The Implicit Curriculum in Social Work Education: The Culture of Human Interchange

Abstract

This article focuses on the culture of human interchange, which is included as a component of the implicit curriculum in the current EPAS. It presents the use of the implicit curriculum concept in teacher and medical education as a context for its application to social work education. The authors argue that professional behaviors taught in the explicit curriculum of the classroom need to be consciously reinforced in the many venues and through the ongoing interpersonal relations throughout the educational environment. The article identifies the challenges that movement in this direction would create but which the implicit curriculum standard mandates us to address.

Keywords:

• implicit curriculum
• culture of human interchange
• interpersonal relations

In 2008, the Council on Social Work Education introduced a new framework for accreditation of social work education programs emphasizing the responsibility to educate for 10 specific professional competencies. As a result, the curriculum design now includes an integration of a program's mission and goals, explicit curriculum, implicit curriculum, and assessment of educational outcomes (EPAS, 2008). Intended to encourage flexibility, programs now have the opportunity to develop innovative approaches to preparing students for contemporary and emerging social work practice relevant to the context and mission of the school.

The implicit curriculum is a newly identified and distinct component of the curriculum. It refers to “the educational environment in which the explicit curriculum is presented” (EPAS, 2008, p. 10). In this way, the latest EPAS places greater emphasis than before on context as influencing the development of a school's mission and program. It is consistent with this focus that the context in which the explicit curriculum is taught be emphasized as well (Holloway, Black, Hoffman, & Pierce, 2008).

The implicit curriculum in social work education includes policies, procedures, and processes related to admission, advisement, retention, and termination; student participation in governance; administrative structures; and faculty and resources. It is manifested through policies that are fair and transparent in substance and implementation and through the qualifications of the faculty. All of the above are said to inform the student's learning and development through the culture of human interchange, the spirit of inquiry, support for difference and diversity, and values and priorities in the educational environment, including the field practicum.

The EPAS mandates that programs describe and discuss how the learning environment models affirmation and respect for diversity and its specific plans to improve their success in this area. Programs also must speak to policies and procedures for admissions, advisement, retention, and termination; students' rights and responsibilities in formulating and modifying policies affecting academic and student affairs. Finally, programs must describe faculty qualifications and demonstrate adequate resources for achieving their mission.

While the EPAS elaborates on the elements discussed above, there is little discussion concerning “the culture of human interchange” (p. 10). The profession of social work includes, as central values, the dignity and worth of the person and the importance of human relationships. It is therefore expected that these values will be demonstrated and reinforced in all educational venues and processes. The addition of the implicit curriculum standard in the latest EPAS draws attention to the need to strengthen our focus upon and activity in this area. This article addresses the human interchange component of the implicit curriculum and provides recommendations for social work educators.

THE CULTURE OF HUMAN INTERCHANGE

“The culture of human interchange” is described in the EPAS (p. 10) as a component of the medium through which the elements of the implicit curriculum inform the student's learning and development. There appears to be an assumption that if all of the above components meet the desired standards, the resulting culture of human interchange in the school environment will promote the mission and goals of the program. This article asserts that, on their own, the identified elements are not sufficient to create a quality of human interaction between and among students, faculty, and staff that will maximally reinforce the explicit curriculum. In order to strengthen the positive impact of the educational milieu, the authors suggest that additional educational interventions are required in the day-to-day human interchange among all constituents of the educational program.

Universities hold academic freedom as a primary value, which implies that all members of the community may question, comment on, and critique any relevant issue. However, freedom of expression is expected to exist within an environment of civil discourse, respect for others' opinions, and the ability to handle disagreement and conflicting opinions in a civil manner. In social work education, such behaviors are considered more than freedoms and responsibilities. Individual and interpersonal behaviors are circumscribed in our explicit curriculum in Competence 2.1.1, which calls for each student to “Identify as a professional social worker and conduct oneself accordingly.” This can be accomplished through behaviors that include the practice of personal reflection and self-correction to ensure continual professional development, as well as evidence of professional roles and boundaries and demonstration of professional demeanor in behavior, appearance, and communication (EPAS, 2008, p.3). These practice behaviors are designed to articulate and teach students how to interact at all levels in their professional lives, including every arena of their educational environment. The desired behaviors can be fostered both within and outside formal structures such as classrooms, committee meetings, gatherings of students and faculty/staff, and in field placement. They are behaviors that can both be “taught” and “caught” (Shulman, 2010), that is, that can be promoted through education (the explicit curriculum) and socialization (the implicit curriculum). Accordingly, in order to strengthen the impact of professional social work education, the authors assert that educators must react whenever confronted with behavior that is antithetical to our professional goals, regardless of the educational arena in which it occurs. There is a tendency to think of “use of self” and “professional demeanor” as concepts to be taught in the classroom and reinforced in the field. This article seeks to highlight the message of the implicit curriculum, which is that powerful messages often are taught in ways that are not explicit, both inside and outside formal structures and that education for and the practice of self-awareness is a critical component in all social work educational venues.

