The present study aimed to evaluate the quantitative and qualitative effectiveness of an undergraduate course entitled, 'What is disability?' Specifically, we measured changes in perceptions of Japanese freshmen towards people with disabilities (PWDs) using the Disability Social Work scale, and what they learned from the course. In total, 18…

Social work programs have progressed in ensuring equal access for qualified students with disabilities. Yet, schools of social work and their faculty have often struggled to fully include and comfortably balance the rights of students with disabilities and the gate-keeping role that rests with them to ensure that trained social workers are…

Master of social work (MSW) students will work with a significant number of people with disabilities and thus need to learn about disability as both a descriptive and a political identity. While new curriculum resources and competencies developed by the Council on Social Work Education for teaching about disability are a critical step, little has…

The role of social work education is to prepare students to work with individuals, families, and communities, many of whom have one or more disabilities. Yet most social work programs include limited disability-specific content in their programs, and with a deficit-model focus. Recent changes in the National Association of Social Workers Code of…

Disability scholars have recently highlighted social work professional organizations' lagging pace in adopting disability advocacy within diversity agendas and have questioned the adequacy of disability content within accredited social work curricula. Amid growing concerns, measures to assess attitudes of social workers toward disability and…

The paper presents the opinions of self-advocates with mild intellectual disability about their work as social educators -- public self-advocates raising disability awareness. Six semi-structured individual interviews were conducted. Data was analyzed within the framework of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The themes which emerged from…

Similar to all academic disciplines, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in social work has grown exponentially in both scope and volume during recent decades. Until the COVID 19 crisis, main driving forces were the growing demand for higher education, constant evolving of innovative technologies, cost effectiveness, and…

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of social work students with disabilities in field education. This qualitative inquiry used semistructured interviews exploring inclusion and accommodations in field education. The 15 participants were graduates of accredited BSW or MSW programs and reported one to five disabilities each.…

This paper recommends that faculties of Social Work incorporate Disability Studies in their curriculum by embracing its interdisciplinary deconstructionist perspective. Disability Studies encourages Social Work to move beyond person-in--the-environment and anti-oppressive approaches to find more effective ways of removing barriers for persons with…

This study explored bachelor's-level social work students' readiness to practice with individuals with intellectual disability (ID) and their attitudes toward individuals with ID. Fifty-eight students completed a Web-based survey that assessed their knowledge of four etiological conditions and their willingness to maintain social contact with…

In this study, we consecutively recruited treatment-seeking young autistic adults without intellectual impairment aged 16-30 years who presented to a mental health service and evaluated general health (distress, quality of life, and disability), functioning (work loss days and social functioning), and mood symptoms (depression, anxiety, and…

Research on the integration of content about intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in the MSW curriculum indicates that social work students may not be adequately prepared to work with this population. This is despite the high prevalence of IDD and the frequency that individuals with IDD and their families present for services in…

Given the social work profession's commitment to serving individuals with disabilities and cultural competence, the promotion of favorable attitudes toward persons with disabilities within social work education is critical. This study examined the question: "what are the attitudes of undergraduate social work students at three universities…

The profession of school social work began in 1906 but was not recognized in federal legislation for students with disabilities until nearly 70 years later. However, since 1906, school social workers have worked with students considered at-risk for academic failure, including students with disabilities. This article highlights the beginning of the…

Ableism is the systematic oppression of and prejudice toward individuals with disabilities due to the idealization of nondisabled bodies and minds. Despite legislation aimed at broadening the rights of individuals with disabilities, ableism persists, including in classrooms of postsecondary institutions and within the field social work. However,…