Preparing students for the profession: examining power within social work

ABSTRACT

Social work educators are tasked with students to incorporate into practice the skills of engaging diversity and difference, advancing human rights and challenging social injustice. Students are asked to engage with concepts and practices that confront the status quo of institutionalized oppression. Yet, students may not be exposed to examination of the ways in which social work practitioners may unintentionally recreate and reinforce hierarchies of inequity through common social work policies and practices. Educators can prepare students by implementing strategies in the classroom that illuminate the privilege inherent in the profession of social work, and the power and control over clients’ lives that come with the degree. Educators also need to provide context for academic material, acknowledging the economic, social, and political framework within which that knowledge is put to use. Finally, educators need to prepare students to be reflexive in their practice, in order to proactively address power imbalances. This can be done by providing examples of educators’ own practice and the ways in which they may have inadvertently reinforced ideas and values that have historically resulted in marginalization of clients.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work education
• power
• privilege
• reflexive practice
• reflexive teaching

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Katherine M. Walbam

Katherine M. Walbam, PhD, LICSW is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Salem State University. She teaches clinical practice, human behavior, and field education, and emphasizes the roles of development, human rights, and social justice in social work practice. She has close to 20 years of clinical experience with children, adolescents, and their families.

Heather Howard

Heather Howard, MSW, PhD, LICSW is an Assistant Professor at the Sandler School of Social Work at Florida Atlantic University. She is committed to educating graduate students to become social justice-based social workers. Her research and writing interests focus on gender-specific and trauma-informed care for women that reduces stigma and encourages health empowerment. Heather has over 23 years of clinical experience in social work in healthcare. Her clinical expertise is the treatment of grief and loss, trauma, and substance use disorders.