Challenges in values education in social work: the case of the Visegrad four countries

ABSTRACT

Despite the fact that there is generally an agreement on the irreplaceable role of the ethical component in social work education, our understanding of values in social work education still remains quite limited. The article aims to analyse, from the perspective of educators, the instilling of social work values at the Czech, Slovakian, Polish and Hungarian universities. Research findings allows to identify its types, threats and limitations and to indicate steps for its enhancement and for the implementation of the systemic concept of the values instilling education.

The implications for social work education are as follows: to critically reflect the external threats and limits created by neoliberalism and its values; to critically reflect the internal threats and limits caused by the absence of systemic values education in some social work study programmes; to promote a systemic concept of values instilling education and consistently implement the inductive learning and integrated approach in values building in subjects included in the social work study programmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Relational values
• social work values
• instilling values in education
• inductive learning
• integrated approach

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. Named countries are involved into the Visegrad group that is cultural and political alliance of four countries (hereinafter V4) sharing historically rooted cultural and intellectual values, which they wish to preserve and strengthen. The commonalities and differences of these countries shape the state of social work education (including value education) and the state of social work practice.

2. By consciously committing to a constructivist understanding of values, we establish a certain normative framework through which we analyse and evaluate the state of affairs in the area of values education in SW.

3. The analysis of the values building in SW education were analysed from the perspective of students, either.

4. The structure of the informant’s code, e.g. SK-I1AG: SK—the code of the participant’s country; I1 to I5—the participant’s number; A, B, C—the participant’s institution; G—the participant-guarantor of the study programme, T—the participant-teacher of ethics in social work, and P—the participant-teacher of ethics in social pedagogy (in Poland the education of SW students is closely connected with the study programme of social pedagogy).

5. This is a form of discussing fundamental ethical issues in historically significant places related to the Nazi extermination practice that took place during the World War II (Rożniatowska et al., 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jelena Petrucijová

Jelena Petrucijová - an associate professor at the Faculty of Social Studies of the University of Ostrava (CZ) Her topic of interest is methodology of (philosophical) anthropological theories, ethics in social work.

Kateřina Glumbíková

Kateřina Glumbíková - an assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Studies, University of Ostrava (CZ). Her research is focused on the issue of reflexivity in social work with vulnerable children and their families. Their research interests also include evaluation of social housing and homelessness of mothers and women without a shelter.

Ewa Kantowicz

Ewa Kantowicz - professor of social pedagogy and social work at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (PL). Her research interests focus on the childcare system and social work with family at risk, as well as the academicisation and professionalisation of social work. She creates innovative education programmes for social work. She is the President of Polish Association of Schools of Social Work and the author of many monographs and scientific articles related to social work issues.

Miriam Slaná

Miriam Slaná - an associated professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Work of Trnava University (SK). Her major research focus is on social work in health care and people with disabilities.

Boróka Fehér

Boróka Fehér - an assistant professor at the Faculty of Social and Health Sciences of Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary (HU). Her research interest is in homelessness, particularly homelessness experienced by women, and narrative methods of data collection.

Izabela Kamińska-Jatczak

Izabela Kamińska-Jatczak - an assistant professor, a social pedagogue from the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Lodz (PL). She is a researcher who came to the world of social science from the field of social work practice with multi-problem families. The author's research interests largely concern issues related to the analysis of activity in the field of social work practice.

Katarína Molnarová-Letovancová

Katarína Molnárová Letovancová is a full time assistant at the Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Work of Trnava University (SK). Her research interest focuses on disability issues in social work, especially area of mental illness, social work in health care and early childhood intervention.