The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Work Education Edited by Sajid S. M. · Rajendra Baikady Cheng Sheng-Li · Haruhiko Sakaguchi The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Work Education “This book is an important contribution to the body of literature not only on social work education, but social work and social development praxis. It has been written at a critical juncture when the world seems to be inundated with new and old threats such as inter alia: racism, xenophobia, gender-based violence, climate change, a migrant crisis, and reactionary politicians ascending to power in the traditional liberal democracies and in other parts of the globe. More than ever, social work education needs to adequately equip students with relevant knowledge and skills to respond to the aforementioned challenges. This book will be useful to many educators, prac- titioners, policy-makers and students as it practically covers sixty chapters from forty-three countries located in different regions of the world. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to have both a panoramic view and deeper understanding of social work education across the globe.” —Ndangwa Noyoo, Head of the Department of Social Development, University of Cape Town, South Africa “The editors and contributors to this handbook are to be commended for compil- ing such a helpful and accessible source of information about social work education around the world today. They also provide an insightful analysis of how social work education has evolved and how it seeks to prepare students to serve their communities in many different countries. It will be a vitally important resource for social work edu- cators, students, and researchers everywhere.” —James Midgley, Professor of the Graduate School and Dean Emeritus of the School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley, USA “While sharing many similarities and common characteristics, such as the global defi- nition and standard with their counterparts in other countries, social work in each country has its own uniqueness due to local socio-politico-cultural factors. In this post-colonial era, we have tried to decentre the Eurocentric discourse of social work. Knowing how social work is practiced and institutionalized in different countries will be one of the decentring strategies. Throughout the years, several sets of edited vol- umes have been published to introduce the social work of various countries. This new handbook is an exciting and most updated reference that documents and introduces the social work practice of forty-three countries from around the world, many of which have rarely been introduced in the existing literature. I congratulate the edi- torial team on this meaningful and important contribution to the global social work community.” —Miu Chung Yan, Professor of the School of Social Work, University of British Columbia, Canada “This handbook is essential reading for lecturers, students, policy makers, and social workers, offering an easily accessible opportunity to read how social work education is experienced in a range of different continents and countries within the same con- tinent. These contributions include not only the usual Western suspects such as the USA, UK, and Australia, but importantly voices from nations less frequently heard in the West including Nepal, Botswana, Ethiopia, and Palestine. The book offers the reader an unparalleled opportunity to discover the width and depth of global social work education that is not evident in any other book. The book asks us to question our preconceptions about social work education, challenging us to consider its het- erogeneous nature, its contextualised development, and colonial and post-colonial versions.” —Hugh McLaughlin, Professor of Social Work, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK “In our century—fraught as it is with rapid socioeconomic and technological change, not to forget unprecedented environmental challenges—a multifactorial analysis offered by this book opens new vistas for social work education.” —Vimla V. Nadkarni, Immediate Past President of the International Association of Schools of Social Work, and Former Dean of the School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India Sajid S. M. · Rajendra Baikady · Cheng Sheng-Li · Haruhiko Sakaguchi Editors The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Work Education Editors Sajid S. M. Rajendra Baikady Jamia Millia Islamia Paul Baerwald School of Social Work New Delhi, Delhi, India and Social Welfare Hebrew University of Jerusalem Cheng Sheng-Li Jerusalem, Israel Department of Social Work University of Johannesburg Shandong University Johannesburg, South Africa Shandong, China Haruhiko Sakaguchi Department of Social Welfare Ryukoku University Kyoto, Japan ISBN 978-3-030-39965-8 ISBN 978-3-030-39966-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39966-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © By Eve Livesey/Moment/gettyimages This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland F oreword The establishment of institutions that educate and train new social work- ers is, without doubt, a critical component of the social work professional- ization project. Shortly after the notion of the “social worker” emerged in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, schools intended to convey the knowledge and skills required by budding social workers to address the needs of individuals and families and to alleviate the social problems that led to these, were established. Following the first schools of social work, which opened during the initial decade of the twentieth century in Amsterdam, London, New York, Chicago, and Berlin, additional schools were established in Europe and other continents. During the subsequent two decades, a major effort was undertaken by social work education entrepreneurs to further the internationalization of the profession through conferences and professional associations and networks, publications, and visits. At the same time, educa- tors in schools of social work in different countries sought to move beyond existing knowledge in their efforts to train social workers. Pioneering research projects undertaken by the faculty and students at these institutions focused on gathering data in order to shed light on the conditions of service users and their communities, to highlight their living conditions, and to identify prac- tices and policies required to improve these. Alice Salomon, the key figure in the establishment of social work in Germany and the President of the International Committee of Schools of Social Work at the time, undertook the first effort to document the inter- nationalization of social work education and to offer, what she described, as “a sociological interpretation” of this process. In a book published in 1937, Salomon offered details of 179 schools of social work in 32 countries. Not surprisingly, the schools that existed at the time were predominantly in