Exploring child protection content in social work curricula in South Africa and Sweden

ABSTRACT

Child participation and agency are vital elements in child protection. Ensuring child participation can contribute to successful interventions. Social workers are often the central agents in ensuring that children participate in matters concerning them and that the best interest of the child principle is adhered to in these matters. The aim of this study is thus to understand if and how social work education in South Africa and Sweden teaches child participation in child protection work. We study curricula for social work programmes in three South African and two Swedish universities. Results indicate broad themes of similar content in curricula in both countries and both indicate gaps in terms of in-depth training in child protection, as well as children to a very low degree are regarded as agents. Students are not explicitly trained to encourage child participation. Further research can show whether and how such knowledge is developed in practice and how the social work programmes can prepare the students for such development. If social workers should be able to promote child participation, regard them as active agents and support them in developing resilience, they need to have that perspective in their fundamental training.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• practice
• children and families
• research
• user participation
• practice
• child protection
• qualifying training

Introduction

Children’s well-being is a core issue for social workers, thus, also for social work education. For this study, we take our point of departure in the UN Child Rights Convention, with a focus on statements about respect for the views of the child (article 12), every child’s freedom of expression (article 13) as well as children’s need of protection from violence, abuse, and neglect (article 19). Taken together, it concerns child participation in child protection. The concept of child participation is vague, and the interpretation varies in different contexts. Faedi Duramy and Gal (2020) clarified the term by relating a general comment from the Committee on the Rights of the Child, stating that it entails ‘ongoing processes, which include information-sharing and dialogue between children and adults based on mutual respect, and in which children can learn how their views and those of adults are taken into account and shape the outcome of such processes’ (Faedi Duramy & Gal, 2020, p. 2). Participation is not present or absent; it can exist to different degrees (Arnstein, 1969).

Participation demands agency, and, as we see it, child participation in child protection is embedded in helping children to develop resilience. Studies have shown pathways to resilience, and there are ways to identify promoting and protective processes (Masten, 2018). Agency is one of the factors for developing resilience. It so is also hope, faith and optimism, active coping and mastery, emotional security, a belief that life has meaning, and belonging (Masten, 2018). To participate is to be included and to belong, and belonging is highly relevant for children. Peers (2018) argues that belonging should not be related to being a property of something or someone but located on a more existential level of experience and knowledge about being integrated with a context. It is a question of being regarded as a subject, not an object. Child participation creates an increased sense and feeling of mastery and control Cf (Leeson, 2007; McLeod, 2007; Munro, 2001). Ensuring participation in matters concerning children places a high responsibility on the social worker who guides the interaction (McLeod, 2010).

With this as a point of departure, we argue that it is essential that social workers are trained to acknowledge children as acting subjects and include them as participants in the processes that concern them as persons as well as the context where they live. Social workers within the field of child protection are faced with many challenges. They are also at the forefront of ensuring that children are afforded the right and opportunity to participate in matters concerning them. With many questions and concerns in practice regarding children not always being allowed to participate in matters during child protection investigations, as researchers in this study, we aspired to critically review the content of social work curricula to determine how and what child protection content is covered in the curricula as a way to respond to issues in child protection practice.

Aim

This study is based on a comparison between South Africa and Sweden. Two countries on different continents as well as with very different societies. As social work is a global profession, this study was interested to understand how or what difference there might be in the training of social workers in the context of child participation within child protection. If so, how is this training included in social work education? We start our search for answers to these questions by studying curricula for social work programmes. Thus, this study aims to investigate if and how social work education in South Africa and Sweden teaches child participation in child protection. Accordingly, the following research questions are asked:

• What aspects of child protection are included in curricula?

• How is child participation formulated in these curricula?

Literature review

The use of curricula as empirical data in comparative research on educational practices in social work is rare. Most curricula studies concern the need to improve specific academic areas, aiming at advancing pedagogical development projects and teaching methods in all kinds of sciences, predominantly the technical sciences, chemistry, and medicine (e.g. Dries et al., 2017; García-Martínez et al., 2015). Only a few studies in social work include curricula in their data collection and analysis. Canavera et al. (2020) studied over 100 documents from 12 West African countries, including curricula and other programme materials and reports describing social work training programmes in the region. The study aimed at identifying the need for the indigenization of social work in Africa. Costello et al. (2019) used curricula to develop child protection and family work for social workers in Palestine. Pockett (2014) highlights the need to develop curricula to ensure that field learning is integrated into the broader curricula and not seen as separate. Tham et al. (2021) compared the students’ preparedness for practice in six countries by using curricula as one of the data sources besides the researchers’ knowledge of social work education and material from national databases.