THE IMPLICIT CURRICULUM IN TEACHER AND MEDICAL EDUCATION

Social work educators are not the first to appreciate the influence of the implicit curriculum. Literature on the concept of the implicit curriculum also emanates from two other sources, elementary and secondary education and medical education. Indeed, the concept has been present in education literature for more than 50 years, originally developed from observations in elementary school education (Jackson, 1968; 1990). The term refers to the values, attitudes, and expected behaviors that teachers and administrators may unintentionally convey through a wide range of policies and informal practices. Eisner (2002) captures its essence in stating:

The implicit curriculum of the school is what it teaches because of the kind of place it is. And the school is that kind of place through the ancillary consequences of various approaches to teaching, by the kind of reward system that it uses, by the organizational structure it employs to sustain its existence, by the physical characteristics of the school plant, and by the furniture it uses and the surroundings it creates. These characteristics constitute some of the dominant components of the school's implicit curriculum. Although these features are seldom publicly announced, they are intuitively recognized by parents, students, and teachers. And because they are salient and pervasive features of schooling, what they teach may be among the most important lessons a child learns. (p. 97)

Teacher educators examine the implicit curriculum and how it socializes students to school environments and contributes to their success (Solomon & Lee, 2008). Expectations, messages, and rules that are not explicitly stated may be hidden or implicit, not easily recognized by individual students but having an impact on their success. Furthermore, what is and what is not taught conveys messages about what is important. Eisner (2002) provides the example of requirements and scheduling as conveying implicit messages. Arts-based courses (such as music or drama) frequently are offered as electives late in the day or as an extracurricular activity, suggesting these subjects are less valued than courses in mathematics or language. Furthermore, this literature also discusses how gender stereotypes and racial inequality often are implicitly perpetuated through teachers' differential behavior toward performance expectations of students.

In medical education, most authors use the term hidden curriculum, and a considerable literature has developed in a number of specialty areas, such as pediatrics (Balmer, Master, Richards, & Giardino, 2009); end-of-life care (Billings, Engelberg, Curtis, Block, & Sullivan, 2010); and psychiatry (Agrawal, Szatmari, & Hanson, 2008). This literature examines the impact of messages from teachers and role models about what is acceptable behavior for a physician (Gaiser, 2009). Role models encountered in clinical rotations include attending physicians, clinical instructors, residents, and other health professionals who, by their behavior and comments, socialize and acculturate medical students to attitudes and behaviors associated with professionalism. When used in the medical literature, professionalism refers to ethical practice, reflection and self-awareness; accountability for one's actions; respect for patients; teamwork; and social responsibility (Hilton & Slotnick, 2005). A key theme across studies is that the values taught in orientation, lectures, and readings regarding professionalism are not uniformly reinforced in clinical settings (Karnieli-Miller et al., 2010). For example, students reported an equal amount of positive and negative experiences with professional demeanor, communication, and time spent with patients on the part of their mentors and clinical instructors (Thiedke et al., 2004). Others found attending physicians unaware of the negative messages that students observed (Wear & Skillicorn, 2009).

A number of strategies are identified in the medical education literature to make the implicit or hidden messages explicit and subject to discussion and analysis with students. These strategies include developing awareness of the existence and impact of the implicit curriculum on the part of all who are instructing students and open discussion with students, course, and clinical instructors (Hafferty & Franks, 1994); attention to ethical situations that occur in any medical education experience such as in patient-contact settings or a clinical or research laboratory (Hafferty & Franks, 1994); during review of institutional policies and procedures to ensure the implicit curriculum does not negatively influence students (Hafferty, 1998); and upon the establishment of specific guidelines and competencies for clinical learning settings with regard to role-modeled behavior (Gofton & Regehr, 2006; Hafferty & Franks, 1994).

