‘The best and the brightest’: widening participation and social justice in contemporary English social work education

Abstract

@joeehanley Social work education in England has a long track record of success in widening participation to disadvantaged student populations. However, more recently these successes have instead been cast as a burden that is negatively impacting on the calibre of students entering the profession. Alongside this reconceptualization, new fast-track models of education have been introduced, providing a quicker and more financially supported route of entry to the profession. This article critically examines the changing nature of widening participation in social work education and how fast-track social work programmes are perpetuating the inequalities that are inherent at all levels of the English educational system. This discussion is shown to have implications for widening participation policy agenda beyond social work. The concerns that are raised should be of interest to any other jurisdictions considering the possibility of a fasttrack approach to social work education. A social justice approach based on mixed-ability student education is proposed as an alternative and preferable model of social work education.

Left behind: exploring how mainstream social work students see themselves compared to the ‘best and brightest’

“…This can potentially be explained by one of the sample universities being located in London, where the general population are more likely to be BAME (Office for National Statistics, 2011). Concerns have been raised about the low number of BAME students on fasttracks (Hanley, 2019a), and so this demographic disparity can be seen as an opportunity to provide these students with a voice on how they experience this disproportionality. Therefore, while not being representative, from a democratic evaluation perspective being able to capture a student population that was two thirds BAME could also be considered to be a strength.…”

“…Fast-track programmes are all at postgraduate level and involve social workers qualifying in just over a year, receiving disproportionately large financial support to do so. A key selling point of fast-tracks is that they claim to attract the "best and brightest" or "talented individuals" in a way that other programmes cannot (Hanley, 2019a). There are important differences between the various fasttrack programmes.…”

“…In relation to social work fast-tracks, Murphy (2016) has suggested this amounts to the creation of an elite "officer class" of social workers (p.279). These points become all the more prescient when it is recognised that social workers qualifying through fast-tracks are more likely to be white, male, middle class, not have a disability and not have caring responsibilities (Hanley, 2019a). Drawing on the work of Kushner (2017) and the principles of democratic evaluation, this article presents the findings of an exploratory study looking at the impact that these changes have had on students who remain on mainstreams, and in particular how they perceive themselves in relation to fast-track students.…”

Relational Learning and Teaching with BME Students in Social Work Education

“…Social work expertise in relation to social inclusion, empowerment, managing group dynamics and facilitating change also means that social work education is ideally situated to be a catalyst for change in relation to improving the experiences of disadvantaged groups in HE. Clearly, social work educators have a primary role in leading the field (Hanley, 2019).…”

“…Further, since the introduction of the social work degree as the minimum qualification for practice (Social Work Taskforce, 2009), graduates from social work university programmes are significantly more likely to be in employment within six months than the HE student population as a whole (Skills for Care, 2018; Skills for Care, 2019) It would seem that traditional qualifying SWE at universities in England has also managed to drive up standards within widening participation contexts. Such an achievement is recognised as being elusive elsewhere within HE (Dillon, 2007;Hanley, 2019) and suggests that social work courses contribute to ensuring the professional workforce reflects the communities that students belong to and serve. Besides, the recruitment of social work students is premised on recognition of the importance of lived experiences, not least since key social work statutory duties and requirements to work for social justice, antidiscrimination and emancipation are typically most meaningful to individuals who can relate them to their own lives (Hanley, 2019;Thompson, 2020).…”