The current study examined mental health symptomology, substance use, and adaptive coping among 416 social work students following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Among participants, 47% scored at or above the clinical level for depression, with 6% of students showing clinical PTSD-like symptoms, and 16.9% reporting substance use. Two thirds (66.9%)…

The Council on Social Work Education's Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) stresses the importance of the implicit curriculum in shaping a school's culture. This timely article describes how the implicit BSW curriculum was developed at a large Southern state university using three Web-based projects: (1) a glossary of terms for…

This article outlines challenges and opportunities educators and students face while attempting to develop a global perspective in social work. It discusses the need for more international focus in the classroom and increased field placements in non-Western countries. Exercises using an in-depth case study of the historic and current dynamics of…

The rapid increase in the number of older adults in the United States, coupled with new accreditation standards based on competencies, requires social workers to show competence in working with older clients. This teaching note reports on the development and use of a standardized patient (SP) role-play to teach and evaluate the ability of graduate…

This research presents findings from a study comparing groups of students enrolled in three U.S. graduate social work programs. Each program represents a differing approach to teaching ethics: (a) infusion of ethics content, (b) a required discrete course emphasizing what the authors term a "mixed-model approach", and (c) a required discrete…

A path model predicting students' satisfaction with their field placement was tested on 144 MSW students at a northeastern university. The results showed that supervision was related to satisfaction both directly and indirectly through its influence on efficacy in the field and strain. Amount of preparation for the field affected satisfaction only…

The specifics of how research competencies should be taught in social work curricula vary. This study explored requirements for student research projects and program director attitudes toward research education using the responses from 201 BSW and MSW programs to a 48-item survey. A majority of the respondents' programs require students to…

Two parallel trends in the social work academy have the potential to threaten the existence of faculty with practice expertise. First, the Council on Social Work Education has significantly lowered the level of practice experience needed by instructors who teach practice courses. The second trend, related to the empirical practice movement, is the…

The nature and extent of the current ecological crisis raises the question: Does social work have a contribution to make in addressing the social and environmental changes required if we are to move toward a sustainable future? Given the links between the traditional concerns of social work and the emerging concerns of environmental and ecological…

Social work education research frequently has suggested an interaction between teaching techniques and learning environments. However, this interaction has never been tested. This study compared virtual and face-to-face learning environments and included active listening concepts to test whether the effectiveness of learning environments depends…

Using a sample of 124 incoming social work graduate students, we examined whether levels of perceived incongruence with social work values and the perceived culture of a graduate social work program significantly correlate with social psychological constructs. The social psychological constructs are associated with maintenance and support for…

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an enhancement program by examining a cohort of 57 students admitted on probationary status to an MSW program in 2002 and required to participate in the enhancement program. The demographics for students admitted on probation demonstrate that the program is effective in increasing the diversity of the…

Effective social work education that promotes social justice requires expanded curricular models and creative pedagogical approaches. This article presents a curricular case study demonstrating the use of current events to enhance both implicit and explicit curricula. How the cultural crisis of Hurricane Katrina was used to engender transformative…

This article describes the use of problem-based learning to teach students about the scope and consequences of urban poverty through an innovative cross-curricular project. We illustrate the process, goals, and tasks of the Community Assessment Project, which incorporates community-level assessment, collection and analysis of public data, and…

In 1991, Lawrence Grossman wrote that "a new political system is taking shape in the United States. As we approach the twenty-first century, America is turning into an electronic republic, a democratic system that is vastly increasing the people's day-to-day influence on decisions of state." Grossman's forecast implied a sea change in the way…