Including Spirituality in the Social Work Curriculum: Perspectives from South Asia

Abstract

This article is based on a study of 1,084 social work educators from six South Asian countries on their perspectives on including spirituality in the social work curriculum. Findings revealed that all educators across countries felt that a course on spirituality was desirable. They differed however in aspects such as level of course introduction (undergraduate or postgraduate), the nature of the course (optional or compulsory) and the curriculum content (evidence based or experiential). Further educators construed varied meanings of spirituality (transcendence, mind-soul discourse, relational) and spiritually sensitive practice (actively using spirituality and mindfulness as methods of practice for intervention and drawing upon the spiritual strength and potential of the clientele/group/community to plan intervention). Four log regression models also determined predictors of educators' perceptions on spirituality for micro practice, macro practice, level of course introduction and curriculum content. Country, educators' religious background, years of service and scores on Spirituality Assessment Scale emerged as key predictors. Based on educators' responses, this article provides a suggestive frame for the curriculum. With spirituality and its plausible settings of applications, a case is also made for giving credence to indigenising and decolonising approaches in social work education in South Asia.

Keywords::

• Spirituality
• Spiritually Sensitive Practice
• Social Work
• Social Work Curriculum
• South Asia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^[1] This, according to the researcher, would include Greek philosophy, Christian, Islamic and Jewish tenets, citations in the works of Leibniz and Spinoza, Kantian transcendental idealism, Wittgenstein and the phenomenological tradition, Confucianism and other South East Asian indigenous traditions. In the Indic context, this would include tenets of Indic philosophical schools, Jainism and Buddhism, Bhakti and Sufi mysticism. Furthermore, there are the arguments of nature philosophers, New Age spiritual traditions and meditation movements.

^[2] Although Burma has also witnessed ethnic strife, educators did not explicitly discuss the macro practice implications there. This could probably be due to the fact that the discipline is still in the nascent stage comparatively and yet mapping its contours in the micro domains.