Comparative studies of child protection seldom focus on the social worker’s education or whether they acknowledge children’s participation. Midgley and Conley (2010) noted that examinations of child welfare systems in the international literature tended to be dominated by studies of the Global North, and a recent scoping review has shown that most research on child protection social workers between 1995 and 2020 was conducted in developed countries (Molakeng et al., 2021). This review centered on the social workers’ resilience, not the children’s, and did not explore how social workers could enhance children’s resilience. Similar results were shown in a European study involving several countries (Frost et al., 2018) and an Irish study (Mc Fadden, 2020). Both studies concluded that social workers who worked under dire conditions in child protection found informal support and work relations important.

Other studies focus on how social workers understand children. Jensen (2020) found in a comparison of child protection social workers in Chile and Norway that Chilean social workers regarded children as relational agents but as structurally constrained, while Norwegian social workers merely regarded children as independent agents. In an international review, Jensen et al. (2020) found that most literature on how social workers regard children came from a UK context or other Northern European countries. They found that children and youth were seen in the light of their parents, often through a simplified psychological perspective. Generally, children were regarded as objects for interventions, not subjects in their own right, although the idea of child participation was acknowledged.

Khoo et al. (2006) highlighted the discrepancy in perspectives regarding who is resilient, the children or society, as they saw differences in how Swedish and Canadian child protection interpreted the same concepts. While Sweden was more protective of a resilient society, Canada enhanced resilience in individual children. The role of social workers in enhancing individual resilience has also been shown in a study in China. Here, Dan et al. (2021) showed that social work services through educational activities, interest activities, and counseling developed the resilience of migrant children. Buckley (2000) has argued that social work education needs to focus on the ideological, cultural, and organizational influences that shape practitioner perspectives and determine case careers, particularly those in child protection. A study examining trends and drivers in South African child welfare found that the curricula were mainly informed by the same trends that shaped practice. Also, practitioners thought new graduates were ill-equipped to handle practice demands in resource-poor and transforming environments (post-apartheid) (Schmid, 2014).

In conclusion, previous studies have shown the importance of resilient social workers but not how to promote participation for children by regarding them as agents. It is also known that there can be contextual differences in how social workers regard children and their agency and that education shapes the practitioners’ practice.

Contextualising the study

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (United Nations, 1989) is an essential discourse item for understanding children and their situation and social work with them. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identified by the UN have been used widely in national development plans and for measuring development (United Nations Development Group, 2017). The SDGs are essential for social work as they target poverty, hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, and several related aspects promoting human life and development. As they are formulated as goals, they have as aims building for a good life here and now and a better future. However, also the SDGs are subject to interpretation in each specific context.

In South Africa, the UNCRC is embedded Children’s Act of 2005, as outlined in Schiller et al’.s (2023) policy analysis. It is crucial that human rights should be understood in the context of the local culture and also by the welfare system and society. The UNCRC was also made more specific in the African Region by developing the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the child. Here it is explicitly outlined that if a child cannot participate directly in matters concerning them, they should get the required representations to ensure their views are heard.

In Sweden, the UNCRC’s Children’s Act was fully incorporated into the legal system in 2020. However, it had been partly incorporated in several other laws before,,also such as the Social Services Act, which regulates child protection matters. All public institutions are obliged to make their services known, accessible and adapted to children (Governmental Proposition, 2017, p. 186). Although the legislation has promoted child participation, and practices are obliged to be child-friendly, research finds that their influence on the outcome of the efforts has been limited (Leviner, 2018). A recent study revealed that social workers did have appropriate knowledge of the basic principles of child participation but expressed insecurity concerning how to implement this knowledge in practice (Höjer et al., 2022).

