Applying a ‘signature pedagogy’ in the teaching of critical social work theory and practice

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the application of a ‘signature pedagogy’ in the teaching of critical social work theory and practice on a social work undergraduate course at a Swedish university. Feedback from students over four terms, together with a one-off reflection focus group, provided relevant information that suggests that a signature pedagogical framework has value within the discussion of teaching critical theory practice and methods. The key arguments and findings found in this paper center on the interconnection between a pedagogical framework, the course in question, and the feedback from the students. The conclusion points to the argument that using a signature pedagogical framework can provide a guide to teaching critical social work and practice on a social work undergraduate course.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedagogies
• critical theories
• practice methods

Social work education, in a fashion similar to the practice of social work, can be hard to pin down and define (Matthies, 2005). While this variation and flexibility can be seen as part of the strength of social work, it is important to identify what makes social work education unique compared with the education format of other professions, such as psychology and law. Shulman (2005b) coined the term ‘signature pedagogy’ to refer to a profession’s unique way of training and teaching. Within that framework, students learn ‘something specific and distinctive to that discipline’ (p. 195). A discipline’s ‘signature pedagogy’ can also ‘teach us a lot about the personalities, dispositions, and cultures of that field’ (Shulman, 2005b, p. 52). Social work educators also claim a particular ‘signature pedagogy’ (e.g. Boitel & Fromm, 2014; Wayne, Bogo, & Raskin, 2010) when it comes to the education of social work students, arguing that the student’s placements are the defining character of the professions pedagogy. This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing discussions related to ‘signature pedagogy’ in social work by presenting a particular example of a course in social work at a Swedish university. The authors share a ‘critical pragmatic’ approach when it comes to critical theory, one that seeks to combine critical theory and a pragmatic philosophy. This translates as an action-orientated, practice-based approach that engages social justice issues through structural and individual perspectives (Kadlec, 2006). The expressions of this can be seen in the pedagogy approaches used in the course.

The paper begins by reflecting on two differing positions regarding the nature of a ‘signature pedagogy’ in social work. In this paper, the authors argue that a ‘signature pedagogy’ reflects the desire to develop a synthesis of critical thinking by students and to help students identify social issues and, significantly, take action on those issues. The paper further highlights to the reader some of the specificities of the Swedish social work education system. It then goes on to present Larrison and Korr (2013) ‘signature pedagogy’ framework. Briefly stated the framework argues that there are three interrelated aspects to a signature approach to social work education, namely (1) modelling relational connectedness, core practice skills, and values, (2) fostering transformative awareness, and (3) nurturing personal and professional growth. The authors are curious to know if they can understand their own work and the effect of the course on the students through the lens of a framework which argues for three areas that are distinctive to a social work education which has a critical theory focus. This is explained in more detail later in the paper. Following this explanation is a presentation of the methodology used in this research. The paper concludes with reflections on the relevance of our findings to the wider international community of social work education and on the challenges of defining and agreeing on ‘signature pedagogy’ within social work education.

What is special about a social work education?

This article focuses on how educational practices can function as tools to build and strengthen a professional identity amongst social work students. International definitions of social work and professional codes of ethics endorse the idea of social workers as actors and advocates of human rights (e.g. IFSW, IASSW, ICSW). The role of policy in practice and the need for social workers to not only implement but also influence policy is by now well anchored in the social work discourse in different countries and understood as an integral part of social work education (e.g. Weiss-Gal, 2016;Dominelli, 1999; Haynes & Mickelson, 2009). Questions on how social work education can provide students with the skills and means to integrate working with policy changes in their everyday professional practice were highlighted as a core competence by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) in 2008 and are addressed in this paper.

The underlying approach to this paper is that social work education should reflect the values of social work practice, such as empowerment and person-centered approaches (Wallengren Lynch, 2017). This position is not ignorant to the necessity of having a critical dimension to an understanding of empowerment in social work education. While not necessarily sharing the pessimistic view of authors such as Langan, 2011, there certainly a case to be made in being careful when unreflectively applying concepts like empowerment to social work practice (Lynch, 2016). Empowerment is commonly used in many different areas outside of social work and as a result can have a diluted impact when applied without critical reflections.

An inclusive approach is reflected in our use of student feedback as a source of researchable information. In many practice areas, social work argues for feedback from service users and it is in this vein we consider that student’s feedback can help the course evaluation and development. Another underlining argument in this paper is that a robust professional identity is essential for the ability of social workers to respond to the current challenges facing social work and the communities in which they operate. The linking of the student voice with issues related to those of professional identity, in a social work education context, contributes to the socialization of social work values, competencies, and practices (Mizrahi & Dodd, 2013; Reisch & Jan, 2012).

These points reiterate the questions posed by Larrison and Korr (2013, p. 197), when they ask ‘What educational practices shape and socialize emerging social workers into the profession?’ and ‘What is characteristic of and central to how we educate developing practitioners for competent practice?’ Some authors, such as Wayne et al. (2010) and Boitel and Fromm (2014), argue that the unique attribute of social work education comes in the shape of field placements. While acknowledging the inconsistencies of the standards of these placements, students often refer to their greatest learning having taken place in the field. More specifically, ‘students learn to practice through active involvement with real experiences in which they perform a service or helping role…’ (Wayne et al. 2010, p. 330). The importance of field placements is not being questioned in this paper. However, instead of seeing placements as the ‘signature pedagogy’ for social work, this paper explores Larrison and Korr’s argument that student/teacher interactions can reflect a more specific ‘signature pedagogy.’ The outcome of this approach must ‘enable students to think and perform like social workers’ (Larrison & Korr, 2013, p. 194). They go on to argue that we need to look at other aspects of the social work education experience to find examples of a unique ‘signature pedagogy.’ The authors, based on the work of Shulman (2005b), present three areas, listed below that help define an approach to social work education that reflects the ‘signature pedagogy.’

• The first aspect is ‘modelling relational connectedness, core practice skills, and values: modelling practice and values within the teaching-learning encounter is paramount to student understanding and the duplication of those same core conditions in their practice’ (ibid., p. 202).

• The second aspect that they identify is ‘fostering transformative awareness: acknowledging students own search for meaning through developing a capacity for intellectual and personal growth’ (ibid., p. 202).

• Finally, they argue that ‘nurturing personal and professional growth’ is a key aspect of social work training that is crucial to the development of social work students. The social work education ‘helps socialise the emerging social worker into the profession and thus shape how students employ knowledge and skills to make informed decisions and judgments’ (ibid., p. 202).

In the next section, we guide the reader through an example of a social work education course in a Swedish setting that sets the context of an application of the above three points in it.

The changing nature of social work education in Sweden

Social work as a profession has its legacy in, and has built professional legitimacy on, the values of social justice and human rights. This acknowledges the sometimes controversial history of social work in more general terms throughout some periods of history. Despite this, and perhaps because of it, the need is even greater to highlight a shared ontological approach, one that social workers and educators can be proud of, in terms of both education and practice.

In Sweden, the history of the social work profession is intimately connected to the expansion of the welfare state. In the beginning of the twentieth century, social workers were active in the social–political debate, formulating visions of national welfare policies, financial security, and the right to social services (Qvarsell, 2003). Through the formation of the cooperative body, the Central Association of Social Work (Centralförbundet för socialt arbete, CSA) was formed in 1903, and members from different related associations with socially progressive ideas were active in the public debate on an array of social policy issues, including replacing philanthropic concepts, such as poverty and charity work, with the concept of social work. Furthermore, arguing that social interventions should be undertaken within the realm of the state and by professionally trained personnel led the CSA to start the first course in social work in 1909 (Bäck-Wiklund, 2003, p. 267). As a result, social work in the Swedish context is closely related to the formulation and identification of social problems and imbued with faith in the ‘good’ state and its abilities to solve social issues with scientific knowledge. With regard to the historic trust in the ‘good’ state, it is important to acknowledge the colonial history of social work involving the state as well as the church (Ranta-Tyrkkö, 2011, p. 29).

