The increased pluralism in today’s United States society, including our public school student population, has called for physical education teacher education (PETE) programs to train teachers who can respond to the educational needs of students from diverse backgrounds. However, concerns have been raised with educator preparation programs’ ability to prepare teachers to address diversity in our schools. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to discuss the movement toward teaching for social justice in PETE with focus on preparing teachers for cultural diversity; this includes special attention to cultural humility as a missing component in physical education teacher preparation. We discuss the current state of diversity in PETE, leading to a discussion of social justice as a theme in teaching and teacher education in physical education. Next, we detail the underpinnings of social justice pedagogies in physical education and the need for infusing cultural humility in PETE.     

Reciprocal learning in teacher education between Canada and China

ABSTRACT

The Preservice Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Programme has been developed on a vision of bridging the East and West dichotomy by harmonising Eastern learning with Western knowledge. This programme is one of the two foundations for Xu and Connelly’s 7-year Canada-China Reciprocal Learning Partnership in teacher education and school education in 2013-2020. The Programme, ‘provide[s] an exceptional cross-cultural experience with international engagement … to broaden teacher candidates’ horizons for a society of increasing diversity in today’s globalized world’. This article’s purposes are to discuss how reciprocal learning is both a concept and an approach for international and cross-cultural teacher education and school education and to present the learning outcomes and educational significance of the East-West reciprocal learning programme in teacher education. The Programme has created opportunities for both pre-service and in-service teachers to understand and appreciate a culture and educational system different from their own, thereby reciprocally contributing to educational opportunities for those they teach. The research theory and method utilised in this work are found in a companion paper in this special series and are briefly discussed below in the project overview and later in a discussion of student outcomes. This work has implications for other school settings where increasing immigrant student population and cultural diversity have become the norm.     

Encountering Violence in Field Work

Abstract

The increase in violence in our society has been well documented in the media as well as in professional journals. Social workers experience a particularly high incidence of physical and verbal violence. This article presents a current review of the literature on violence, describes a Risk Reduction Model for social work practicum education, and discusses implications for further study. The literature review includes reported incidence, the professional response, and the impact on social work education. The Risk Reduction Model addresses school policy and procedures, a school based teaching module, training for field work instructors, and consultation to agencies regarding their safety policies, procedures and training.     

Condorcet on education

Abstract

Multicultural education (of which ‘multifaith’ RE in England and Wales is sometimes regarded as a subset) was attacked by antiracists in Britain in the 1980s. Although it is arguable that not all of the criticisms were valid, the debate raises questions about the efficacy of religious education in countering racism. The paper argues that a lack of analysis of the concepts ‘religions’ and ‘cultures’ in British RE has led to a representation of religious traditions which essentialises them, playing down their internal diversity, and which assumes a ‘closed’ view of cultures. A more flexible approach is suggested, drawing on work in ethnography and other social science disciplines, which might better combine with antiracist stances than earlier approaches. The work of the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit is introduced briefly as an example of an attempt to address some of the above issues in terms of an integrated approach to theory, the study of religions in the community and the development of religious education curriculum materials.     

Wasteland revisited: defining an agenda for a sociology of education and migration

Abstract

In 2007, we argued that, when it comes to sociology of education, the lives and education of refugee children were invisible. Sociology of education was ‘a wasteland’ as far as studies of the social effects of migration were concerned. Here, we revisit this argument exploring whether education and migration has been developed into a viable specialism in the discipline, and whether one of the great societal challenges of our age is being addressed. Examining the work published on migration and education since 2005 in BJSE, we see that the majority of studies focus on the global mobility of students and on school experiences of migrant children. While these are valuable foci, what is missing is a more extensive consideration of how ‘the age of migration’ and the characteristics of global migration in the 21st century challenge the values, the policies and practices associated with state education institutions and social order.     

British Women Education Officers and progressive education for an independent Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the work of three British Women Education Officers (WEOs) in Nigeria as the colony was preparing for independence. Well-qualified and progressive women teachers, Kathleen Player, Evelyn Clark (née Hyde), and Mary Hargrave (née Robinson), were appointed as WEOs in 1945, 1949, and 1950 respectively. I argue that the three WEOs endeavoured to reconcile their British cultural values, progressive education, English language instruction, and the intricacies of Nigerian cultures in order to prepare students for life and work in an independent Nigeria. Their roles were diverse, encompassing administration and teaching, teacher education, and leadership of girls’ boarding schools and residential training colleges where English was the language of instruction. Following an outline of the WEOs’ prior experiences, I compare and contrast their approaches to progressive education, beginning with Clark’s endeavours to make girls’ education “a graft that would grow onto and into their own way of life” at the Women’s Training College, Sokoto, in far Northern Nigeria. Then I discuss Robinson’s work in a men’s elementary training college at Bauchi where she dispensed a “down-to-earth practical” progressive education to prospective primary school teachers. Finally, Player gave girls “as complete an education as possible for life as a worker, wife and mother” at Queen Elizabeth School, the first government secondary school for girls in Northern Nigeria. Each situation illustrates the complex social relations involved in realising WEOs’ commitments to progressive education as an emancipatory project.     