Comparing South Africa and Sweden demands awareness of their different socio-economic contexts and intersectional power relations comprising race, ethnicity, religion, norms about children and childhood, and children’s needs and rights. Some overarching glimpses from national data highlight aspects of the different societies and, thus, the different preconditions for social work.

As shown in Table 1, the two countries are different in many core aspects relevant to social work, both regarding resources and needs. They are representations of the Global South and North and have different historical backgrounds. Such differences undoubtedly have implications for patterns of inequalities, social policies, and preconditions for social work. In this context, we will not go deeper into the societal differences but settle for concluding that the preconditions for children’s lives for social work in child protection in the two countries vary tremendously. Still, there are also similarities.

Table 1. National data, South Africa and Sweden 2021 (OECD, 2022).

	South Africa	Sweden
Population - Under 15 years - Over 65 years	59.3 million 28.8% 5.5%	10.3 million 17.6% 17.1%
Life expectancy at birth - Men - Women	64.4 years 61.0 years 67.9 years	82.6 years 80.9 years 84.3 years
The employment rate (aged 15 and over)	35.8%	77.1%
Income inequality/Gini coefficient	0.618	0.275
Relative poverty rate	27.7	8.9

Both countries have public social services and provision of child protection. In South Africa, the government rendered child protection services under the Department of Social Development and funded by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (Strydom et al., 2020). In Sweden, child protection is mainly provided through local public bodies. However, a growing number of private agencies perform child protection work on tax-funded commissions, and to a smaller extent, there are also some civil society initiatives in the field.

Both countries have social workers working in child protection after being trained at universities. Moreover, both countries relate their social work education to the international agreements on social work education and social work as a profession. In these definitions, the social work profession has as its core mandate the tasks to promote social change and development, social cohesion and the empowerment and liberation of people (International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW], 2014). The social change mandate and the initiatives taken recognize the place of human agency and, thus of participation. The overarching principle of social work is respect for human beings’ inherent worth and dignity. Furthermore, the social work methodology engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance well-being (IFSW, 2014). This definition is valid for social work globally, even if local preconditions and focuses differ widely.

The social work programmes

Social workers in South Africa undertake a 4-year Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) undergraduate degree. This degree is offered at 18 universities. All the universities design their curricula, which are directed by the national guiding standards developed by the Council for Higher Education (Council on Higher Education [CHE], 2015) as captured in the Higher Education Qualifications sub-framework. Social work is a profession, and all social work students and qualified social workers must register with the South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP). The SACSSP is the regulatory body for social work and audits universities’ curricula regularly to ensure compliance and consistency throughout the country. However, each university retained academic freedom to package its curricula in its format to comply with the National Standards.

The sub-framework emphasizes that the qualification should be broad and flexible, responsive to different contexts, be of sufficient complexity to ensure that graduates possess the capacity to think on their feet, facilitate the transfer of knowledge and skills from one context to another, ensure that graduates uphold the requisite ethical standards, and allow graduates to register with the professional council (SACSSP) to practice and pursue postgraduate studies (CHE, 2015, p. 7).

The social work programmes in Sweden take the form of 3.5 years of studies, where three years is at the undergraduate level and the last 0.5 years at the graduate level. For the degree of Bachelor of Science in Social Work, the student must demonstrate the knowledge and skills required to work autonomously as a social worker at the individual, group, and community levels. Similar to South Africa, the emphasis is on generic knowledge and skills that can be applied in different settings and varied professional roles.

In Sweden, there is only one license; for social workers in health care, and they have one-year of further education after the social work degree. The legislation states that professionals investigating, assessing, and deciding on child protection should hold a social work degree (The Social Services Act, 2001, p. 453, Ch. 3, §3a). State bodies set the requirements for all academic degrees that the government decides and formulates in the Higher Education Ordinance (HEO, 1993). Like South Africa, the requirements given in the HEO form the basis of the curriculum that has to be used as a framework for all social work education. Nineteen different universities run social work programmes. Further, local goals might be added as each university decides how to organize its programme in terms of how the courses and modules are organized and distributed. Systems for securing the quality of the programmes in line with HEO are built at both the local university level and the national level.

