Getting the balance right: critical reflection, knowledge and the social work curriculum

Abstract

Social work education in Australia and New Zealand is predominantly embedded within tertiary education systems modelled on university pedagogy. Consolidated by the demand for professionalisation, this location has shaped the social work curriculum into traditional, discipline-based academic courses and delivery. Calls for graduates and practitioners to be robust, resilient and critically reflective have come from employers, the social work profession and educators. This paper acknowledges the impact of external stressors on social work and, within the context of debates over the nature of the social work profession, conceptualises these pressures as a demand on the resilience and reflective capacity of practitioners. Identifying core issues of the need for skills in critical reflection, the lens turns to the construction of the social work curriculum itself. Three models of programme design and curriculum delivery are presented and, using a recently implemented example, questions are raised about the potential for structural change to the curriculum that may enable a central focus upon integrative processes and critical reflection.

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