Social work was established as an academic discipline in 1977, when the education of social workers was also embedded in the higher education system. This initiated a process of academization that aimed to legitimize social work as a profession and served as a political response to criticism raised against perceived slow-moving development in the social welfare model (Brante, 2003; Dellgran & Höjer, 2011; Sunesson, 2003). Social work education in Sweden then followed a similar path to that of other countries in that the 1970s and 1980s represented a more radical and structural approach to education and practice. Following this, and up to now, the majority of education approaches have focused on the psychosocial tradition, but this has also started to wear at the seams, as the challenge posed by New Public Management and neoliberalism slowly gathers momentum. This movement is also echoed internationally, as there appears to be a move to (re)integrate critical and radical perspectives into social work practice in a combined effort to ‘resist the neoliberal present’ (Rogowski, 2014, p. 7). In some ways, it can be referred to as the need to put the ‘social’ back into social work. Ping-Kwong (2014, p. 724) suggests that the proper way to revive the profession’s contribution to promoting social justice is to: (a) realign the social work profession with its original social nature, (b) redirect the social workers’ attention to the importance of these ‘social’ connotations, and (c) come up with suggestions on how to return to the ‘social’ (i.e. adding structural aspects to the social works agenda) in social work practice. Reisch and Jan (2012) draw attention to the way the political activity of the settlement movement in the US grew from the social worker’s everyday experiences of working in close relation to low-income individuals and families, leading to politically oriented activities after realizing that micro-level interventions were insufficient for the problems they encountered on a daily basis (p. 3). To put the ‘social’ back into social work in this sense also opens up to both acknowledge and discuss the highly political nature of social work practice. The challenging reality for many social workers, in contemporary terms, is that ‘radical/critical practice may often have to amount to “quiet challenges” and resistance to managerial and business-orientated discourses and practices’ (White, 2009), within which deviant social work such as ignoring, bending, or reinterpreting rules and procedures may have a role to play (Carey & Foster, 2011). The level of resistance by social workers on the ground may be at micro-level, such as delaying paperwork or assessment plans so that managers are manipulated into taking a particular course of action. Some might see this as deliberate dishonesty and thus not as acceptable, though our view is that this can also be seen in terms of exercising ‘professional agency within highly managerial environments’ (Canton & Eadie, 2004). The consequence for social workers can be a manifestation of tension in their practice settings and with their own practice values. This can be related to the ‘misunderstandings about the meaning of politics and its relationship to professional practice’ (Reisch & Jan, 2012, p. 7). This addresses the contradictions between acting on normative principles and in an ‘objective’ and detached manner, in other words, acting for systemic changes and at the same time having aspirations for professional status.

In any case, and despite such ‘quiet challenges,’ the relevance of more overt radical/critical social work practice remains, and it is the responsibility of educators to help students prepare to find these pockets of resistance in their daily work life and gain the professional confidence needed to act. The course at the center of this paper seeks to encourage active reflection on these issues, and it is to this course that we now turn our attention.

The teaching of ‘social work on a structural level’

Today, in Sweden, there are approximately 40,000 qualified social workers, of which the vast majority employed by the municipal social services. Within municipal social work, casework is the dominant modus operandi, mirrored also in the content of the various undergraduate social work programs currently provided by 12 universities in Sweden. At the Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg, 1,400 students are enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs, with a staff of 120 involved in teaching and research. Each semester, between 90 and 120 students are enrolled on the course, which runs full time for three weeks at the beginning of the semester.