Methods and material

This study is based on collaboration within the South African Swedish University Forum (SASUF). One primary driver of SASUF is how research in the two countries can contribute to attaining the United Nations SDGs. We started the study with an exploratory perspective which led to the focus on children and their participation as presented in this study. Three universities in South Africa and two in Sweden are included in this specific collaboration.

The participating universities in South Africa are the University of Fort Hare, the University of Kwazulu-Natal, and the University of Limpopo. In Sweden, they are Lund University and Örebro University. All universities teach undergraduate social work education programs and, thus, give social workers their basic training for practising the profession. All the universities are affiliated with the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSSW) and embrace the international definitions of the social work profession and its ethical principles.

There are indications that some comparative studies have advanced the expansion of innovative social work programmes and practices (Thyer, 2021, p. 4). To that end, this study analyzed the curricula at the five universities participating in this specific SASUF collaboration to determine similarities and differences within the child protection context. This kind of material does not contain sensitive personal data and no ethical vetting was required within both countries’ contexts (Swedish Ethical Review Act, 2003, p. 460; DoH 2015 Ethics in Health Research Guidelines).

We applied comparative text analysis methods as described by Thyer (2021) and Kennett and Lendvai-Bainton (2017), which opens various possibilities and limitations for the analysis of public texts. Our analysis was a content analysis and was validated at the different Universities as well as exchanges within this study’s research group.

Data collection and analysis

The comparison is based on audits of the five social work education programmes. In the first step, the researchers presented overviews of the programme design from each university. As a research group, we jointly examined all curricula for our programmes. After that, each researcher validated the identified content with lecturers who were specifically responsible for the different modules at their university in spring 2020. The following step was to scrutinize the identified content to understand if and then how themes concerning children, child protection and child participation were included. We developed a joint matrix for reporting the findings from each programme. This matrix was constructed for reporting the data on the one hand in relation to where it appeared in the programme and on the other hand in relation to the module description and aim, which kind of child protection content, gaps defined and room for comments. Due to different organizational frames at the universities, the validation of this information was slightly different.

The data collection at the three South African universities was conducted in similar ways. A pre-data collection meeting was convened with lecturers of the identified social work modules where they were introduced to the project and matrix. Thereafter the matrix was sent out to the lecturers, who filled in information on their modules. The number of participating lecturers differed between seven and ten due to the different sizes of the teaching teams. Thereafter, the reported information was collated to one single text per programme. As the outlines and descriptions of the different modules identified in the curricula were known to the South African researchers, it was decided to validate the intricacies of the modules with the lecturers to understand the detailed outlines.

The Swedish universities’ data was collected by the researchers themselves, collecting and scrutinizing every course curriculum at the programme for course goals and literature concerning child protection and participation. At one of the universities, the researcher also checked with the leaders for the most explicit child protection courses, five in number, on whether theories and methods on child participation was part of the actual course content, despite the lack of description in curricula. Due to the Covid pandemic, these checks were performed in digital conversations and lasted 20–30 minutes each. At the other Swedish university, a report written in 2018 by lecturers from the social work programme was used. The report analyzed how knowledge on children and child protection was taught in the programme and revealed strong similarities with the findings from the curricula data collection. The study and its outcome were presented and discussed at an open meeting where lecturers from the whole programme and two directors of study, were present. After collecting the data, the researchers filled in the joint matrix.

When the local data had been collected, it was presented and discussed within the research group. The shared matrix structured the presentation where the courses and their content were presented in the text. These texts comprised quotes from the curricula and comments from lecturers about the content. Through this typical structure, similarities and differences became visible. The data analysis process was governed by what George and Bennett (2005) call comparisons within and between, which is a way of theoretically analyzing a qualitative material comparatively. The team of researchers has had continuous discussions on the analysis during the whole process. Apart from an initial in-person meeting over several days, our meetings have been held online. Thereafter, the presentation was developed through repeated online discussions and circulating the manuscript between all five authors.

Findings

Five themes in the social work programs

The overall findings revealed a surprising dominance of similarities and only a few differences. Despite the different contexts in Sweden and South Africa, the programmes turned out to be built on the same logic and include the same themes. The common idea of what social workers need to manage and master permeated the curricula in both countries, while specific preconditions in the two societies were not explicitly visible.

