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ABSTRACT
Internationalization has steadily grown in importance and scope in tertiary education. In addition to exchange and scholarship programmes that encourage student mobility, curricular internationalization or ‘internationalization at home’ has broadened opportunities to integrate international dimensions into the curriculum. Despite the value of ‘transnational awareness’ for future social workers, the degree to which educators in social work invest in international and intercultural competences still varies greatly. In this article, we argue for an explicit commitment to internationalization in social work education. Based on our joint experience of developing and implementing an Erasmus+ funded multimodal, blended, transnational social work course for undergraduate students, we highlight the power and potential of transnational learning for future social workers. At the same time, the development of such an international course is not without its pitfalls. Therefore, we discuss the structural, organizational, technological, and cultural factors we struggled with when implementing our course. This discussion is based on the evaluation of two editions of our course, collecting the experiences and feedback of the students, lecturers and practitioners involved.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. All learning material and instructions are available on the Urban Diversities website, https://deb.tuas.fi/urban/.
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Notes on contributors
Mieke Schrooten
Mieke Schrooten is Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Antwerp and Odisee University of Applied Sciences, Brussels, Belgium. Her main topics of interest are mobility, transnational social work and informal social work practices.
Ffion Evans
Ffion Evans is a registered social worker, Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Education Lead for the Department of Social Care and Social Work at Manchester Metropolitan University. Ffion’s main interests are in participatory and inclusive education and social work practice, and in critical and social pedagogy.
Raymond Kloppenburg
Raymond Kloppenburg is Associate Professor at the Knowledge Centre Social Innovation of HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht in the Netherlands. He is board member of the European Association of Schools of Social Work.
Judit Csoba
Judit Csoba is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy and Course Director of Social Work Education at the Faculty of Arts, University of Debrecen. She is elected member of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Schools of Social Work. Her research focuses on Sociology of Work, Employment Policy, Integration of Marginalised Social Groups, Social Economy and Community Development.
Sirppa Kinos
Sirppa Kinos is a principal lecturer at Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland and a registered social worker. She has a long experience in development projects in the field of social work education, multicultural society and integration.