Community service learning in complex urban settings: challenges and opportunities for social work education

ABSTRACT

Urban diversity poses significant challenges for social work education in Europe’s major cities. These challenges manifest themselves in an accumulation of conflicts, inequalities, and fracture lines between individuals, networks, cultures, but also different groups and their institutional and political environments. This current challenge for the education of the next generation of social workers is also related to the rapidly changing environmental conditions and complexity of the urban diversity. Urban society is increasingly fragmented and diverse requiring new knowledges and tools to support future social work practice. The aim of the paper is to analyze the potential of Community Service Learning (CSL) as an approach that can be effectively applied in complex urban settings. CSL is an experiential learning format that integrates academic and experiential learning within a community service context. The participative training model identifies three basic principles: civic engagement, cooperative and multiple learning, and the importance of critical reflexive learning. This paper builds on existing CSL literature and represents ongoing discussions in an Erasmus+ project, exploring social work education in complex urban settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work education
• urban complexities
• community service learning
• experiential learning
• partnerships
• ethical considerations

Acknowledgments

We want to thank our international colleagues who participate in this Erasmus+ project with us for the stimulating exchange during the development of our joint course. We also want to thank the urban residents, students, professionals, and teachers who shared their experiences with us during a workshop on Community Service Learning in February 2020 in Brussels.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ERASMUS+ Programme under Grant number 2019-1-BE02-KA203-060321

Notes on contributors

Erik Claes

Erik Claes is lecturer and researcher in Social Work at Odisee University of Applied Sciences, Belgium.

Mieke Schrooten

Mieke Schrooten is lecturer and researcher in Social Work at Odisee University of Applied Sciences and Assistant Professor of Social Work at Antwerp University, Belgium.

Hugh McLaughlin

Hugh McLaughlin is Professor of Social Work at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

Judit Csoba

Judit Csoba is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Debrecen, Hungary.