Western countries. European schools of social work tended to be the model for the handful of schools in Asia, Africa, or Latin America. The establishment v vi FOREWORD of these was often motivated by Christian religious beliefs, and they generally operated with the support of colonial administrations. The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Work Education, edited by Sajid S. M., Rajendra Baikady, Cheng Sheng-Li, and Haruhiko Sakaguchi, is clear evidence of how far social work and social work education has come since then. Eighty years after the publication of Salomon’s study, the editors of this volume have brought together a superb collection of chapters that document the achievements and the challenges faced by social work education today in 42 countries. The most striking difference between the two volumes is, of course, the way the focus has moved from the original core nations, in which social work emerged, to the Global South. Thus, The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Work Education enables the reader to appreciate not only the marked proliferation of social work and social work education across the globe but also the ways in which professional education has evolved and moved away from its strongly Eurocentric origins to reflect this process. The editors’ conscious decision to include chapters that deal primarily, though not exclusively, with social work education in the Global South reflects the truly global nature of the social work profession. But it also speaks to the fact that, despite the tremendous growth of social work in the Global South, the focus of much of the academic literature is still upon social work and social work education in North America and Europe. This volume seeks to address the numerous contemporary issues, con- cerns, dilemmas, and challenges faced by social work education. These reflect a period in which globalization has created, in its wake, possibilities and prob- lems that were inconceivable in the past. Increased wealth in many countries offers a path to addressing poverty in a way not seen before. The growth in trade, the movement of people, and the accessibility of information technol- ogy as a means to facilitate the transnational movement of ideas, knowledge, and practice can be tools for improving peoples’ lives across the globe. Yet growing inequality within nations and between them, negative reactions to intensive competition and migration, and the growing power of multina- tionals threaten lives and livelihoods across the world. Similarly, the threat of dramatic climate change and the devastating impact that can wreak is already being felt across the world. The editors of The Palgrave Handbook of Global Social Work Education are to be lauded in their efforts to bring together in this volume chapters that explore the ways in which social workers and social work education in differ- ent countries, and in collaboration between countries and through the good offices of the profession’s international organizations, seek to contribute to efforts to address these challenges. In doing so, the chapters in the book offer readers a better understanding of the ways in which social work educa- tors prepare students to further social justice in a future that may differ much from what existed not only in the past but in the present, as well. They pro- vide us within insights into the innovative ideas and practices that are emerg- ing within the profession and its training efforts across the world. FOREWORD vii Despite the tremendous growth in social work over the last eighty years, the growing internationalization of the profession, and the transfer of knowledge across boundaries, this book underscores that social work is both a global and, at the same time, a local profession. The challenges faced by social workers across the globe are clearly interconnected and often similar. But they are not the same and indeed they can be very different. While social work education in all countries is influenced by values, ideas, knowledge, and practices elsewhere, it also does, and should, reflect the specific needs and challenges and the indig- enous culture of its immediate environment. As the chapters here show, more than even before this is the case for social work education in the Global South. In this sense, Alice Salomon’s hopes, regarding the impact of her survey of social work education so many decades ago, remain as pertinent today as it was then: “[The survey] should help to bring about an understanding of the fact that the methods of education for social work do not differ on account of dif- ferent opinions of the leaders of the movement, but because each nation seeks to express and satisfy the needs of civilization and culture which are character- istic for her” (Salomon, 1937, p. 8). Jerusalem, Israel John Gal Idit Weiss-Gal reFerence Salomon, A. (1937). In ICSSW (Ed.), Education for social work: A sociological interpretation based on an international survey. Zurich: Verlag fur Recht und Gesellschaft. A cknowledgments The idea of this book originated from a discussion between two of the editors (Sajid S. M. and Rajendra Baikady) in mid-2017 and later including Shengli and Sakaguchi as all of us share the same research and professional interest. After reasonable amount of discussion, we put together a proposal with the intention to gather a reasonable number of chapters on social work education at the international level. Interestingly for the first call to express an expres- sion of interest, we received an overwhelming number of contributors, which finally resulted in 60 completed and submitted chapters spanning into 42 countries across the world. We are thankful to all our contributing authors for their enthusiasm, commitment, and support throughout this book project. As the volume of submission was very high, finding reviewers to peer review the submitted manuscripts was a real challenge. We are grateful to our peer review team for supporting us to maintain the quality and helping the authors to strengthen their arguments and presentations. We have not mentioned any individuals here, for want of space, but we are thankful to all our colleagues, peers, and students who have from time to time contributed to our learning by either asking thought-provoking questions or answering them. We are thankful to entire editorial team at Palgrave Macmillan and espe- cially Milana Vernikova and Linda Braus for helping us at every step of com- pleting this handbook. Each one of us thanks our families and colleagues for emotional and intel- lectual support they provided us throughout the project. ix x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We have greatly enjoyed interacting with the authors and benefiting from their thoughts on social work education and practice. In essence, this book is a product of excellent teamwork. However, for any shortcomings and limitations in it, we are responsible. Thank you, November 2019 Sajid S. M. Rajendra Baikady Cheng Sheng-Li Haruhiko Sakaguchi