Social Work and Education

You may prefer to talk about how social work and education fit together. This is a very good topic as the research available to you will be plentiful. You could look into how social work is taught at university to social workers roles in schools. Take a look at these suggestions to help you get started!

Example social work and education dissertation topic 1:

Coping with inherent cultural perspectives: A transition to social work

It is important for the future of social work that social workers come from a variety of backgrounds as indeed service users come from a wide variety of backgrounds. However, in widening participation in social work employment amongst people with differing, ethnic, social, religious and cultural backgrounds, it must be acknowledged that understanding how to overcome existing cultural beliefs is also important in training the social workers of tomorrow. This study examines how social work students from a variety of backgrounds cope with the transition and includes both secondary research through a comprehensive literature review, but primary research in the form of interviews with psychologists, social workers, and university lecturers in social work.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Anderson, S.C. and Henderson, D.C. (1985) ‘Working with lesbian alcoholics’, Social Work, Vol. 30(6), pp. 518-525.
• Gambrill, E.D. (2006) Social work practice: A critical thinker’s guide. Oxford: Osford University Press.
• Hepworth, D.H., Rooney, R.H., Rooney, G.B., Strom-Gottfried, K. and Larsen, J-A. (eds) (2010) Direct social work practice: Theory and skills. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.