Integrating Spirituality into the Social Work Curriculum

Abstract

This study examines MSW students' satisfaction with the integration of spirituality content into the social work curriculum at a nationally recognized university. The results showed that, when compared with cohort sections without such content, satisfaction with inclusion of topics related to spirituality were significantly higher for two courses. While these two courses specifically incorporated spirituality content, their approaches to integration were very different. Qualitative data revealed students' views of the role of spirituality, the areas of social work service/practice in which spiritual issues occur, and various approaches to integration. These findings point to a plurality of ways to integrate topics of spirituality with topics of professional values in social work curricula.

Key Words:

• Social work education
• spirituality
• religion
• students' perspective
• program evaluation