Social Work Commons^™

Turning Doctoral Students Into Faculty In Gerontological Social Work: The AgeSw Experience, Nancy Kusmaul, Stephanie P. Wladkowski, Sally Hageman, Allison Gibson, Rebecca L. Mauldin, Jennifer C. Greenfield, Noelle L. Fields

Social Work Faculty Publications

Developing faculty interested in aging may help social work meet the needs of our growing aging population. However, doctoral students need a variety of supports to complete PhDs and become gerontological social work faculty. This study explored one program’s role in supporting the development of social work doctoral students to faculty in gerontology. An e-mail invitation was sent to all former participants (2010–2016 cohorts) of the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGESW) Pre-Dissertation Fellows Program (PDFP). The 38-question online survey consisted of Likert-type scales, multiple answers, and one open-ended question per section about the program’s impacts on …

Innovative Collaborations: Social Work Student Interns At Public Libraries, Sarah C. Johnson

Publications and Research

While the collaborative trend among professional social workers and librarians is garnering much-deserved attention, literature about social work students partnering with public libraries is virtually non-existent. In fact, there are at least 73 partnerships yet a scarcity of academic literature addresses social work interns within public libraries. While there are students at Canadian libraries, this research focuses on the bulk of known partnerships based in the United States. Emerging from a mix of interviews and public resources, the author’s inquiry fosters this call to action: Social work educators must initiate interagency collaboration with libraries in order for students to expand …

Perceptions Of Macro Social Work Education: An Exploratory Study Of Educators And Practitioners, Katherine Hill, Christina L. Erickson, Linda P. Donaldson, Sondra J. Fogel, Sarah M. Ferguson

Sondra Fogel

Social work graduate education is responsive to and reflective of larger environmental forces, including economic and job market trends, regulations by diverse organizations, and student interests. A national online survey of macro social work educators (n=208) and macro social work practitioners (n=383) explored their perceptions of the intersections between these forces and graduate social work education. Findings indicate that while there remains a consistent level of support for and inclusion of macro social work within MSW programs from both groups, macro practitioners identified a concurrent experience of negative perceptions, attitudes, and experiences toward macro social work education while in their …

The Political Participation Of First Year Social Work Students: Does Practice Specialization Matter?, Jason Ostrander, Janelle K. Bryan, Addie Sandler, Paula Nieman, Maureen Clark, Emily Loveland, Tanya Rhodes Smith

Janelle K. Bryan

This study identifies the types of political participation engaged in by MSW students (n=214). A self-report survey administered to MSW students at a Northeastern university indicates limited political involvement. MSW students participate in political activities not requiring significant time, energy, or resources. Furthermore, on the scale and its two subscales, micro-oriented students had less political participation than macro-oriented students. This study suggests firstyear social work students may lack the tools to engage in the political process effectively. Schools of social work should include political participation education in both micro and macro foundation courses and field placements

Exploring The Flipped Classroom Model: In Social Work Education, Debbie Gonzalez

Doctor of Social Work Banded Dissertations

This dissertation explores the use of a flipped classroom pedagogy in social work education. Flipped classroom pedagogy, a methodology which inverts the common instructional paradigm, has potential to offer an engaging framework for social work educators to implement in the classroom. The flipped pedagogical design provides a method in which to organize course content and promote innovative methods of student collaboration. In addition, the flipped classroom promotes an interactive learning process, in contrast to the passive learning environment of the traditional classroom. Currently, there is a lack of literature in social work regarding the implementation of this pedagogy into the …

Towards A Strengths Orientation In Child Welfare: Theory, Pedagogy And Practice, Mary M. Kirk

Doctor of Social Work Banded Dissertations

Underpinning social work education and social work practice are approaches that embrace strengths and resilience perspectives. Social work education aimed at students preparing for work in child welfare is no exception. This banded dissertation consists of three products that address linkages between strengths and resilience perspectives to social work education and practice with families involved in child welfare. The first paper is a conceptual article that discusses engaged pedagogy, transformative learning and reflective teaching pedagogies specific to child welfare-focused social work education. The paper explores the cogency of these pedagogies as powerful approaches for educating and preparing social work students …

Reconsidering The Social Work Education Continuum: Social Work Education At Community Colleges In The United States, Rex J. Rempel

Doctor of Social Work Banded Dissertations

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) will soon revise the social work education continuum by welcoming practice doctoral programs into membership, leaving community colleges as the only excluded level of higher education in social work. The three connected products in this banded dissertation use critical pedagogy and post-positivist perspectives to explore how and why social work education evolved independently at community colleges, one of the largest, most diverse, and most affordable educational systems in the United States.