The core design of the programmes was that they started with an introduction to social work, whereafter studies of a legal perspective and knowledge of legislation were added. Thereafter developing the student’s knowledge and skills toward becoming professional social worker workers. Theories and knowledge on interventions relevant to children and child protection were added, and finally, the curricula opened to more specific knowledge for the field of child protection. In this section, we first present the themes individually, and then we present our conclusions and a discussion of the findings.

Theme 1: introduction to social work

The first cross-cutting theme that was identified was the introduction to social work. This largely entailed an overall introduction to the social work profession, illustrating the history and development of social work over the years. As outlined in the content analysis of one of the researchers from Sweden noted, ‘ … that students get the basic knowledge of social work as a discipline, profession, and research area, as well as an understanding of people’s living conditions, needs, and rights’. From the South African universities, a researcher noted that ‘the BSW programme is more generic than focused and specific … students are introduced to the history of social welfare and the social work profession and professional practice’. As part of the introduction, the different methods used in social work are introduced and how this applies to the continuum of social work services across an individual’s life span. Child protection as a social work field is introduced at this level as part of the continuum of services. One of the South African researchers noted that ‘elements of children and child protection are staggered over the four years of the curriculum’. One of the Swedish universities noted that ‘[the introductory] course studies people’s living conditions and social structures from a sociological perspective, with a specific focus on concepts such as power and intersectionality’.

As much as there was agreement on most aspects of how social work is introduced to students with the specific aim of identifying how child protection is introduced, it was noted by researchers at one of the South African universities that ‘there are gaps in requisite child protection content at the first year of the BSW training. These include content-related community structures, processes, services, and policies (cultural and traditional) as well as the introduction of techniques for assessing children’s agency’. This was supported by another South African researcher that stated, ‘the module is too general as it is at an introductory level and might be the prerogative of the lecturer to make emphasis if he or she is interested in aspects of child protection. Considering the extent of child abuse in the province, there is little emphasis on child protection and child agency’.

Most of the introductory courses introduced the concept of human rights and the UNCRC. As one of the Swedish researchers noted, ‘ … [the]UNCRC is one of the very first themes brought up in relation to people’s living conditions, needs, and rights’. One of the South African researchers added that ‘there is no specific focus on child protection, but there is content on the South African Children’s Act and the Bill of Rights’. The other Swedish researcher noted that ‘social policy, the organization, and decision-making processes of the welfare state, as well as the conventions on human rights’ are included as part of their introduction of social work to the students.

The finding that the programmes start with an introductory module does not surprise us. We notice that the introductions are aimed toward essential traits of the social work profession and that they simultaneously constitute the entrance into the programme. At this level, general aspects such as UNCRC and preconditions for social work are at the core. Accordingly, subjects that relate to child protection are not explicit at this level.

Theme 2: legal social work

Legal social work, or statutory social work, was strongly emphasized in all the curricula. One of the Swedish researchers noted that ‘the third semester is fully dedicated to law with two courses in legal issues in social work’. The other Swedish researcher indicated, ‘the second semester consists of three courses, and one covers legal bases in social work with a child focus through family law legislation.’ One of the Swedish universities stated that the primary purpose of law in social work was ‘to study legislation important to practice social work. The course is mainly based on the social service area. It includes knowledge on the investigation, assessment, decision-making, and follow-up processes as well as on the documentation based on the formal legal rules that govern the performance of social work’.

International conventions and policies are covered in both countries, and emphasis is placed on national legislation and policies in the curriculum. In most South African universities, legal, and social work is covered during the final (fourth) year. One of the South African researchers highlighted that ‘an audit of the level four modules indicates a comprehensive focus on children and child protection. The social policy module focuses on relevant national and international policies’. Similar highlights occurred at one of the other South African universities, which states that the module of ‘social work and law […] is about various pieces of legislation from conventions, charters, protocols, and policy statements in relation to social work practice and different target groups’.

The curricula in all five programmes indicate an introduction to the Children’s Act of that respective country and also cover aspects of the criminal justice system. One of the South African universities has a module explicitly aimed at child welfare. It is ‘an advanced course in child protection and [an] in-depth focus on child protection legislation in social work. This course also focuses on different sections in the Children’s Act and its application’. As noted by one of the South African researchers about legal social work, ‘this is still generic as it is upon the lecturer concerned to make emphasis on child protection. At least be specific by singling out the Children’s Act which addresses child protection’.