In summary, the literature on the implicit curriculum has been conceptualized and studied in primary and secondary education and in medical education. The essential theme in this literature is that the implicit curriculum is conveyed through institutional policies, the physical environment, and human and interpersonal experiences with personnel involved in students' education, including course instructors in lectures and clinical instructors in practice settings. Authors and researchers highlight the influence of the implicit curriculum and imply that it does not receive enough attention.

A gap in this literature reflects the dearth of attention to the need for educational interventions in daily human interchanges that will promote the professional values and demeanor we are mandated to both model and teach. In fact, there are interactions that may be observed, but not used as teachable moments. This article aims to address this reality and consider the implicit messages sent when interactions that do not reflect professional values and demeanor are not made explicit, reflected upon, or discussed.

EXPANDING THE BOUNDARIES OF SOCIAL WORK'S SIGNATURE PEDAGOGY

The 2008 EPAS identifies field education as the “Signature Pedagogy of social work education.” As such, it is the arena “in which [our] profession socializes its students to perform the role of practitioner” (p. 8), and in which students are helped to connect and integrate theory and practice. Lee Shulman introduced this term to the literature on education for the professions and focuses on the importance of socializing students to the professions' fundamental ways of thinking, performing, and acting with integrity. The EPAS asserts that classroom and field are of equal importance within the curriculum, each contributing to the development of requisite competencies of professional practice. To this statement, based on the characteristics of the implicit curriculum, as described in the EPAS, the authors suggest extending the boundaries of the signature pedagogy beyond field settings to the entire educational arena. In this sense, the school itself can be thought of in the same light as a field setting—as a place where students are helped to engage in behaviors that reflect the integration of the profession's theory, values, and skills. Some currently underused activities and structures that provide opportunity for such education include the classroom, school committees, one-to-one exchanges between faculty, administrative staff and students, and the field placement process.

Fostering a Culture of Positive Human Interchange

Modeling

This article has already discussed the impact of the messages and lessons that are conveyed to students outside of the explicit curriculum. The idea of modeling the behaviors we teach as one component of the implicit curriculum certainly is not new. In most instances, social work educators do this automatically. The purpose of this section, however, is to stress the importance of this behavior and to reduce the instances of “slippage” that inevitably occur in stressful or what seem to be “off-duty” moments. Gaiser (2009) explains this particular phenomenon as follows: “We are teaching far more than we know. Every word we speak, every action we perform, every time we choose not to speak or act, every smile, every curse, every sigh is a lesson in the hidden curriculum” (p. 3). According to Gaiser, we are subtly teaching behaviors in hallway encounters with students or when responding to their e-mails. Timeliness in returning messages, the nature of class assignments, and starting classes on time all send a message about an important aspect of professional behavior. We also model professional practice when we intervene when we observe negative interactions among students and between students and faculty and staff. Every encounter potentially is grist for the educational mill.

Intervening in negative interactions

Opportunities in the classroom

Educators and students recognize that professional education requires students to actively engage with contentious issues and propose the need for safe classroom environments, as defined by Holley and Steiner (2005), to be “safety or a safe space in the classroom where students can freely express their ideas and feelings, particularly around challenging areas such as diversity, cultural competence, and oppression” (p. 49). Studies of social work students and instructors show their common recognition of the need for comfortable environments (Chan & Treacy, 1996; Hyde & Ruth, 2002), where instructors take the leadership in creating a climate of safety (Hyde & Ruth, 2002). However, social work classes inevitably include discussion of emotionally charged topics, strongly held personal and professional feelings, as well as complex, messy, and thorny practice issues (Schon, 1987). Many have questioned whether the metaphor of safety is realistic (Boostrom, 1998; Holley & Steiner, 2005; Hyde & Ruth, 2002) given that difficulties will arise in communication, understanding of one another, achieving mutual respect, and resolving different perspectives (Mishna & Rasmussen, 2001; Rasmussen & Mishna, 2003; Mishna & Bogo, 2007).

