Pedagogy of international social work: a comparative study in the USA, UK, and Georgia

Reclaiming international social work in the context of the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development: Some critical reflections

“…Globally, the practice of social work has been greatly influenced by the challenges of underdevelopment, lack of human rights and the more detrimental effects of globalisation (Kendall, 2008;Healy, 2008a;Dominelli 2010); this is particularly evident in some of the social work narratives emerging from the countries in the Global South. Social work has been responding to global social problems (Lalayants, Doel and Kachkachishvili, 2014) such as street children, human trafficking, disaster relief and humanitarian aid, food shortages, climate change, existing and emerging pandemics, forced migration and refugee crises. This necessitates systemic and practice response strategies in which the social work role is central.…”

“…As Kendall (2008) notes, the social problems and conditions arising out of globalisation create significant areas of international responsibility and demands for expanded knowledge and understanding for the social work profession. Social Work has seen the deleterious effects of globalisation (Caragata and Sanchez, 2002;Dominelli, 2010) and its impacts on social issues require social workers to be responsive and knowledgeable in addressing them (Lalayants et al, 2014).…”

“…The recent years have seen an increased emphasis on the internationalisation of social work profession (Caragata and Sanchez, 2002;Johnson, 2004;Heron, 2005;Lalayants et al, 2014) and a number of authors have attempted to define what international social work entails. Over the years, these definitions have evolved from a narrow perspective to embrace broader aspects of international social work, such as working with asylum seekers and refugees; and engaging in disaster relief efforts.…”

“…We are living in a period of globalisation (Alphonse, George and Moffat, 2008;Kuruvilla, 2004) that is impacting almost every country in the world. The social work profession worldwide has been increasingly influenced by globalisation (Midgley, 2001;Lalayants et. al, 2014) and it has begun to recognise the impact of globalisation on almost every problem that social work practitioners deal with (Kendall, 2008).…”

“…Professional social workers are on the frontline addressing some of today's most pressing international issues; and social work is becoming a more global profession rather than one being dominated by its Western roots (see: Lyons, Hokenstadt, Pawar, Huegler and Hall, 2012;Lyons, Manion and Carlsen 2006;Weiss and Welbourne, 2007). Globally, many social work schools have begun to internationalise their curriculum (Lalayants et al, 2014) and literature points to a growing interest in international exchange programmes for social work students.…”