Integrating Content on Women into the Social Policy Curriculum: A Continuum Model

Abstract

The curriculum mandate of the Council on Social Work Education establishes the need to include nonsexist content on women in social work education. To assist schools in achieving this goal, this paper develops a continuum model containing three options for such integration: minimal, moderate, and maximal. These options are organized around several dimensions: (1) the nature of the mandate to instructors, (2) the degree of comprehensiveness of content about women, and (3) the allocation of curriculum time or space to women's issues. Suggestions for moving an introductory social policy course from the minimal to the moderate option are presented, followed by a discussion of strategies for assessing and creating system readiness for curriculum change within schools of social work.