The course, ‘Social work on a structural level,’ which is central to this article, trains students to think about the role of social workers in raising awareness in the public domain and challenges them to find interventions for improving living conditions of marginalized groups in society. As mentioned above, the authors consider social work to be a synthesis of critical thinking and action-based practices. This course reflects this understanding, exemplified by the types of pedagogical activities deployed. Our course, it can be argued, connects with other efforts in Sweden and further afield (e.g. the United Kingdom, Copenhagen, and Norway), such as the PowerUs movement, by bringing service users, educators, and students together to create knowledge and design projects addressing social justice issues. This approach is grounded in what Fook (2012) articulated as processes of promoted reflection and reflexivity both to enhance learning from practice and to identify the role of social or personal conceptions that are taken for granted. In a similar vein, Lave and Wenger (1991) propose that practice learning is less of an individual enterprise and more of a social one that occurs in everyday settings rather than formal learning contexts. We also align ourselves with bell hooks (2003) when she argued that being open to the unknown is a core aspect of forging an approach to thinking critically. Whether one goes as far as Macias (2013) who argues that ‘education should lead to the kind of paradigm shifts that come only from moments of deep destabilization,’ the students are invited to question how they see the world, what exactly a social work perspective is, how both these aspects interact with each other, and to share the ‘learning space’ with service users.

The approaches defining the pedagogy of this course can be presented as both modern and traditional. This is manifested in the theoretical perspectives used to explain the course aims. In contemporary terms, the course embraces the ‘uncertain, uncontrollable and frightening’ world expressed by Bauman. This world can lead to what Bourdieu et al. (1999) identify as ‘social suffering,’ where the ‘gulf between the reality of social workers’ occupations and their more deeply held ontological and professional beliefs becomes a source of acute personal discomfort’ (Smith, 2011, p. 11). On this course, we ask the students to re-engage with the social and to prepare them to take on these social–political issues in the context of work settings defined by New Public Management. This request can be daunting for students and teachers alike. In response to Smith’s call that ‘social work needs to be re-conceptualised as a moral rather than an instrumental task’ (Smith, 2011, p. 13), we also look retrospectively to a time when social work had this moral enterprise. We also engage the present day by inviting practitioners to the university to present examples of social work working with structural issues.

In as much as the course promotes reflection, it also speaks to action. Social work, as argued throughout the course, is an action-based profession. The works of the American pragmatists, such as John Dewey and Jane Addams, give a unique framework to guide our work. Re-examining social workers from the Settlement times, e.g. Ebba Pauli from Sweden, as is done on the course, can inspire us to talk about our practice in a different way, enabling us to reconnect with our historical (albeit western) value base (Healy, 2016). As pragmatists, Addams and Dewey believed that people and groups ‘are able to alter their social trajectories and thereby possess some modicum of control over their destinies’ (Schneiderhan, 2013 , p. 590). The action is a continuous process, ‘grounded in experience, with no clear beginning or end’ (ibid., p. 590). As a result, pragmatists focus on ‘experimentalism’ (ibid., p. 596) and day-to-day reflection on our practice and life habits. When these ‘habits break down, known as ruptures, one gets an insight into the habits and routines in a life that support suppression.’ Pragmatists see the transformation as coming about through experimentation, meeting new situations outside of the ‘norm,’ and facing those situations with curiosity and purposefulness.

