Social justice and rationing in the allocation of field practicums

Abstract

This paper argues that rationing of placements has emerged in response to increasing scarcity of supervisors and appropriate practice learning opportunities. Although assessment of students' learning needs is claimed to be the allocative mechanism for students into practice placements, the emerging rationing system combines a system of selection and placement, choice and compulsion. This rationing system creates classes of students and supervisors and exposes inequities and injustices to the least advantaged. Furthermore, rationing demonstrates the systematic nature of discrimination in field education and exposes paradoxical positions on social justice in the policy, content and practices of social work education.