Concentrations: Empirical Patterns and Future Prospects

Abstract

The 1969 Council on Social Work Education Curriculum Policy Statement provided the encouragement for graduate programs to exercise a mandated freedom to develop practice concentrations. Eight years later the result was the establishment of a wide array of concentration forms. This study identifies five concentration patterns, with three of them allowing additional variation within them. Given the variable concentration patterns, the question is posed as to whether reasonable limits should be placed on their continued free expansion. It is concluded that social work education concentrations have moved from a state of organized simplicity to one of disorganized complexity.