International Approaches to Social Issues

UNIT 2: Social work in Italy, the Czech Republic, and the United States

  • How is social work defined within specific countries? 
  • What is different? 
  • What is the same? 
Readings: 
Availability of texts

The texts are available in the course materials.

Bertotti, T. (2021). Social work education in Italy: Backwards and forwards in the establishment of the social work discipline. In Social Work Education in Europe (pp. 111-135). Springer, Cham. 

Campanini, A. (2007). Country Perspectives: Social work in Italy. European Journal of Social Work, 10(1), 107-116. 

Gulová, L., & Střelec, S. (2019). Social work in the Czech Republic–Origin and role in education. CzechPolish Historical and Pedagogical Journal, 11(2), p. 99. 

Janebová, R. (2022). Loïc Wacquant, the concept of the ‘Centaur state and social work: The case of the Czech Republic. European Journal of Social Work, 25(1), 4-14. 

National Association of Social Work. (2020). Social workers: This is who we are. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x76h8X8RmhA 

University of Southern Mississippi. (2018). What is social work? Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQjtGCpdd70 

Assignment: Comparing Social Work across Countries

Describe social work in your own country of origin, including opportunities and challenges, and how does it compare it to one other country (see assignment description for more details 

Objective: Participants are to reflect on social work in their own country and contrast it with one other. 

Description: This assignment is designed to have students reflect on the social work profession in their own country and how it compares to one other country that they are learning about in this course. The paper should be 5-7 pages, and use three course readings and two outside readings and briefly describe the following: 

Part 1: Describe the following for social work in your own country 

1. History of social work 

2. The mission of social work 

3. The educational processes for social workers (the degrees offered and describe the typical training that social workers receive) 

4. The roles that social workers hold (the ways that they practice, in what settings, typical jobs for social workers, practice licenses that social workers can hold) 

Part 2: Using the sections above, describe the sections in part 1 for a different country 

Part 3: Describe the following 

1. After you have completed the description, compare and contrast each of the sections listed in part 1 to another country you are learning about in this course. Where are the differences? What are the similarities? 

2. After you have made the comparisons, please provide your reflections on these differences and similarities. What did you notice? What was remarkable about the profession in these two countries? What observations can you share after comparing social work across these countries? 

Deadline: 15.4. 2023






Předchozí
Následující