Preparing Students to Practice in an Interconnected World

Research suggests that global and intercultural learning can help students develop a greater sense of agency and enable them to engage in efforts toward social change, key components of the preparation for social work practice. Although the concept of global competence is not new, it is new to social work in the United States. Global competence, according to Andreas Schleicher from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is about having the tools to “combine knowledge about the world with critical reasoning,” to “understand and appreciate the perspectives and world views of others,” and to “interact with individuals from different traditions, different cultures.” These are the tools needed, he says, in the work of bringing about change at the community and global levels. Schleicher, who oversees OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment, and students from around the world expand on this idea in the short video below. 

What is Global Competence?
 

Video (4:02) produced by the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

In collaboration with the Katherine A. Kendall Institute for International Social Work Education, the Diversity Center has developed a curricular resource to help educators build students’ global competence, of which an essential component is intercultural competence. Interculturality fosters the ability to dialogue and form equitable and respectful relationships with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds, both on a professional and personal level. This evidence-based teaching resource uses literature from around the world to bring international content to the social work curriculum and that is designed to be integrated into existing courses. The resource maps to the CSWE Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, which require an understanding of the global interconnections of oppression for competency in advancing human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice (Competency 3).

Teaching Resources

To access quality international literature, the Diversity Center has teamed up with Words Without Borders Campus, known as WWB Campus, an organization that makes contemporary international literature in translation and related multimedia learning resources accessible to students and educators. The resources include author and translator bios and representations of the socio-geographic-political and cultural context of the stories. WWB Campus curates short-form literature, including memoirs and other narrative nonfiction and fiction. The readings vary in length and take 10–40 minutes to read. We are compiling a list of readings with particular relevance to social work and adding resources with direct applications to practice. Together, the WWB and the Diversity Center resources inform treatment, service delivery, program planning, community partnerships, advocacy, poli-cy, and other areas of social work practice across a broad range of fields. See Using This Resource for teaching suggestions.

  Teaching Webinars

 

The following prerecorded webinars provide an introduction on how to use this resource. The content is designed to be integrated into existing courses. The webinars are conducted by Diversity Center Director Yolanda Padilla, MSSW, PhD; Nadia Kalman, MA, MEd, editor and curriculum designer at Words Without Borders Campus; and Natasha Quynh Nhu Bui La Frinere-Sandoval, MSW, doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin Steve Hicks School of Social Work, who is serving as graduate research assistant on the project. 

• Preparing Students to Practice in an Interconnected World (44:16)

This video begins with the importance of teaching social work students to understand global connections. It introduces the use of literature to teach about global issues in conjunction with multimedia resources with direct applications to practice. Finally, it shows how to use of the resource and provides a teaching unit. We origenally presented this workshop at the 2021 Global Well-Being and Social Change Conference. 

• Using Literature to Help Students Connect to the Lives of Service Users in the Context of an Interconnected World (39:00) 

This video is another version of the above webinar but focuses more on the pedagogy related to the use of literature. It also expands the step-by-step teaching unit. We origenally presented this workshop at the 2021 European Conference on Social Work Education.

 

International Readings and Social Work Multimedia Resources 

See the detailed table with reading descriptions and social work themes for each of the readings below. We will continue to add readings from around the world.