‘Nuts and bolts’ of the course

A series of traditional lectures, for example, on critical social work theory and resistance in practice, provides an overarching theoretical structure to the course, and this is accompanied by field visits and classroom activities, such as writing workshops and seminars. The method of experimentation, much lauded by pragmatists, inspires how we setup tasks for the students. This is exemplified by activities such as participating in live TV debate programs, taking part in community meetings, opening up seminars to non-course members (such as the members of third sector organizations and service users), speaking using microphones in lecture halls, encouraging students to use new media, and so on. One of the main principles on which the course is built is the concept of ‘bridge building.’ By linking people with each other, the course aims to provide a platform for interaction, such as between service users and students, thereby promoting relationship building. There are several advantages of inviting different organizations and service users onto the course. First of all, their knowledge and experience as service users and active members in their respective organization and the local community contribute to valuable discussions and inputs to the students. Second, the presence of service users in itself helps initiate a deconstruction of roles. This process, in which knowledge is consumed and constructed in a shared process, can be seen as a pedagogical tool to enhance the opportunity for students to critically reflect on their upcoming professional role. In this sense, this offers educational practices that allow an alternative discourse in social work that might at least challenge long-standing dichotomies such as benefactors and beneficiaries, or ‘private’ experience based and ‘public’ theoretical knowledge (Reisch & Jan, 2012).

During the course, students choose from a variety of field visits. All students have to take part in at least one field visit—and the concept of being able to choose according to a field of interest is seen as an important pedagogical aspect. Being asked to actively choose options, which interest those on the course, underpins the significance of self-recognition as subjects rather than objects in their own learning processes. Some of the field visits are offered from term to term, whereas others vary depending on the current debates and challenges faced by communities in the local setting. All field visits take place at organizations committed, or relevant, to social work on a community level. As mentioned above, other field visits have included live TV debates that raised challenges faced by different communities in which students were encouraged to participate in the discussions. The post-debate reflection groups were organized to give the students a chance to reflect on the debate. We have also organized public meetings on social dimensions of city planning and even attended public defenses of PhD candidates.

In the workshop sessions, facilitated by two teachers, students have the opportunity to work with photovoice (Moletsane et al., 2007; Wang, Cash, & Powers, 2000). Photovoice is a method and technique that aims to open spaces for individuals and communities to address and highlight both challenges and strengths, foster critical dialog, and raise awareness on issues relevant to social work on a community and structural level (Wallengren Lynch & Bengtsson, 2018). Photovoice involves using photography that also promotes and challenges traditional notions of knowledge and presents the students with a concrete method on how to conduct projects following the value base of ‘with rather than about’ communities and individuals (Wang et al., 2000, p 81).

Photovoice is the use of photography as qualitative methodological tool to document and reflect reality, where in this instance students go out and photograph images on their smart phone. Issues around communities, social justice concerns and public health barriers are common topics for discussion and research. In the seminar, the participants have expressed how the photo made discussions about a ‘hard topic’ easier to explore. The process creates a space for reflection that would have been harder to achieve if students had been simply given the same questions to discuss amongst themselves (Wallengren Lynch & Bengtsson, 2018). The ethical considerations connected to using this method are always discussed with the students. It is imperative that while using photovoice, that the students display the same ethical standards that are expected from practicing social workers and educators.

In the final seminars, called ‘speed opinion seminars,’ students work in pairs. In a written assignment, the pair identifies a social problem and presents a social work intervention at community and/or structural level, much in the manner of the ‘Grand Challenges’ suggested by Baron and McLaughlin (2017). In the seminars, each pair is given 15 min to advocate for their specific intervention. First-year social work students are invited as an audience and encouraged to ask questions. The pedagogical benefits of the encounter between first-year and final-year students are twofold. First of all, the presence of an audience that has not (yet) internalized formal and informal norms of the social work education requires the students to use language and theoretical concepts in a more conscious way. Furthermore, the setting gives students first-hand experience of advocacy work, but in a protected environment with support from faculty staff. In the seminars, students become actors and subjects in performing advocacy work.

