Cultural competency has been a long held ideal for social work educators and practitioners. However, definitions and approaches to cultural competency vary widely depending on worldview, discipline, and practice context. Within social work and beyond, cultural competency has been challenged for its failure to account for the structural forces that shape individuals' experiences and opportunities. In contrast, the concept ofcultural humility takes into account the fluidity of culture and challenges both individuals and institutions to address inequalities. This article takes a critical look at cultural competence as a concept, examining its explicit and implicit assumptions, and the impact these assumptions have on practitioners. It suggests that cultural humility may offer social work an alternative framework as it acknowledges power differentials between provider and client and challenges institutional-level barriers. The authors advocate a move from a focus on mastery in understanding ‘others’ to a fram...

From Mastery to Accountability: Cultural Humility as an Alternative to Cultural Competence

Mental health stigma operates in society, is internalized by individuals, and is attributed by health professionals. This ethics-laden issue acts as a barrier to individuals who may seek or engage in treatment services. The dimensions, theory, and epistemology of mental health stigma have several implications for the social work profession.

Mental Health Stigma: Society, Individuals, and the Profession

Field education is arguably the most significant component of the social work curriculum in preparing competent, effective, and ethical clinical social workers. Students and alumni characterize it as such, and national accrediting bodies, both in the United States and internationally, recognize its crucial impact on the quality of social work services delivered to the public. In addition, there is likely more scholarship and research conducted on field education than on any other component of the curriculum. And yet, field educators anecdotally describe a crisis in their ability to implement the best pedagogical practices for students. This paper will discuss the developing evidence-base highlighting best practices for field education, the changing context of field education, and analyze current challenges and potential responses.

Field Education for Clinical Social Work Practice: Best Practices and Contemporary Challenges

SummaryCultural competence has commanded respectable attention since its introduction in cross-cultural discourse. Cultural competence has been presented as a framework capable of promoting cultura...

Cultural competence and cultural humility: A critical reflection on key cultural diversity concepts:

During the past several decades, social work practice in the USA and the industrialisedworld has become increasingly politicised—a consequence of political-economic, ideo-logical, demographic and cultural changes. This new political environment is reflectedin all aspects of social work practice, including its underlying assumptions, theoreticalbases, research methods and educational foundation. It influences how all participantsin the service process define needs, implement alternative strategies of helping andevaluate their effectiveness. Persistent misunderstandings about the meaning of politicsand its relationship to professional practice, however, present major obstacles to the de-velopment of effective responses to this dramatic transformation. At the organisationaland societal levels, these misunderstandings discourage challenges to the institutionalstatus quo. At the micro level, they rationalise existing hierarchies between socialservice agencies and service users, and between workers and clients. To counteract# The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf ofThe British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.British Journal of Social Work (2012) 1–19

The New Politics of Social Work Practice: Understanding Context to Promote Change

This article provides an assessment of the current situation in social work education regarding the teaching of content on diversity, with a focus on implications for social work theory, practice, and education. The article provides a critical analysis of the historical development of approaches to teaching diversity content in social work education as reflected in several iterations of CSWE's Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) since the late 1960s. In addition, the article critiques long-standing approaches to teaching this content that have been based largely on modernist theories and assimilationist assumptions about difference in the United States. It concludes with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities social work education faces today that have opened up as a result of the 2008 EPAS.

Access to intersectionality, content to competence: deconstructing social work education diversity standards

As frontline mental health care providers, social workers need to be prepared to confront and properly manage substance abuse issues in practice. This study examined predictors of recent master of social work (MSW) graduates' perceptions of preparedness to practice in the area of substance abuse. A cross-sectional design was used, and 232 recent MSW graduates completed a mail-in survey (65.7% response rate). Respondents were more likely to perceive themselves as prepared to work with substance abuse issues if they received more formal academic training in substance abuse and had higher knowledge of substance abuse concepts and models. The findings support the need to include substance abuse education in social work curricula.

Substance abuse training and perceived knowledge: predictors of perceived preparedness to work in substance abuse

An increase of 88% in programs from 1990 through 2004, low GRE scores, low entry- level wages, declining pass rates in licensing tests, and an increase in ethical violations reported all support the contention that there are higher enrollment rates and decreased gatekeeping selectivity in today's graduate MSW programs. This article discusses four factors that are important in distinguishing a uniform, transparent gatekeeping stance for the profession, to begin to resolve the intrinsic dilemmas of those factors.

Gatekeeping: Why Shouldn't we be Ambivalent?

This field note presents the results of a pilot study that explored the use of a new non-numerically rated field performance tool, a vignette matching measure for MSW students. Evaluation of performance in the field has proved to be a difficult task because few if any measures, including competency-based measures, have known levels of reliability and validity. Field instructors rated a sample of 154 students. Over half of the students were rated as exceptional, which may support the long-standing notion that performance ratings are inflated. Implications for social work education and research are discussed.

Gatekeeping in field performance: is grade inflation a given?

To begin to systematically determine what qualities may be most useful for social work students and developing practitioners from a gatekeeping standpoint, this study explored the relationship between personality traits among first-year MSW students and performance in the field and classroom. Results indicated that there is a relationship between some personality traits and performance in the field and classroom. Findings from this study support previous research in allied disciplines indicating that personality traits are relevant to professional training and occupational success. They also lend support to recent literature in social work, which has recognized personal characteristics or attributes as critical to success in practice. Implications regarding gatekeeping, the US Council on Social Work Education's implicit and explicit curricula, and signature pedagogy are discussed.

Lynda R. Sowbel

Papers

Access to intersectionality, content to competence: deconstructing social work education diversity standards

Substance abuse training and perceived knowledge: predictors of perceived preparedness to work in substance abuse

Gatekeeping: Why Shouldn't we be Ambivalent?

Gatekeeping in field performance: is grade inflation a given?

Gatekeeping in Graduate Social Work Education: Should Personality Traits be Considered?