Political Placements in Social Work Education: The United States and Canada

Abstract

Besides identifying issues related to the role and function of social work in the political arena, this paper reports on a survey of the use of “political settings” by the master's degree programs of schools of social work, and on Wilfrid Laurier University's own experience in this regard. Findings indicated that 84 percent of the responding schools were involved in such settings, with most of the remainder in the process of developing them. Weaknesses in existing practices and criteria for the development of effective political placements for social work education are noted.