Methodology

Student evaluations are a common source of research data within the teaching of social work and are used for course development and, in some countries, for staff appraisals (e.g. Linse, 2017; Venette, Sellnow, & McIntyre, 2010). In this study, we used evaluations from 466 students (Spring term 2015, 140 students (70% response rate), Fall term 2015, 108 students (50% response rate), Spring term 2016, 122 students (44% response rate) and Fall term 2016, 96 students (42% response rate). The questions in the evaluation are open ended and relate to the course curricula, with the students being asked to reflect on how the different parts of the course allowed them to develop their skills and competencies. The questions varied from general impressions of the accessibility to course materials and teachers, such as ‘how did you experience the communication between you and the teaching staff’ to specific questions on aspects of the course such as ‘to what extend have lectures helped you reach the learning outcomes of the course.’ The questionnaire took approximately 15 min to complete. All the written replies were anonymous. With regard to using student evaluations as the basis for this paper, the focus is not on presenting results on ‘learning outcomes’ through pre- or post-evaluation formats (e.g. Gregory & Holloway, 2005; Sherraden, Guo, & Umbertino, 2015), but to qualitatively analyze aspects of the student’s responses with regard to the three themes of Larrison and Korr (2013) framework, in which the emphasis is on the relational dimension of learning. In addition to the online program evaluation questionnaire, students were invited to attend one reflective workshop. This one-hour workshop, attended by 15 students in the spring term of 2017, focused on deepening our understanding of the student’s experiences through open-ended questions (for example, what are your reflections on social work practices and critical theory?) and statements (for example, social practitioners, in general, find it difficult to think about their practice on a structural level). Teaching staff from the course facilitated the workshop. The feedback from the reflective group was gathered after the meeting, de-identified, and, subsequently, collated by another staff member who was not involved in the group meeting. The information from the four terms of feedback was coded by the authors and subsequently narrowed down in accordance with the themes of Larrison and Korr (2013) framework. It should also be pointed out that some of the students’ replies did not fit with the parameters of relevance for Larrison and Korr (2013) framework, such as ‘I still struggle to make the connections between structural social work and the job I will be doing.’ This reflects the reality that some students find critical theory and social justice difficult to place into a practice context, something we continue to strive to improve within our teaching. The comments in the next section largely reflect the majority (understand in this paper as anything over 70% of the respondents) of the students who replied to the survey.

Findings and discussion

Modeling practice and values

The majority of the students echoed the sentiment that they felt as though ‘the course teachers considered us students as colleagues’ and that ‘strong engagement from the teachers contributed to the positive feelings on the course.’ This underpins the approach taken by the teachers on the course in that the relationship cultivates the space in which students ‘started to say what we think’ and that during interaction with the teacher in the seminars, students ‘felt as if we were all together.’ This is exemplified by the collaborative nature of the seminar regarding photovoice, where students and teachers work together discussing the photos. As Larrison and Korr point out ‘these interactions help the developing student gain understanding of professional practice through the ways in which educators behave and respond in the teaching-learning encounters’ (Larrison & Korr, 2013, p. 202). It even leads some of the students sampled to question ‘why have we not had these types of seminars before?’ Encouraging students to challenge social work on social justice issues helped them ‘to be able to think about social work possibilities and challenges and to think both horizontally and vertically as a social work student is the best way to learn something.’ The examples here illustrate the approach taken in the course to, as far as possible, create working relationships that reflect social work practice. How we ‘engage and what we do as educators—through genuineness, spontaneity, and congruency—mirror how emerging social workers transfer knowledge and understanding to their own practice behaviours’ (ibid., p. 202).

Fostering transformative awareness

This paper argues that the students deepen their own search for meaning at a personal and professional level through experiencing social work practices values within in teaching settings. It is through the lectures on critical social work and the interactive seminar with service users that we endeavor to promote further transformative awareness amongst the students. Larrison and Korr (2013) comment that transformative experiences and pedagogical interactions that challenge and facilitate critical thinking help develop the confidence to make self-determined judgments about behavioral and practice actions. Akin to this, one student commented, something echoed by the majority of the sample, that the course ‘opened [their] eyes to the structural level and challenged [them] to reflect over [their] own role and how [they] can impact society.’ This emerging awareness can also be ‘intimidating, scary, and stressful,’ as, according to one student, the effort ‘to think outside the box is something we have not been asked to do before this course.’ Another student commented, again echoing a general sentiment, on how another approach to talking about social work helped create a more personal relationship with social worker practice, ‘an important aspect for me was that we did not have to follow the traditional formula of previous research, knowledge and so on, instead we were able to use a “simpler” language.’ Emerging from this process was the message of the importance to social workers of forming an opinion and expressing it. The significance of forming an opinion was echoed by many of the students whose feelings can be expressed in the words of one of their peers, who said,