Other elements of legal, and social work that focus on children are when children conflict with the law or are victims of child trafficking and criminal acts such as sexual abuse. These are all elements of child protection in which children’s views and best interests are particularly salient. One of the Swedish researchers mentions that ‘criminal law is included’, and in this module, youth crime and social assessments in relation thereto are included. Some South African universities outline aspects of ‘ … legislation that pertains to children in conflict with the law and the role of the social worker and child trafficking and provisions of the Children’s Act’. One of the South African researchers mentioned that ‘concerning criminal justice introducing legislation on the Criminal Procedure Act, Correctional Service Act, Sexual Offences Act, Domestic Violence Act, and the Substance Abuse Act, time is limited in ensuring all the critical areas of the Acts are covered’. Another South African researcher mentions a module called ‘Youth at risk’ ‘that focuses on violent young offenders, child sex offenders, restorative justice, diversions, and the Child Justice Bill of South Africa’.

The legal framework for social work is brought up differently in the two countries. It comes a bit earlier in the Swedish programmes, emphasizing a wider perspective on interventions within the public sector. In contrast, the South African programmes are more explicit about the specific problems the laws concern. This might reflect how the different national legal frames are constituted, as, in the end, all programmes cover the same kind of issues about child protection, and the child’s best interest.

Theme 3: development of the social worker as professional

As the social worker is one of the key stakeholders in the field of child protection, developing their skills as professionals are critical. One of the Swedish researchers mentions their focus on professional practice and professionalism ‘ … there is no explicit child focus although most students do internships in workplaces where child protection is the main concern. All assignments demand that children’s perspectives are taken into account’. All the curricula focus on professionalism, communication skills, and assessment skills. One of the South African researchers noted that their module on the foundation of social work practice ‘provides skills, attitudes, and knowledge for the social work practice’. As part of the development as a social worker, the methods of social work are introduced with a specific focus on working with children on all levels of service delivery (micro to macro level). One of the South African universities mentioned that ‘modules on casework and group work focus are more generic with only limited focus on child protection or working with children and are often seen as specializations that are taken as postgraduate courses’. One of the Swedish researcher’s noted that they have a course that focuses on communication and intervention in social work that ‘aim toward being a practising social worker and communicating with people, where one of the tasks is to practice communicating with children, which is a mandatory part of the course’. One of the South African researchers mentions that ‘the lack of adequate basic counseling skills that are age appropriate as well as the requisite child protection skills to reach out and support vulnerable children were identified as gaps in child protection content’.

As part of the development of a professional social worker, research methods and skills are also introduced in the curricula. All the universities indicated that most of the students are interested in doing research projects with children and in child protection. As noted by one of the South African researchers, ‘the social work research module recognizes that children may be particularly vulnerable and require special consideration in the design and when conducting a research study’. One of the Swedish researchers mentioned that ‘most of the students write a thesis that somehow involves child protection and child perspectives’.

The development toward professional social work is very similar in the two countries, but the specific role of working with children in social work is not explicitly trained. Some modules seem to vary between universities, even within the countries, and some students develop their professional role toward working with children through field practice or bachelor theses. All in all, the generic focus of the programmes does not explicitly promote future work in child protection.

Theme 4: theories and interventions relevant to children and child protection

It was noted that theories and interventions are central to all curricula. These were then integrated and adapted to address child protection. It was well noted that all the curricula in some form included ‘human behavior in the social environment’. This is a crucial module to understand the child in intersecting systems in society and how this affects them. One of the South African researchers mentioned that ‘these courses are more generic and do not cover the depth of knowledge needed to work with children’. Some universities indicated that they focus on psychosocial interventions and, specifically, clinical social work; others indicated focusing on trauma, grief, vulnerability, and poverty. Swedish researchers indicated that the students had a selection of courses in their seventh semester focusing on different specialties in social work, where students choose their specialization. One of the Swedish universities indicated the following courses relevant to child protection: Social work with children and families and assessment and child protection”. The other Swedish researcher indicated psychosocial work with children, adolescents, and families”. One of the Swedish researchers noted that ‘there is a consistent and explicit child perspective with the UNCRC at the center’. Another comment by one of the universities was that “it is demanding to teach children’s perspectives as it is found that students’ perception of children is generally objectifying”. It was noted that the curricula were all uniquely packaged but with similar focus areas.