Indeed, it appears that classroom instructors frequently are uncertain and uncomfortable when faced with student behaviors that challenge the maintenance of a desirable educational milieu. In response to this reality, Chan and Treacy (1996) suggest instructors in fact may unwittingly influence classes in a direction that results in avoidance of conflict and difficult emotions. For example, some students may respond harshly in class to comments of a fellow student who voices a particular view. Often, such students do so without awareness of the negative impact their behavior has on the interpersonal dynamics in the classroom and, in some instances, may feel so self-righteous about their own views that they do not care if their demeanor has intimidated their classmates. When this occurs, it is not unusual for classroom instructors to remain focused primarily on the content of their courses and to overlook (or work around) the expression of educationally inappropriate feelings. The avoidance of attending to these dynamics could result in less expressiveness by students in future classes, which could inhibit the desired “spirit of inquiry.” The inattention to this area may be pronounced in a course such as research or social welfare policy but also is likely to occur in a practice course, which may well include attention to “use of self” as a curriculum item.

Social work educators have recommended a number of useful strategies to form and maintain productive environments such as developing classroom norms with students that include expectations for student behavior as well as the responsibility of the instructor (Chan & Treacy, 1996; Garcia & Van Soest, 1997, 2000a; Tatum, 1992). Norms can be discussed in a way that highlights the tensions that may be encountered in classroom discussions. On one hand, we hope for spirited inquiry, expression of different perspectives, and freedom to deal with difficult issues (Chan & Treacy, 1996; Garcia & Van Soest, 2000b). On the other hand, such discussions sometimes lead to misunderstandings, questioning of one anothers' use of language and tacit meanings, and challenging of opinions (Chand, Clare, & Dolton. 2002). Instructors often note that, despite best efforts to create an inclusive classroom environment, discussion can become controversial. Reflecting on the parallel with social work practice situations, where work with clients, groups, teams, committees, and community members can lead to impasses and ruptures, Mishna and Rasmussen (2001) recommend use of these experiences to teach about practice. The instructor's ability to name and manage tensions and to identify times when particular situations cannot be improved and worked through sends a powerful implicit message about the stance of social work practitioners.

While recognizing that there are many times when instructors are limited in their ability to change the classroom environment, the concept of the implicit curriculum suggests that instructors cannot ignore rising tension and conflict. They need to be attuned to the level of human interchange (EPAS, 2008, p. 10) and, in spite of the structure and topic in the syllabus, the course content needs to shift to consideration of the classroom interpersonal processes. This would involve setting limits on student-to-student confrontations that can be destructive for individual students and for the learning environment (Sullivan & Johns, 2002), meeting with students individually, and extending the discussion to include additional participants so that a plurality of voices and opinions can be heard. Useful to this discussion is an alternate metaphor to safety, that of student civility, defined as “the ability to act as a ‘citizen’ of a group and function in a positive manner so that individual engagement can benefit both the individual and the group” (Marini, 2009, p. 61, offered by Barrett [2010]). Rather than working solely with intrapersonal thoughts and feelings and their expression in the classroom, Barrett proposes that instructors intervene when observable student behaviors cumulatively interfere with the overall quality of the learning through behaviors that range from interruptions to sarcasm to escalation in tone, intimidating comments, and aggressive body language. Respect for the significance of the implicit curriculum should stimulate the social work education community to address the challenging question, how to balance work with group dynamics and attention to substantive content. For now, it remains a judgment call of the instructor.

Opportunities in school committees

The same principles of communication described in the discussion of the classroom may be applied to school committee meetings. Surely every reader has served on school committees in which the flow of unarticulated feelings interfered with a rational progression toward getting the work done. Yet, to avoid open recognition and communication of these observations and feelings is common. In the presence of students, such behavior will reinforce the attitudes most students have been socialized into by the time they enter professional education: that conflict and negative feelings are “not nice” to talk about. If the implicit curriculum is to be as powerful as the explicit curriculum, social work educators need to help reduce the social inhibitions that work against reaching professional goals and objectives. Instead, they must reinforce and model the principles of open communication that we teach, even when the venue is a task-oriented committee.

Opportunities in the field placement process

The field education placement process also presents many opportunities for educating students outside of the classroom and field settings. During the placement process, field education faculty and staff observe students' relationship patterns and personality traits that may relate to their potential as professional social workers. Some of these characteristics may make it a challenge to locate an appropriate placement. All too often, field placement office personnel work around these problems and maintain a singular focus on finding a placement rather than trying to raise students' awareness of the negative impact of their behaviors and helping them to enter the practicum with educational objectives more closely related to the development of their professional selves. The more common practice is to rely on the field instructor to address this educational issue.