Product One employs qualitative historical research to identify the forces which led community colleges and CSWE down separate paths between 1950 and …

Advancing Social Work Education For Practice In Healthcare: Transforming Education And Bridging The Classroom To Practice Gap, Katrinna M. Matthews

Doctor of Social Work Banded Dissertations

This banded dissertation explores medical social work education as it relates to teaching social work students the skills and knowledge necessary to be effective in a healthcare setting. In addition, this banded dissertation identifies deficits in current curricula related to medical social work education and barriers to effective medical social work practice. This banded dissertation consists of three separate but closely related scholarly products. Bronstein’s Model of Interdisciplinary Collaboration, the Biopsychosocial-spiritual model, and the authors lived experiences serve as the conceptual framework that supports the findings of this research.

The first scholarly product is a conceptual article that examines the …

Simulation As Pedagogy: An Experiential Teaching Strategy For Social Work Education, C. Jean Roberson

Doctor of Social Work Banded Dissertations

This banded dissertation is an examination of simulation as a pedagogy for social work education. While the Council of Social Work Education recognizes simulation as an accepted pedagogy, there remains little research on its use in social work education. To effectively utilize and structure simulation within the curriculum, more needs to be understood about its influences on social work student development and its fit within the social work educational context.

The first product of this dissertation, a conceptual paper, presents a framework for the use of simulation in social work education. The framework consists of three elements: holistic competency as …

Neurodiversity And Autism Spectrum Disorders: Grounding For Social Work Education And Praxis, Katie Terry

Doctor of Social Work Banded Dissertations

This banded dissertation includes three products that use neurodiversity as a theoretical framework to explore how autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been treated in the social work academy. Neurodiversity is a social movement amongst some individuals with ASD who see the diagnosis as a difference, primarily manifested neurologically, in how their brains, senses, emotions and beings are different than typical people, which itself represents a type of diversity.

The first product is a paper that explores the emergence of the neurodiversity movement in the early 2000’s and the cogent factors that inspired this movement. The connection to social work’s strength-based …

Recollections And Voices: An Appalachian Community Revisited, Kristina M. Hash, Christine E. Rittenour, Catherine Gouge, Tamba M'Bayo, Lori Hostuttler, Tyler Redding

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Scott’s Run has a rich history as a tight-knit, coal-built community in the heart of rural Appalachia. To learn more about the lives of the community members during the Depression Era, an interdisciplinary research team from five departments at a major university in the state conducted an oral history project focused on historical photos of the community. Individuals who grew up in the area reviewed photographs taken early in the 20^th century and provided information and shared stories related to the time and place of the images for context. The interviews uncovered key themes that told a much more …

The Trans Person Is Not The Problem: Brave Spaces And Structural Competence As Educative Tools For Trans Justice In Social Work, Jama Shelton, Kel Kroehle, Maria Monica Andia

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Social work students must be equipped to confront injustice and oppression. Effectively challenging oppression necessitates attention to the ideological origins and subsequent systematic marginalization of oppressed populations. This article critically examines social work education as it relates to trans people and communities. We propose two interconnected pedagogical shifts for consideration: moving from the social work classroom as “safe space” to the social work classroom as “brave space,” and broadening the commonly used educative method of cultural competence to structural competence. We argue that these pedagogical shifts will better prepare social work students to disrupt cisgenderism and dismantle the gender binary, …

From The Empire State To The North Star State: Voter Engagement In The 2016 Election, Katharine M. Hill, Shannon R. Lane, Jenna Powers, Tanya Rhodes Smith

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Voter engagement has the potential to be a fundamental part of social work practice and key to the professional socialization of social work students. This article describes a classroom-based voter engagement project conducted in two undergraduate social work programs in different U.S. states with significantly different voting laws. We describe the rationale, process of implementing the project, evaluation, and review the results in the context of the 2016 election. We suggest future research that can help develop best practices and methods for implementation of voter engagement in social work practice and education in the future.

Constructing The Structurally Competent Classroom, Leah A. Jacobs, Hanna Mark

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Social work seeks to address social problems through interventions that span micro and macro systems. As such, all social workers are obligated to understand the interplay between individual realities and structural forces. Yet prior models of structural social work play a marginal role in social work education, leaving social work educators without the means to meet these obligations. This structural gap in social work classrooms risks deemphasizing macro practice and failing to prepare micro practitioners to account for structural forces that impact client wellbeing and client-social worker interactions. This paper examines the framework of structural competence as a potential solution …

The State Of Substance Use Education In Master Of Social Work Programs : A Content Analysis Of Msw Curricula & Survey Of Msw Program Leaders, Dane Minnick

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Substance use is currently a pervasive problem among a large proportion of populations served by the social work profession. Several studies have indicated that social workers routinely provide services to clients with direct and indirect substance use needs, making knowledge of substance use interventions and public policies a necessity for most social workers to operate effectively in the field. However, despite the regularity of interaction with substance using clients, a large body of research has suggested that social work students are ill-prepared to deliver substance use services upon completing their academic training, and that a significant deficit of substance use …