In summary, we conclude that how and to what extent theories and interventions were developed varied between the countries. While the South African programmes promoted generic knowledge for interventions that could be useful also in child protection, the Swedish programmes offered specialization, where students could focus more or less on children and child protection. Still, this is what is explicit in the curricula. As we will see in the final section, a kind of specialization toward working with children becomes clearer also in the South African programmes.

Theme 5: field of child protection

It was noted that child protection and children’s matters were mostly integrated into a selection of modules, predominantly at the advanced level. One of the South African researchers mentioned that ‘a final module, named integrated and reflective social work, integrates all the theory taught during the four years. Students need to use theory to apply it to specific case studies. Much focus is also placed on the field of child protection and the understanding of how services also relate to national strategies and international SDGs’. Some universities had specific modules that focused on child welfare and youth at risk. One of the South African researchers indicated that ‘students have a specialized course in child welfare that is an advanced course in child protection that deals with children’s issues and the Children’s Act’. One of the other South African researcher’s universities noted that ‘having a dedicated section on children could help to address child agency and child protection’. All the universities indicated that many their internships included working with children in school, vulnerable children in society, and exposure to child protection work at selected agencies. One of the South African researchers mentioned that ‘children in need of protection may also be identified through group work programs and referrals are conducted to the relevant child service departments. Block placement at agencies also allows students to engage in social work interventions with children directly’. One of the Swedish researchers mentioned that in their final course, namely professional social work, ‘ … knowledge, skills, and abilities gained by students in the programme being pursued. Students work on complex cases, where children are parts’. In many courses, students can choose to emphasize children or not. The best interests of the child are key and the UNCRC is law in Sweden and takes center stage when working with children.

The final phase of the programmes in the two countries take, as shown, slightly different paths. Nevertheless, social workers in both South Africa and Sweden are primarily trained as generic social workers, while the area of child protection is an explicit part of education.

Discussion

Based on the results and themes presented, we will discuss our findings from the comparisons within each of the countries and the comparisons between the countries. In the first section, we focus on the similarities and in the second on the variation.

Considering that CHE and SACSSP guide social work education and training in South Africa, all programmes are similar. However, the contextual issues across the country dictate minor differences. As they develop their programs, the CHE standards require all universities to consider their contexts with space for minor variations. Degrees are primarily generic, starting with an introduction and contextualization of social work, then emphasizing legal or statutory elements, the social worker as a professional, and then theories and interventions that can be adapted to work with children. Although child protection is dealt with in the curricula in South Africa, the depth and breadth of the content were questioned, especially in aspects of child participation and agency.

The two Swedish programmes also showed a high degree of similarity, specifically in their structure and the themes that were brought up. The Swedish students receive generic training in social work; no course is specifically aimed toward working with children except for those that include field practice in child protection and those that offer students an elective course on children and child protection in the last semester. Knowledge about children is, in the curricula, based on theoretical and psychological perspectives, primarily concerning attachment theory and developmental theories. General knowledge of the legal frameworks of child protection and UNCRC focuses on the child’s best interests. The more practical social work training concerns general knowledge of tools for inquiry, assessment, and decision-making in child protection, with some practical training in communicating with children. However, no explicit and general view of children as participating agents exists. In both universities, there is room for some minor variation due to the lecturers’ experiences and the examples they bring in. When students themselves can choose their focus in assignments, there is a high rate of child focus.

The similarities in the curricula are evident from these comparisons within the countries, even if there are minor local variations. Both countries indicated the content of child protection in their curricula broadly. Notably, all mentioned the silence of children as agents and the lack of skills in promoting and ensuring child participation.

The variation within the countries is more at an administrative level and not so much in the content of the programmes. Although the programmes are generic, there are differences in the sense that emphasis on child agency and child protection are presented at different levels. At one university in South Africa, not even a single module on child protection is offered, except that children are lumped together with vulnerable groups.

