The Purpose of a School of Social Work—An American Perspective

Abstract

Social work in the United States has developed over more than a one hundred year period from a movement of individual and community based reformers to a recognized profession of hundreds of thousands. The history of social work has been characterized by a number of intense ideological and developmental struggles, not the least of which has involved the very meaning of professionalism and its application to a field with reformist intention. As with other professions, the relationship with academia has been critical both in the definition and the development of social work. This article reviews the American experience in the university‐profession connection and describes the current character of social work education in the U.S. and how it both reflects and shapes the current character of American social work professional practice.

Notes

1. In the United States, social work education programs have a variety of organizational forms. They variously are called programs, departments, schools, and colleges. For the sake of simplicity, we use the term ‘school of social work’ throughout this paper to refer to any of the forms that exist with institutions of higher education.