Fixing contradictions of education commercialisation: Pearson plc and the construction of its efficacy brand

ABSTRACT

This paper explores some of the fundamental contradictions related to the commercialisation of education and how Pearson plc – ‘the world’s leading multinational education company’ – is trying to overcome these challenges through discourse and semiotics. Pearson’s Efficacy Framework is a semiotic-calculative device created to measure the impact of educational products and services sold by the company. This paper examines the ways in which the efficacy programme and tools developed by Pearson represent a type of ‘social fix’ intended to resolve contradictions linked to education commercialisation by demonstrating the ‘measurable impact’ and ‘outcomes’ resulting from its educational products and services and communicating that to customers, shareholders, policymakers, state managers and partners. Efficacy will be analysed as it relates to a hegemonic ‘knowledge brand’ in the making in education that is being actively promoted and appropriated by Pearson. Pearson, therefore, aims to construct a corporate brand and reputation around efficacy based on legible measures of performance, which this paper argues is in response to risks and contradictions associated with the commercialisation of education.     

Lifelong learning policies for vulnerable young adults in post-recession Scotland

Abstract

This article shows how the Scottish Government’s (SG) political management of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has reinforced the economic goals of lifelong learning (LLL) under the skills for work agenda. Youth unemployment has been prioritized as the main social problem to be addressed, and most of the limited public resources for LLL have been targeted towards youth at risk of unemployment at the expense of the rest of the adult population. The article adopts a Cultural Political Economy perspective to examine LLL policy discourses contained in 12 policy documents published by the SG during the period between the Scottish National Party’s arrival in power and the Independence Referendum (2007–2014). The analysis draws attention to the fact that the GFC has been used by the SG to legitimize selective cuts to the further education sector as well as a stronger labour market orientation within LLL provision.     

Education for the Group Worker's Reality

Abstract

Within the social work profession, one's world view, one's beliefs and values based on one's experiences, strongly influences one's practice and comfort with groups.

This paper will examine some of the different ways of viewing the world held by practitioners and students in relation to the likelihood that they will be able to work effectively with groups. Such examination, and the identification of the differences among social workers that results from it has implications for both teaching and supervision in social work. These implications will be discussed and specific principles and techniques for teaching social workers, in education and in supervision, based on their world views will be described. This paper aims to enrich education for group work so that the community of social group work practitioners can grow and continue to thrive.     

The great neoliberal hijack of collaboration: a critical history of group-based learning in tertiary education

ABSTRACT

This article examines the teaching of collaboration within tertiary education, critiquing the hegemony of a neoliberal mandate. This review of academic literature first identifies the significance of social capital and an intrinsic motivation to collaborate, to theorize how an important and complex graduate attribute (termed here ‘collaborative dexterity’) might be approached by pedagogy. This leads into a historical analysis of research into higher education, revealing how the instrumentalization of collaboration to enhance the private advantage of learners continues to pervade academia’s understanding of collaboration. As higher education transitioned from learning ‘through’ collaboration to learning ‘to’ collaborate, extrinsic motivations for collaboration were promoted further through assessment procedures, maintaining a narrow economic-exchange approach to collaboration. These educational practices inhibit the development of collaborative dispositions, foster self-interest and ultimately limit graduates’ preparation for the needs of collaborative work environments. Moreover, while educational scholarship has extensively explored why collaboration is important and how it may be assessed, much less consideration has been given to how collaboration might actually be taught within diverse disciplinary areas in tertiary education. This suggests an urgent need for further research into how collaboration is taught within tertiary education, in ways that extend beyond a neoliberal conceptualization of collaboration.     

Catastrophes and primary school drawing course design for moral education in China

Abstract

This paper examines how drawing classes can contribute to moral education in primary schools. This paper uses class observation, interviews with teachers and students, and analysis of students’ work to highlight how the students articulate moral concerns by drawing and designing future-oriented architectures, which aims at preventing natural and social catastrophes. It suggests that the design of this drawing class provides new possibilities of doing moral education in China’s primary schools. The drawing class made possible the articulation of becoming moral subjects, which is able to integrate ‘harmony’ into the younger generation’s value system, world views and the possibilities they envision for themselves and human-nature relationships.     

Piketty,capital and education: a solution to,or problem in,rising social inequalities?

Abstract

When Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-first Century was released in 2014, it became an overnight success. Piketty focused on the concentration of wealth in a tiny social elite, and showed that their wealth had increased following the financial crisis in 2008. Yet the value of Piketty’s book offers something more than this for social scientists concerned with social inequalities. His work on a large data-set of long-run income and wealth statistics illustrates that the assumptions and models which have guided the work of neoclassical economists are flawed, but that societal arrangements matter. Yet despite this insight, Piketty’s solution to the problem of inequality is to argue that ‘… the best way to reduce inequalities with respect to labor … is to invest in education’. In this article I argue that there are major problems with this proposed solution and outline three lacunae that need to be addressed.