Challenges for social work education in China: findings from three metropolises

ABSTRACT

Social work education was reintroduced into China in 1988 by the Communist Party of China. Since then, many research studies have been initiated both in Chinese and English aimed at understanding the development of social work education and practice in Mainland China. However, a growing body of literature has not focused much on the students’ perspective and the challenges they face in social work education in contemporary China. In order to contribute to addressing this gap, the present study reports on qualitative interviews with a group of social work postgraduate (n = 33) students from five schools of social work covering Shandong, Shanghai and Beijing provinces in the country. The study finds that there are four major challenges for social work education in China: (i) the use of Western concepts in the Chinese context; (ii) a journey from the unknown to the known; (iii) first-generation learners; and (iv) the lack of professional identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work education
• China
• social work curriculum
• pedagogy

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to anonymous peer reviewers for their constructive and encouraging feedback which helped us in developing this article for publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was founded by INLAKS foundation Research Travel Grant 2015 and Indian Council of Social Science Research, Collect Data Abroad Scholarship 2015.