I think that it is unfortunate that the rest of the course does not push us to form an opinion. It feels as if social workers would have better conditions in general if there was more of an effort to have this approach throughout the education.

Nurturing personal and professional growth

The next point in Larrison and Korr’s (Baron & McLaughlin, 2017) conceptual framework identifies the importance of nurturing personal and professional growth throughout social work education and creating a pedagogical space for such interaction to take place. Moving in this direction, one student commented that ‘I have been genuinely impacted by the course and been inspired to become more involved in debates.’ The course tries to facilitate these processes by, e.g. organizing writing workshops with both journalists and writers. This means offering a pedagogical space where students, in interaction with teachers, can develop their skills in putting pen to paper and representing social work in new and traditional media. These help students do so. The majority of the students also highlighted the confidence gained in lifting their voice to another domain, expressed by one student who commented that,

the course has inspired me to consider making my voice heard in the future on things that I feel should be raised, both at my workplace and in the media. The course also reminded me how important it is to raise our voice on behalf of our clients when they may not have the resources to do so.

The link between the emerging professional identity and the energy and motivation to take on structural issues was evident in one student’s comments, ‘…if we are not at the table, then we cannot help impact society.’ Many social work students lament that they are entering a profession with little space for resistance in their practice. However, this course showed some of them that there are ways to challenge and resist, summed up in a comment by one student, and something which many students referred to in the feedback, that it was ‘inspiring to see what social work can do outside of the “office.”’ This can be linked to the way we encourage students to think outside the box and try to cope with feelings of uncertainty and unease, such as participating in live television debates. One of the underlying emotions that students expressed is that they ‘don’t have to be passive as a social worker.’

Limitations of this study

This small-scale study is based on the responses of students who were motivated to fill in the evaluation form and who chose to attend the reflective meeting. This design does not capture the experiences of students who did not fill in the evaluations questionnaire and, therefore, our conclusions must be taken tentatively. The responses were also filled with comments about the difficulty of applying structural approaches to modern day social work. Naturally, there were also comments from some students who felt that they did not learn anything of particular relevance to their upcoming careers, something that every course hears and uses to improve it for future terms.

Conclusion

Findings from this study add support to the conceptual framework of Larrison and Korr (2013). Whether the students themselves would define the ‘signature pedagogy’ of social work in these terms was not explored in this paper. What is clear from the respondents, however, is the significance of having all three aspects of the framework present in their education. The issue of pre- and post-evaluations and issues of learning outcomes were addressed briefly above, and a strand for further research can focus on how to build consensus on what ‘signature pedagogy’ for social work looks like. The point to take home, based on the findings of this paper, we believe is that the ‘signature pedagogy’ framework of Larrison and Korr (2013) can provide a model for the delivery of critical social work and pedagogical methodologies that are inspired by the framework. All that considered, the course faces a number of challenges, such as financial constraints associated with compensating guest lectures and the linking of local activities to a wider global discussion. However, in many ways, the most salient challenge that remains for us, and for social work education in many jurisdictions, is how to make critical social work thinking and action relatable to the student who will work in a highly bureaucratic and top-down-governed organization. In this respect, we have a way to go.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Wallengren Lynch

Michael Wallengren Lynch is a senior lecturer with the Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg.

Anna Ryan Bengtsson

Anna Ryan Bengtsson is a PhD student with the Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg.

Katarina Hollertz

Katarina Hollertz is a senior lecturer with the Department of Social Work at the University of Gothenburg.