The origins of the articles contained within this and the following issue of Australian Social Work lie, not as one might expect with a Call for Papers, but rather with a spontaneous influx of submissions to the Journal from authors addressing various important topics in social work education. Their simultaneous appearance suggested that they might be interestingly grouped in an issue of the Journal focused on matters of significance to social work education. However, so numerous were these submitted papers that one issue was not going to be sufficient to contain them. Thus, we have taken the step of developing two such themed issues. In this January 2019 Issue we present Part 1, and this will be followed in April 2019 by Part 2.
Given the fact that these papers offering ideas and research pertaining to social work education have arrived in quick succession, it is interesting to speculate on the reasons for this. Undoubtedly, as Professor Beth Crisp has noted in her Editorial to this Issue (Crisp, Citation2018), social work education is undergoing something of a major shift from earlier times. International student enrolments in Australian social work courses are notably higher than they have ever been, and diverse teaching approaches—online, on-campus, distance—are the norm rather than the exception. This has certainly placed pressure on academic staff to adapt and embrace new ways of teaching, and to devote considerable resources to securing many more field placements than ever before, placements that, in order to provide meaningful opportunities for student learning, require significant and ongoing commitment from the field to support them.
To further explore many of the ideas advanced in the articles in this Issue, we have invited a number of experienced social work academics to comment. Their commentaries are not critiques of these papers but rather the papers have formed a backdrop against which the commentators have analysed, considered, sometimes challenged, and sometimes advanced their own thoughts on field education, gender, Indigenous matters, online teaching, and critical reflection that comprise this first themed issue. Their commentaries have served to highlight and to “move forward” the discussion we all need to have about the changing character and nature of social work education.
After reading these papers and commentaries, subsequent questions may come to mind, for example, how well are our education programs dealing with such significant changes to the make up of the student body? To what extent are we able to say (or do we want to say) that social work is a global profession in which social work educators are tasked to educate social workers for practice in a globalised world—or is it rather that, through our enrolment practices we are witnessing and participating in curricula that reinforces the increasing divide between the so-called global North and the global South (Roche & Flynn, Citation2018)? Are our field placement programs sufficient and adequate for the central role they must continue to play in social work education? To what extent and in what ways are we truly embracing and responding to Indigenous concerns about the adequacy of curricula and teaching strategies to address and respond to the catastrophic impact of European settlement? How creative can we, as social work educators, be in using the Internet and online platforms to advance our agenda of human rights, equality, freedom from violence and oppression? These are the kinds of debates that the Guest Editor, authors, and commentators in this Issue, have encouraged us to have as their work stimulates us to think further, and beyond what they have contributed here.
It is possible that this influx of papers, variously addressing central themes in social work education, represents the emergence of a generational change, in which the need for new ideas, innovative solutions to contemporary educational challenges are at the forefront of the minds of many social work academics and practitioners. In Part 2 we will further explore matters of significance in social work education, among which will be articles addressing the nature of student and supervisor experiences, and the need for curricula to adapt to theoretical and conceptual advances. We welcome your feedback to this themed issue and trust that you will find it interesting and thought-provoking.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
References
- Crisp, B. R. (2018). Social work education: Moving the profession into the future. Australian Social Work, 72(1), 3–7.
- Roche, S., & Flynn, C. (2018). Geographical inequity in social work research: A snapshot of research publications from the global South. International Social Work, 1–17. doi: 10.1177/0020872818797999