How South African social workers assess their professional education in the light of practice realities.

[摘要] This study investigated social work practitioners' experience of the'fit' between their professional preparation and their practicesituation by focusing on the following:(1 ) (i) A profile of social work graduates' work histories;(ii) Social work graduates' perceptions of social work;(iii) The rature of graduates' present work tasks, and whether ornot they believed these ^asks to be appropriate;(iv) The rature of graduates' work circumstances, especially inrelation to;- the bureaucratic settings of social work practice-the system of supervisory control over practitioners- the availability of resources both tangible and intangible- irstitutionalized racism in the welfare field(v) Whether or not their professional education and training hadprepared them to carry out their work tasks and to functioneffectively within their work circumstances.An analysiii of the fourth year social work curriculum, offered atthe University of the Witwatersrand, for the purpose of identifyingits nature and the core body of knowledge, values and skills withwhich professional social work education seeks to equip eachgraduate for 'beginning practice competence';(3) On the basis of data gathered from (1) and (2) above, to formulateeducational and training strategies which would address present andfuture practice.A quantitative-descriptive research design was used. A random sample ofsixty graduates was drawn from the social work graduate population ofthe University of the Witwatersrand (1979-1986) and was stratified intoa white sub-sample serving as a comparison group to a black sub-sample.(Abbreviation abstract)

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand