From the Editor—Reflections on Mid-terms

We’ve survived the 2018 mid-term elections!

In some ways, the intensity of this election cycle eclipsed even the presidential election of 2016, which seemed to gain in intensity only after its surprising (at least to me) results. I spent much of the six months prior to the 2018 election in activities to protest government policies that counter my professional and personal beliefs, in primary election activities on a local level, in compulsive checking of news reports and political polls, in unsuccessful attempts to suppress my urge to tweet, in local actions for voter registration, and in getting out the vote. The work seemed to consume increasing amounts of time and energy and frankly, left me feeling exhausted, depleted, and in an existential funk. As we approached November 6th, I wondered if my health was suffering (it was) or if my career was imperiled (it wasn’t).

Thankfully, election cycles come to an end, and I am nearly caught up (or as caught up as I ever am) with work. At this point, I can afford the luxury of pondering the role of social workers and social work educators in politics. Should social workers devote time to political activities, including electoral campaigns? Should we, as social educators, model such engagement for our students? What are the ethics of such engagement? Must such engagement by social work educators be non-partisan?

During this campaign season, I became aware of efforts by the National Association of Social Workers and other professional organizations asserting that “voter participation is a social work issue” (NASW, n.d.) and offering webinars and other resources to help social workers’ facilitation of informed participation by the public in shaping social policies and institutions. Webinars covered topics such as motivating young eligible voters to participate in the voting process, the current state of voting rights in America, and recognizing and eliminating barriers to voter registration and participation. These efforts by NASW are non-partisan, as I believe should be efforts by social work educators to engage their students or to help students learn to mobilize voter engagement in their communities. Of course, as private citizens, on our own time, social workers can work actively on behalf of candidates of their choice, but it is important to remain mindful of critical differences between professional and private roles.

The next presidential election of 2020 will soon be upon us. We have read and heard allegations of voter suppression and fraud from all sides in this prior election, and although many locations experienced a surge in voter participation in the 2018 election, it is important that we continue to facilitate informed participation by the public, including registration of eligible voters and voting, and to address barriers to such engagement, and to help the public, including recipients of our services, shape social policies and institutions that “demonstrate respect for difference, support the expansion of cultural knowledge and resources, advocate for programs and institutions that demonstrate cultural competence, and promote policies that safeguard the rights and confirm equity and social justice for all people” (NASW, 2017).

I hope that social work educators will consider developing initiatives with their students addressing this critical issue and that they will submit manuscripts to the Journal of Social Work Education describing their efforts. I look forward to hearing from you!

In this issue

This issue of JSWE features a special section on Practices and Policies for Doctoral Education and Leadership, edited by Cynthia Franklin (The University of Texas at Austin), Elizabeth Lightfoot (University of Minnesota), and Sheryl Zimmerman (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). The proposal for this special section emerged from conversations among the steering committee of the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education (GADE) and addresses a need for additional resources in the social work literature to guide the development and implementation of doctoral programs. Following the introduction by the special section editors, there are five articles on topics ranging from identification of administration and education standards for doctoral programs, implications for doctoral education of scientific and professional developments over the next decade, issues of diversity in doctoral education, the relationship of pre-admission demographic, academic, and research productivity characteristics, and finally, an article on doctoral student development of a research toolkit to prepare them as research scholars. The resources in this special section should prove useful for social work educators interested in doctoral education and are a valuable contribution to the social work education literature.

In addition to the special section, this final issue of 2018 presents a content analysis of social work curricula, six empirical studies of social work education, one teaching note and one research note. The content analysis, by Black and Ombayo (“Do MSW Programs Address Teen Dating Violence Content?”), examines syllabi from 30 specialized Intimate Partner Violence and Domestic Violence MSW-level courses and 44 foundation-level texts and offers suggestions for incorporating Teen Dating Violence content in the MSW curriculum.

Phillips and colleagues (“A Virtual Field Practicum: Building Core Competencies Prior to Agency Placement”) lead off the empirical studies in this issue by reporting preliminary data from a quasi-experimental evaluation of the effectiveness of an online skill-building experience to foster student acquisition of Core Competencies prior to agency placement. They suggest that this model is a viable option for social work curricula. Held, McCabe, and Thomas (“Latino Immigrants in a New Destination State: A Qualitative Study of Provider Experiences”) report on themes emerging from qualitative interviews with providers serving Latinx immigrants in a new destination state and discuss implications for practice and social work education. Diebold, Kim, and Elze (“Perceptions of Self-Care Among MSW Students: Implications for Social Work Education”) explore social work students’ personal perceptions of self-care, including academic program experiences, resources, and modeling. Implications for developing and tailoring a self-care program to students in MSW programs are discussed. Pritzker and Lane (“Supporting Field-Based Education in Political Settings”) interviewed social work students participating in an intensive block placement in a state legislature and identified challenges as well as strategies to support students in these types of placements. Wong and Jones (“Students’ Experiences of Microaggressions in an Urban MSW Program”) administered a questionnaire to MSW students to collect descriptive and qualitative data on microaggressions targeting race, ethnicity, and other diversity characteristics and environmental microaggressions. Findings indicate that even where there is great diversity, with the percentages in favor of people of color, microaggressions are strong and persistent. The authors argue for more sophisticated multicultural teaching strategies and an increased focus on cultural humility among students and faculty. Finally, Kiesel, DeZelar, and Lightfoot (“Challenges, Barriers, and Opportunities: Social Workers With Disabilities and Experiences in Field Education”) conducted semi-structured interviews of 15 BSW and MSW graduates with disabilities to explore their experiences of inclusion and accommodations in field education.

Miller, Grise-Owens, Drury, and Rickman (“Developing a Professional Writing Course Using a Holistic View of Competence”) offer a teaching note describing a professional writing course that uses a holistic pedagogical approach and provide pragmatic strategies and assignments that can be readily adapted by other faculty and programs. And finally, Nguyen and Foster (“Multiple Time Point Course Evaluation and Student Learning Outcomes in an MSW Course”) examine how student self-assessments of their progress on core competencies in an MSW course change across three time points (pretest, posttest, retrospective test), and suggest that students both underrated and overrated their competencies at the pretest. The authors argue that using multiple-time point self-assessment addresses this risk of bias in social work course evaluations and should be considered in favor of surveys which assess student satisfaction at end-of-term or self-assessments of competency administered only at the beginning and end of courses.