In Sweden, the differences are merely at a theoretical level, mirroring several of the theoretical, and hence, disciplinary, diversities and tensions that support social work, mainly those extant between psychology and sociology. The tension is visible in the education at the universities and between them. Both emphasize classical psychological theories of human development; however, while one leans more toward psychological attachment theory and practical and empirical perspectives, the other merely leans toward a theoretical, sociological, social constructivist base.

Moreover, the elective courses on community work in one of the universities and mobilization and entrepreneurship in the other build on the same historical branch of social work; however, their perspectives vary. While the first seems more focused on the links between the individual, group, and society, the other focuses more on individual agency within the existing neoliberal structures. Furthermore, the first focuses on community work with children and youth among other categories, while the other does not have any focus on children and youth. These nuances promote slightly different perspectives on children and their agency and resilience.

The variations are seen to exist as much within each of the countries as between the two and could, in some cases, be tied to details as the variations come with different lecturers’ perspectives. On an overarching level, the result showed that it is reasonable to talk about similarities in curricula for social work education and that children, to a very low degree, are regarded as agents in both Global South and Global North.

Conclusion and recommendations

This study has shown that the studied social work programmes in South Africa and Sweden show a high degree of similarities and that knowledge of children and child participation are parts of the programmes, but to a low degree and mainly in elective courses and modules. It has also been shown that students are not generally trained in working with children as that kind of knowledge is to a high degree depending on field practice, bachelor theses, elective courses, or specific the students’ and/or the lecturers’ particular areas of interest. Social work curricula are generic education aimed toward a generic professional role of social workers, in line with the international agreements and definitions of the social work profession. This outcome strengthens the impression of social workers as a global profession. However, it also raises questions about how social workers are supported to implement their generic knowledge into specific practices and situations in varying societal contexts. We have noted the differences between the two studied countries and have not seen differences in the programmes that reflect much of the varying contexts. This might mean that the local and specific knowledge needed is trained in other ways and in contexts, we cannot grasp through studying the curricula.

This study focused on how social workers are trained to acknowledge children as active subjects and encourage children’s participation in aspects that concern them and their lives. Thus, we focused on how issues concerning children were included in the curricula. We hoped to find examples that could help to develop our programmes. Unfortunately, this study did not reach further than Jensen et al. (2020), who found that even if there is a well-known idea of child participation, children are generally regarded as objects for interventions. Also, Schmid’s (2014) results, showing that new graduates are regarded as ill-equipped for practice, could be said to have been confirmed through this study. Students are not explicitly trained to encourage child participation. They are educated in generic aspects for social work with children, but not trained in doing the social work together with the children.

The results lead us to two recommendations, one concerning further studies and one concerning the development of social work education. We must move beyond the social work undergraduate programmes to understand how social workers are trained to promote child participation. Future studies should focus on practitioners that do work with child participation to understand how and in what context they have developed their skills. The knowledge that could come from such studies is needed for social work programmes, as social workers who guide the interaction with children has a high responsibility (cf. McLeod, 2010). If social workers should be able to promote child participation and regard them as active agents and support them in developing resilience, they need to have that perspective already in their fundamental training.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kerstin Svensson

Kerstin Svensson is a Full Professor in Social Work, School of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden. Her research interests concern professions and organisations. Social work is in her focus, and she has studied professional development in social work as well as how social work practice is organized in various settings.

Ulene Schiller

Ulene Schiller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Development at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. Her research interests concern child protection, child participation, social work education, and social innovation.

Runa Baianstovu

Rúna í Baianstovu is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Örebro University, Sweden. Her research interests concern the democratic capacity of society to promote equality and justice, through social work and social policy, in a changing, globalised world. In that context the education of social workers is one of many key components.

Jabulani Makhubele

Jabulani Makhubele is the Director of Research and Innovation at the University of Venda. He is the Professor of Social Work. His research interests span across several areas including child, youth and family issues, migration studies, climate change and environmental social work.

Johannes John-Langba

Johannes John-Langba, PhD., MPH is a Full Professor in the School of Applied Human Sciences and Founding Director of the College of Humanities Doctoral Academy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His current research focuses on the social determinants of health and wellbeing, data ethics, child abuse and neglect, and unpaid care work with family members living with mental and neurological disorders.