Developmental Systems Theory as a Conceptual Anchor for Generalist Curriculum on Human Behavior and the Social Environment

Abstract

Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE) is a formal curricular area within social work education that broadly addresses human behavior across the life course, the range of social systems in which people live, and the ways in which social systems promote or deter people in maintaining or achieving health and well-being. Reflecting this breadth of content, there has been concern for decades regarding the conceptual coherence and consistency of an HBSE curriculum. This paper responds to contemporary calls for systematically developing this area of social work education by presenting developmental systems theory (DST) as an organizing framework for generalist HBSE content. DST is a theoretical perspective that has been recently developed across the biological and social sciences and that focuses on complex transactions among individuals and social environments within diverse temporal and spatial settings. The paper demonstrates how DST can be used to guide a theory-focused, generalist HBSE course that can coherently bring together diverse HBSE content areas.

Keywords:

• Human Behavior and the Social Environment
• Social Sciences
• Theory
• Systems Theory
• Ecological Perspective
• Curriculum Development