Decolonisation is redressing colonial legacies and reaffirming self-determination. Understandings of decolonisation in social work field education literature were examined using a social justice lens. This scoping review combined systematic database searching with decolonising methods including relational searches. Data synthesis included thematic and deductive analysis to critical frameworks. The 43 studies included were primarily English-speaking and post-2010. Themes emphasised integrating Indigenous knowledge, challenging White dominance, reconstructing spaces, promoting critical reflection, and understanding socio-political contexts. Analysis highlighted the need for ameliorative and transformative change. Cultural and epistemic injustices embedded in social work field education marginalise non-White social work students. If unaddressed, harmful practices will be perpetuated.

This study aims to investigate the role of school social workers in emergencies within educational settings. Using a semi-systematic methodology, it identifies relevant research to provide a comprehensive overview of literature covering school social work and emergency interventions. Through an analysis of 22 articles representing diverse global perspectives, this study sheds light on the intricate interplay within these domains. Its significance lies in revealing current knowledge while pointing to unexplored avenues for practitioners and researchers. By examining the experiences and strategies of school social workers, this study uncovers the dynamic approaches employed during emergencies, providing essential insights for effective emergency management. Social capital is widely employed when seeking to understand resilience and vulnerability in times of natural hazards and man-made disasters and crises. In this paper, a social capital perspective, broken down into bonding, bridging, and linking levels, is applied to the results. This enables an analysis that argues for the importance of adopting a systemic approach. The results show that social workers in schools play a vital role in all phases of disaster and crisis management. While the majority of research focuses on the response after an event has occurred, the findings from the reviewed articles also indicate the importance of involvement in the preparation and planning phases. These findings underscore the importance of social workers having an understanding of education, psychology, and community well-being. More research and education about the readiness and preparedness of school social workers in the Nordics is required.

This paper reports on an international research project designed to explore the relevance and impact of creative journaling as a pedagogical tool during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project involved seven social work and social policy educators from eight countries: namely, Canada, India, Israel, Jersey Island, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and United States of America. Our work comes out of a larger mixed-method project that aimed to understand how creative journaling may help to facilitate transformative learning experiences and professional socialization processes of social work students. The data used for this article explicitly interpret conversations from two transnational focus groups, comprising 15 students from six participating countries (Canada, Spain, Jersey, India, UK, United States of America) in 2020–2021. Five significant themes emerged: Remote Learning during COVID-19, Self-care during COVID-19, Learning through the use of the Bok, Personal and Professional Identities, and Pathways toward Transformative learning. The findings revealed that creative journaling practices were important components of students’ professional development processes. Our intention with this paper is to contribute conceptual and practical insights into the implementation and impact of creative journaling practices. 

This paper presents a reliable tool for measuring transformative learning in undergraduate social work education, the Social Work Transformation Survey (SWTS). The SWTS was developed from a qualitative theoretical model and translated into quantitative scales. The study collected data from 248 undergraduate students from eight countries who participated in a transnational project using creative journaling to facilitate transformative learning. Structural equation modelling was used to validate the internal structure of the SWTS. We then confirmed the measures’ reliability, and subsequently the effectiveness of creative journaling practices as a pedagogy for facilitating transformative learning in social work students. This paper highlights the potential of combining qualitative and quantitative research approaches to develop educational evaluation tools for higher education settings and presents one specific measure for transformative learning

In the spring of 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, social work teachers and students in Lviv provided shelter support to internally displaced people (IDPs). This paper explores the challenges faced in setting up and providing shelter for IDPs, as well as adapting pedagogy to the crisis. An online transnational collaboration and retrospective analysis approach was employed, using the standards detailed in the SPHERE Handbook to gather information from the teachers and students. Through a descriptive analysis, informed by Honneth’s theory of recognition and service-learning model pedagogy, the results highlighted the complex challenges inherent in humanitarian assistance. This paper contributes to a heightened understanding of the role social work plays in armed conflicts.

In post-industrial countries, collaboration and partnership between schools and stakeholdershave become popular governance models for addressing social problems. Given theprominence of segregation and socioeconomic disparities in Malmö, schools are instrumentalin combating inequality and fostering social capital. This research paper explores theexperiences of school-based youth workers in economically disadvantaged areas of Malmöwithin an organization grounded in community-based practices and perspectives. Research hascontinually underscored the importance of relationships in social work and related arenas suchas education, despite rarely delving deeper into how these relationships are formed. This studyseeks insight into how youth workers based in the schools understand their practices ofrelationship-building with youths. The study employs qualitative research methods to delve intothese aspects, specifically semi-structured interviews with 11 participants. Through theseinterviews, five key aspects of relationship building were identified: showing care by being yourgenuine self, challenging, providing support, sharing power, and creating opportunities. Thestudy contributes to our understanding of the mechanics of building relationships with youngpeople and can be relevant for others working in similar or related work settings.