An example of the foregoing point arose when a field education placement coordinator, in a conversation with a colleague, relayed that she had just come from working with a student who kept going on and on about her past achievements. The staff person said the student just talked too much and appeared to know little about professional boundaries. She complained that it was hard work just to keep the student focused on what was needed for the placement process to continue. She concluded by saying, “This one will be a handful to supervise.” If we consider it our responsibility to implement an implicit curriculum, this student would have been made aware of her inappropriate and self-absorbed behavior as it unfolded to the placement coordinator. She could have provided feedback to the student about her unfocused and unbounded manner of speech and let her know that she will be learning more about this and about self-reflection when she studies the interview process and professional communication in class.

Challenges to Implementing These Interventions

There are many challenges to the implementation of a serious focus on “human interchange” within the several venues of the social work education program. After all, the educational culture has socialized us into expectations that the purpose of the classroom experience is to teach content, that the purpose of the placement process is to build skills, and that committees are to do the work assigned. In working to meet each of these goals, there is little expectation that the quality of interpersonal communications will be assessed and addressed. Related to this is that faculty are more accountable for scholarship, teaching, and service than for helping students to improve their interactional skills. As long as an instructor's teaching evaluations are satisfactory, there generally is relatively little attention paid to classroom dynamics as a component of the educational process. In short, there is little pressure and scant reward for attending to the socio-emotive aspects of the classroom environment. Finally, it is difficult to address the negative emotions that influence classroom dialogue. Initiating what is meant to be a conflict resolution process could lead to hurt feelings, with little time to assuage them and to end the class on a positive note. If we were to strengthen this component of the implicit curriculum, classroom instructors may need to gain skills in how to do so effectively.

Leaders in higher education have highlighted the role of doctoral programs in preparing the next generation of instructors and scholars for roles in scholarship, research, and teaching. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Initiative on the Doctorate characterizes the purpose of doctoral education as preparing future stewards of a discipline (Carnegie, 2011). This entails educating individuals who “will creatively generate new knowledge, critically conserve valuable and useful ideas, and responsibly transform those understandings through writing, teaching, and application” (Golde et al., 2006, p. 5). Leaders in social work doctoral education have argued also for recognizing the responsibility for the professional enterprise “playing a central role … in understanding and improving social work practice and the delivery of social work services” (Anastas & Kuerbis, 2009, p. 72). Following such an approach, doctoral programs would be committed to developing social work educators with competence for effective practice as social work teachers as well as the capacity for curriculum development and scholarship.

If teaching is conceived of as professional practice (Schon, 1987; referred to as academic practice by Light, Calkins, & Cox, 2009), it requires knowledge about learning, accompanied by teaching experience. Such experiences would include reflective supervision with peers and master teachers for the purpose of examining one's educational practice, developing a teaching persona, and developing the ability to recognize and intervene effectively with the situations described in this article—situations that may arise when the values embedded in the implicit curriculum need to be addressed in formal and informal interactions. In his seminal work, Schon (1987) makes clear that educating professionals requires a place and a space for students to elaborate, refine, and modify existing knowledge through reflecting on its meaning and usefulness for the particular situations encountered by a professional. It is unknown whether doctoral students currently experience this type of preparation in doctoral social work programs. Indeed, it has been more than a decade since the social work literature has provided systematic information about preparation of doctoral students for their role as educators (Valentine et al., 1998).

CONCLUSION

The implicit curriculum is a newly identified standard of the EPAS (2008). This article focuses on one of its components, the “culture of human interchange.” Since the introduction of this standard, we expect social work educators will begin to share the approaches they are using to implement the Council's expectations. Holosko, Skinner, MacCaughelty, and Stahl (2010) in fact have appropriately credited the EPAS for the impetus to articulate and formalize the significance of what “many of us have long understood [about] the significance of professional socialization of social work students” (p. 421).

In order to maximize the influence of professional socialization and acculturation, this article argues that the professional behaviors and practices taught in the classroom need to be consciously reinforced in all venues of the educational experience. The EPAS identifies field education as the arena in which the application of the profession's values become integrated with practice. This article argues that the conceptual boundaries of the field be expanded to all areas of the educational program. We argue, in fact, that wherever students engage in professional and educational interactions with others, they be helped to do so in a way that reflects the values and core principles of our profession.

Movement in this direction would present an additional challenge to instructors who are understandably focused on the content they teach. However, since EPAS (2008) puts forth that “the implicit curriculum is as important as the explicit curriculum in shaping the professional character and competence of the program's graduates” (p. 10), social work educators are expected to meet the challenge.