- Social Work and Social Welfare education have been constrained by a curriculum framework built around training people for westernized, individually structured social services in the context of a limited array of western styled practice contexts (i.e. hospitals, schools, agencies), and policy structures (programs, institutions, political processes). This has further constrained the imagination of what could be examined, studied, and taught as social work and social welfare in the US. We could promote a framework for our discipline that addresses the interplay of economic, natural and human resources towards common social welfare in ways that promote the use of global concepts, that help us understand social processes and change as natural processes as well as the effectiveness of more formal human interventions at all levels of practice, and using frameworks that more readily apply across cultures and societies.
- This could be done–and we have the example of most academic disciplines and professions to show us it could be done.
- Meaningful and measurable progress could be seen in a decade in the transformation of social work curricula in focus and approach.
- The Globalization of social work education would invite interdisciplinary or cross-sector collaboration in order to be accepted and influential.
- Significant innovation would involve a change in language, concepts, and focus in the global collegial community of social workers and social welfare scholars. Most importantly, we would liberate our profession to engage a fecundity of ideas for generating positive social change and even social justice.