This paper presents an international social work education research project that explores therelevance and impact of creative journaling practices as a pedagogical tool for deep and enga-ged learning within our various social work curricula. The research project further aims to un-derstand how reflective journaling can support the intersection of students' personal-professio-nal identities. This presentation comes from a larger mixed-method project that aims to unders-tand how creative journaling may help facilitate transformative learning experiences. The datafor this presentation explicitly interpret conversations from four transnational focus groups com-prised of 15 students from five participating countries in 2020-2021. Five significant themesemerged: Remote Learning during COVID-19, Resilience and self-care, Learning through creati-ve journaling, Understanding self, and Pathways towards Transformative learning. Creative jour-naling practices are essential components of students' professional development processes. Iintend to offer conceptual and practical points of view about the implementation and impact ofcreative journaling practices as a way for other social worker educators to consider how theymight embed such an approach within their own courses to foster students’ transformative awa-reness.

This paper seeks to explore social work educators’ experiences of using technology to teach during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last decade, there has been a move to digitalise higher education in many countries worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a mass exodus from the classroom to the home-based office at breakneck speed and highlighted, amongst other things, the digital divide that exists across the world. This research analysed data gathered from an international study that sought educators’ views on various issues related to working during COVID-19. The data were analysed using a thematic approach. The results showed that social work educators, in general, were favourable to online teaching, although the findings highlight critical areas that require consideration in the climate of increased digitalisation and the uncertainty of when a return to a familiar teaching environment can occur. These findings are considered in terms of a social work education informed by critical pedagogy. The results have implications in terms of finding a workable balance between face-to-face teaching and online instruction.

This research seeks to explore the experiences of social work educators and students working and learning from home. The findings, from an international survey sample of 166 educators and students, showed that the respondents faced issues with private and personal boundaries, felt the impact of working and learning from home on both physical and emotional levels, and experienced challenges to what was expected of them. The respondents primarily used two types of coping mechanisms to manage these challenges. These findings contribute to a broader discussion of the impact of working and learning from home and are relevant for education administrators responsible for their employees’ and students’ well-being. 

While there is an international definition of social work as a profession, little is known about whether there is also a shared pedagogy in social work cross-nationally. To our knowledge, this paper is the first empirical study which aims to fill this gap by applying the concept of signature pedagogy in social work education to explore the commonality of social work pedagogy across countries. The study uses a multi-site case study (six universities in five European countries) through applying a ‘critical teacher-researcher’ approach in generating the data, followed by a two-phased thematic analysis. The study evidenced a shared principle of social work pedagogy which nurtures social work student to think and perform like a social worker and develop the professional self through developing relationships and dialogue, professional practice, group work, self-reflection and critical thinking. It is argued from, this exploratory study, that even between countries which have different welfare ideology as well as social work history and education systems, there is some common ground in social work pedagogy where one can learn from another through the use of ‘teacher as researcher’ methodologically.

Det finns en internationell definition av socialt arbete som profession men vi vet mindre om huruvida det finns en gemensam pedagogik i hur socialt arbete lärs ut mellan länder. Utifrån vår kännedom är detta det första paper som genom en empirisk studie utforskar vad vi har gemensamt i hur vi lär ut socialt arbete. Studien använder en multi-site case study (sex universitet i fem europeiska länder) genom att använda ”critical teacher researcher” som metod för att samla in data som sedan följs av en tematisk analys i två steg. Studien visade ett gemensamt förhållningssätt i den pedagogik som lär ut socialt arbete där vi alla fokuserar på att ge studenterna en förmåga att tänka och verka som socialarbetare och utveckla det professionella ”jaget” genom att utveckla relationer och dialog, professionell praktik, grupparbete, självreflektion och kritiskt tänkande. Det finns, utifrån den här utforskande studien, grund för att påstå att även länder som inte har en gemensam välfärdsideologi, historik eller utbildningssystem, ändå har några gemensamma principer i pedagogiken i socialt arbete där vi kan lära från varandra genom att använda ”teacher as reasercher” metoden.