From the Editor—In This Issue

This issue of Journal of Social Work Education (JSWE) begins with an excellent guest editorial from Singer, Báez, and Rios titled “AI Creates the Message: Integrating AI Language Learning Models into Social Work Education and Practice.” This very timely editorial offers a description of the pros and cons of ChatGPT in social work education, as well as recommendations for using ChatGPT for teaching, research, and practice. Specific ideas are offered for each, including using AI to design your syllabus and guidance to inform your students about its use in your class. I am grateful to these authors for this high-quality manuscript and the quick turnaround time so we could get it to press quickly for our readers!

The next article by Mirick and Wladkowski, “Experiences of Pregnant and Parenting Female Students in Doctoral Programs,” describes the results of a survey of women who were pregnant or parenting during their social work doctoral studies. They highlight important implications for social work doctoral programs, suggesting that social workers are ethically obligated to address gender-based equity issues and the multiple challenges these students experience. In “Infusing MSW Programs With Disability Studies and Disability Justice: How to Create Explicit Curriculum,” Berridge, Ganti, Taylor, Rain, and Bahl describe their MSW curricula infusion process and integrating an intersectional disability justice movement framework. They discuss the background and urgency of such approaches to reduce issues of social injustice. Magier, Newman, Kimiecik, Okamoto, Beasley, Shute, and Tucker discuss the intersection of social work education with sport, highlight potential opportunities for addressing important needs within the field of sport and report on a qualitative study with social workers in sport in “Understanding the Needs of Social Workers in Sport Settings: Opportunities for Specialized Education and Training.”

In “Colorblind Attitudes, Empathy, and Shame: Preparing White Students for Anti-Racist Social Work Practice,” Brock-Petroshius, Garcia-Perez, Gross, and Abrams report on an analysis of a cross sectional survey of White MSW students to assess the relationships between racial knowledge and emotions as predictors of anti-racist behaviors. They discuss the implications of their findings for antiracist social work education. Slay, Robinson, and Rhodes offer shared perspectives from Strong Black Women (SBW) schema and resilience theory to describe their ability to adapt to changes during the global pandemic in “Shared Perspectives of Strength Among Black Women Social Work Educators in a Global Pandemic.” Conner, Dyson, Jones, and Drew then present a mixed-methods study to explore the experiences of social work faculty and staff who have experience being supervised by a Black administrator in “Black Experiences Matter: Reflections of Black Faculty Experiences With Black Administrators.” In “A ‘Totally, Acceptably Racist Environment’: Examining Anti-Black Racism in a School of Social Work,” Lilly, Hillyer, Jaggers, and Garnigan utilized collective autobiographical methods within a Critical Race Theory framework to better understand Black social work students’ experiences of anti-Black racism in Predominantly White Institutions. This study highlights important findings and implications for the implicit and explicit social work curricula, as well as tangible next steps to reduce the harm and the emotional labor Black students experience from anti-Black racism in these contexts. Next, Thyberg discusses critical social work (CSW) as a framework for addressing racism and oppression in social work and reports on a survey of social work students regarding their experience of critical social work learning in “Preparing Social Workers for Anti-Oppressive Practice: Evaluating the Role of Critical Social Work Education.”

The next two articles focus on political social work education. The first, “The Voter Engagement Model: Preparing the Next Generation of Social Workers for Political Practice” by Hylton, Lane, Smith, Ostrander, and Powers, describes and reports on the results of an evaluation of a voter engagement model for social work education. Next, Pence and Kaiser provide the results of qualitative interviews of nine political social workers in political office in “Elected Office as a Social Work Career Trajectory: Insights From Political Social Workers.” These authors provide practical recommendations for supporting the trajectory of social work in political office in social work programs.

Next, we move to two articles focused on social work study abroad programs. The first is “Navigating Trauma Tourism in Social Work Study Abroad” by Pope, Gibson, Benner, and Littrell. These authors discuss important considerations when such programs are focused around collective trauma, as well as risks of perpetuating objectification and exploitation, to ensure just and ethical learning abroad. Next, Hamilton, Tokpa, McCain, and Donovan, in “#WhiteSaviorComplex: Confidentiality, Human Dignity, Social Media, and Social Work Study Abroad,” discuss important considerations for bringing North American (mostly White) students who frequently use social media to interact with vulnerable populations abroad. They offer case studies of potential model polices to consider for North American universities to ensure that social media policies maintain the dignity and worth of the populations that are visited.

The next section of this issue covers a range of important topics for social work education. Pritzker and Giraldo-Santiago discuss the implications of a study focused on social work policy in “Policy Education in U.S. Social Work Programs: Results of a National Study.” Using Council on Social Work Education’s Annual Survey data, they describe the variation in students’ exposure to policy content and application in practicum and recommend possibilities for strengthening policy education. Next, Niedens, Yeager, Vidoni, Barton, Perales Puchalt, Peterson Dealey, Quinn, and Gage report on “A Collaborative Approach to Dementia Inclusion in Social Work Education: The Dementia Intensive.” This study highlights the importance of the growing number of individuals and families dealing with dementia and provides one approach for helping to provide stronger education on these issues for social workers.

We then move into a focus on integrated behavioral health and interprofessional education in social work. The first article by Powers and Kulkarni titled, “Examination of Online Interprofessional Education to Develop Graduate Students’ Interprofessional Socialization and Collaborative Competencies” describes the results of a mixed methods study assessing a full semester, asynchronous online IPE course for graduate students. The next article, by Reitmeier, de Saxe Zerden, Browne, Kanfer, Iachini, and Brigham, describes the delivery of integrated behavioral health training during the COVID pandemic in “Training MSW Students for Integrated Behavioral Health Care During COVID-19: Lessons Learned from Two Programs.” Acquavita, Canada, Lee, Johnson, Harley, Beaulieu, and Cary describe the results of the outcomes from four U.S. social work programs participating in a HRSA funded Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program using the same scale in “Integrated Care: Training the Next Generation of Social Workers.”

The final full-length article is by Dennis, McCarthy and Glassburn as they report on the findings of their phenomenological analysis of the lived experiences of 17 social work educators who transitioned from complete in person teaching to partly or all online teaching prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in “Grievers, Skeptics, Pragmatists, Converts, and Champions: Social Work Educators’ Transition to Online Teaching.” Now that all (if not most) social work educators have had this experience of transitioning online due to COVID-19, this may be worth a read to see how these experiences resonate with your own.

This issue rounds out with four research, teaching, or field notes. First, Wacker, Rienks, Chassler, Devine, Amodeo, daSilva-Clark, and Lundgren report on the evaluation of an online SBIRT training across three campus environments in “Research Note—Online SBIRT Training for On-Campus, Satellite Campus, and Online MSW Students: Pre–Post Perceptions and Practice.” Baldwin-White and Still offer a teaching innovation using the Broadway musical Hamilton to help students better understand social justice issues, as well as how to start and maintain their own revolutions in “Teaching Note—Hamilton: A Pedagogy of Social Justice and Revolution in Social Work Education.” Next, in “Teaching Note—Teaching Students About Homelessness: A Model for Curriculum Integration,” Aykanian and Ryan-Dedominicis describe a model for integrating homelessness content into social work education curricula. And the final note by Sharkey, Elkins, and Johnson describes a federally funded academic-community partnership whereby a trauma-informed care framework and social work practicum placements were integrated into a public library setting in “Field Note—Creating Trauma-Informed Library Spaces: Lessons Learned From a Pilot Program.”