Supporting Field-Based Education in Political Settings (original) (raw)
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The Political Participation of First Year Social Work Students: Does Practice Specialization Matter?
Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 2018
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 40 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare process effectively. Schools of social work should include political participation education in both micro and macro foundation courses and field placements.
Does Policy Practice Class Increase Social Work Students’ Planned Political Engagement?
Journal of Policy Practice and Research
Recent research supports the idea of reconceptualizing social work policy courses as practice courses and using an experiential approach. Utilizing Verba et al.'s (1995) Civic Voluntarism model as a guide, the purpose of this study is to evaluate if a social work policy practice course utilizing experiential learning interventions increases social work students' planned political participation and current feelings of preparedness for engagement in the political system. A pre-test/post-test was administered to students enrolled in a BSW-level and a MSW-level policy course. This consisted of questions from Rome and Hoechstetter's (Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 37, 107-129, 2010) survey focused on past political activities of participants; a slightly modified version of Ostrander et al.'s (Journal of Policy Practice, 16(3), 261-275, 2017) survey questioning participants about their plans for future political participation; and a single question asking the participants to rate their current feelings of preparedness for engagement in the political system. Students were more likely after taking the policy course to plan on engaging in policy practice in six of the ten ways addressed in the survey. Students were also significantly more likely to indicate that they did feel adequately prepared to engage in the political system at the post-test. Additionally, the Civic Voluntarism model shows that teaching specific skills of political participation increases students' intent to be politically active. Results indicate that utilizing an experiential approach to social work policy practice course does positively impact students' intentions regarding political activism as well as their feelings of preparedness for engagement in the political system.
Teaching Social Work and Social Policy in the Era of Hyperpartisanship
Journal of Social Work Education, 2018
For social work educators, teaching social policy in the current political climate in the United States may seem daunting and energizing at the same time. Students are often acutely aware of the political and policy-related controversies raging in Washington, D.C. and local governments, and yet their position on these issues may be unexplored or conflicted. The social policy classroom can be a productive place to explore these conflicts, but instructors may be especially wary of undertaking these difficult conversations in the current hyperpartisan era. This article explores how to ground these conversations in social work's professional values, pedagogical theory, and educational best practices to help students build skill and confidence in developing their own well-informed assessments about policies and politics.
Social Work, Politics, and Social Policy Education: Applying a Multidimensional Framework of Power
Journal of Social Work Education , 2019
The call to promote social justice sets the social work profession in a political context. In an effort to enhance social workers’ preparedness to engage in political advocacy, this article calls on educators to integrate a broad theoretical understanding of power into social policy curricula. We suggest the use of a multidimensional conceptualization of power that emphasizes mechanisms of decision making, agenda control, and attitude formation. We then apply these mechanisms to demonstrate how two prominent features of contemporary politics—party polarization and racially biased attitudes—affect the ability of social workers to influence policy. Finally, we suggest content that social work educators can integrate to prepare future social workers to engage in strategic and effective social justice advocacy.
Preparing social workers to affect policy: the parliament as a venue for training
Social Work Education, 2018
Social work education has a major role in preparing social workers to engage in policy practice intended to impact policies which can affect the well-being of their service users and address social problems. Legislative advocacy is one of these strategies. This article describes and evaluates an innovative 4-day intensive course on legislative advocacy for MSW students from two schools of social work, which took place within Israel's parliament and drew upon elements of active and experiential learning. The evaluation study was based on a nonequivalent comparison group design with pretest (a month before the course)-posttest (4 months after the completion of the course) measurements. The study group consisted of the 29 students who participated in the intensive course while the comparison group consisted of 33 students who did not. The study, which employed quantitative tools along with open-ended questions, revealed that the course succeeded in accomplishing some of its desired outcomes. Compared to a group of their peers, the course enhanced the participants' knowledge on the parliament and on legislative advocacy, their political interest, their perceived legislative advocacy skills, and the likelihood that they will engage in legislative advocacy in the future.
Journal of Policy Practice
Because social workers are called to challenge social injustices and create systemic change to support the well-being of individuals and communities, it is essential that social workers develop political efficacy: belief that the political system can work and they can influence the system. This study explored the impact of an intensive political social work curriculum on political efficacy and planned political engagement among social work students and practitioners. The findings suggest this model of delivering a political social work curriculum effectively increases internal, external, and overall political efficacy, and that increasing political efficacy has promise for increasing future political engagement.
Towards an Issue-based Politics in Social Work Education
Global Social Work Education: Crossing borders and blurring boundaries: IASSW, (2013) , 2013
This chapter seek to articulate a ‘new politics’ for social work based on object oriented issues. This is derived from a critique of public statements and potential material objects in confronting injustice and inequality in the Global Agenda, 2012. Social work explicitly adopts justice as a normative value. This means it exhorts social workers to take an ethical and political stance but it does not necessarily define how its commitments might be mobilised. Students come to social work motivated by change: they want to make a difference but the crucial question is ‘how’. But we also need to understand the role that issues play in involving social workers and their public's in political activation. In this chapter we argue that the displacement of politics to a global forum, in which a cross-national alliance of social workers can hold an international institution to account, requires a concrete set of controversies over which mobilisation tactics can be configured. So we wish to conceive of public involvement in politics, by social work students and their educators as being occasioned by, and providing a way to settle, controversies that existing institutions are unable to resolve.