Diversity dolls: a creative teaching method for encouraging social work students to develop empathy and understanding for vulnerable populations

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the use of a new teaching method that was developed to encourage students in their first years of study in social work at the Department of Social Work in Athens/Greece to improve their empathy and understanding toward vulnerable populations. The so called ‘diversity dolls’ method is a powerful as well as creative multiapproach that uses dolls (hand crafted dolls and/or readymade commercial dolls) as a basic means for helping students acquire knowledge about more complex or unfamiliar concepts like vulnerable populations and empathy. Dolls appear in all cultures and have a fascinating influence on people all around the world; they look like human beings and as such, can represent different characters. Thus, they are deemed suitable for teaching subjects like vulnerable populations. The ‘diversity dolls’ method proved to be a creative teaching approach for transferring and retaining valuable knowledge so that it can be used by students to achieve their learning goals. This paper looks into both the benefits and implications of using this creative teaching method in social work education.

KEYWORDS:

• Diversity dolls
• creative teaching methods
• social work students
• empathy
• vulnerable populations

Acknowledgments

I am deeply indebted to my students for their honest appraisal of my teaching and for expressing their enthusiasm about the project; they were a source of inspiration to me.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. It refers to the unique characteristics that distinguish individuals from each other and/or identify individuals as belonging to a group or groups.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eleni Papouli

Eleni Papouli PhD, MAICW, BSW is a University Lecturer at the Department of Social Work, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece. She is a licensed social worker with a background in dramatherapy and has more than 23 years of professional, academic and research experience in Greece and other European countries. Her current research interests include social work values and ethics, research ethics, organizational ethics, creative and arts-based teaching and research methods and vulnerable populations and anti-oppressive practice.