The Film Club: Reflections on the Use of Contemporary Film to Teach Ethics to Social Work Students

Abstract

The use of film in teaching social work ethics presents a creative contemporary tool for social work educators. This paper reviews some of the evidence of the benefits of film as an approach to helping students explore ethics in social work practice. Insights from a pilot project, known as the Film Club, which looked at the use of film to teach ethics to social work students on an MSc Social Work programme, are presented. The paper comments on how the use of film can be both beneficial and challenging in teaching ethics to social work students.

Keywords:

• Social Work
• teaching ethics
• student learning

Acknowledgements

The authors would like the thank our colleague Donna Jones for original ideas around the Film Club and her contribution to setting up and running the Film Club.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest was reported by the authors.