The current situation, bottlenecks, and expectations for the social work education: a pilot study

ABSTRACT

Social work education in Turkey began to grow and expand in the mid-2000s with the rapid increase in the number of social work departments at institutions of higher education. This study aims to identify the current situation of social work education offered at the undergraduate level in Turkey and the problems encountered. For this purpose, an electronic survey was conducted with 40 heads of social work departments. The study found a number of serious problems related to the departments, students, academic staff, curricula, open education programs and field practices, and it laid emphasis on the importance of collaboration among departments and accreditation works to solve the problems encountered.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work education
• social work departments
• curriculum
• Turkey

Acknowledgments

We are thankful to anonymous peer reviewers for their constructive and encouraging feedback which helped us in developing this article for publication.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Oğuzhan Zengin

Associate professor Oğuzhan Zengin is the head of the Department of Social Work at Karabük University, Turkey. His academic interests are social work education and social work interventions.

Kamil Alptekin

Professor Kamil Alptekin is the head of the Department of Social Work at KTO Karatay University, Turkey. He is also head of Turkish Association of Schools of Social Work.

Selami Topuz

Selami Topuz is a social worker at Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services in Turkey. He is also PhD candidate in the Department of Social Work at Ankara University.