Educating for Social Work

the long version

This book concerns the embattled state of social work, and the potential role of social work education in confronting attacks upon it. Contributions from five British universities analyse the forces underlying recent trends, and resources that already exist or might be developed to counter them. Part One examines the difficulties facing social work education, locating them within a wide social and political context, and scrutinising such developments as competency-based assessment. Part Two analyses four areas where actual possibilities for change are masked by current pessimism: the implementation of anti-discriminatory curricula, the strengthening of partnerships with social work agencies, the growing significance of international links, and the place of research in social work theory and practice. Unexpectedly optimistic conclusions are drawn; social work education has neglected some potential strengths, whose development could improve the quality of social work practice.