Sarah Todd

Thinking through Quality in Field Education: Integrating Alternative and Traditional Learning Opportunities

In this article, we look at two intersecting imperatives in social work and university education and how they shape our thinking about quality in field education. We will explore how practices of new managerialism and the desire for diversity come into conflict when trying to assess the quality of field‐based learning. Drawing on findings from a pilot research project we completed at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, we propose that it would be beneficial for Canadian schools of social work to rely less on assessing quality in terms of standards and specifications and more on a transformative notion of quality that speaks more clearly to empowering students and enhancing their knowledge and skills.

Christian Fundamentalism and Anti-Oppressive Social Work Pedagogy.

Abstract Christian fundamentalist religious beliefs, expressed by social work students, present a challenge to the social work educator. In this paper we explore the tensions between Fundamentalism, diverse sexual orientation and gender expression and social work pedagogy. Particularly, we focus on how an anti-oppressive pedagogical approach, while important to providing educational equality for students with diverse gender expressions and sexual orientations, has some limitations when working with students with Fundamentalist beliefs. We wonder whether there is a reasonable limit on inclusivity. The prospect of negotiating fundamentalism raises questions that require a critical reflection on our own belief systems, a rethinking of social work anti-oppressive values and ethics, and a consideration of our role as educators within the academy

“That Power and Privilege Thing”: Securing Whiteness in Community Work

In this article, I draw upon written texts and discussions with white community organizers so as to explore how the discourse of community work secure whiteness not as an act of maintaining privilege but as an accepted, unnoticed, and even helpful way of seeing and acting in the world. This is problematic because it creates a space in which there can be ethical white subjects who are able to understand themselves as outside of relations of racism. I suggest that it would be more useful to understand practices in which white people advocate with racialized communities as acts of ambivalence.

HIV/AIDS Social Services and the Changing Treatment Context

This article examines how medical advances of the past decade affect social services for people living with HIV. Data for the study were drawn from in-depth interviews with 59 social service providers in Ontario, Canada. New antiretroviral treatments help many people to live longer and healthier lives with HIV. As a result of the improved health of clients, the focus of much of the work of social service providers has changed from acute health concerns to more chronic social issues. HIV can be just one of many complex issues in the lives of clients living with HIV/AIDS, as workers increasingly confront social problems, such as poverty, inadequate housing, or unavailable drug treatment services. Workers may have little training or experience in dealing with such issues. The article describes how agencies and workers have had to adapt to new practice realities resulting from effective HIV treatments.

“Essential cogs in the innovation machine”: The discourse of innovation in Ontario educational reform

In this article we explore a Canadian example of how the language of innovation reproduces discourses of neoliberalism in postsecondary education policy documents. How innovation is defined and used in postsecondary education is explored through the analysis of international and regional policy documents. Through our research we ask how has the global discourse of innovation been incorporated into the transformation of postsecondary education in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province. Further we ask the question, what does innovation signify in the policies and directives of postsecondary institutions in Ontario? As well, does innovation reproduce neoliberal discourses of profitability, uncertainty and the knowledge economy when it is situated in policies that affect postsecondary governance? We argue that innovation is a discursive practice with specific and profound impacts on the language of higher education. By focusing on the province of Ontario, we were able to explore how documents produced by the government and its related agencies about higher education encourage innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship in an attempt to increase productivity. Although this discourse of innovation is rooted in historic processes of liberalism, specific policy initiatives, such as the Strategic Mandate Agreements discussed in this article, bring the discourse of innovation into sharp focus and underline a preoccupation with the priorities of neoliberal governance. We call for a broader discussion about the meaning and purpose of the discourses of innovation, creativity, productivity, and entrepreneurship in higher education. Without this type of interrogation these discourses function as an episteme that is assumed to have a widespread, a priori value, which may obscure the dramatic transformations, such as the move to tailor education solely to the market economy, the rise of reductive outcome measures for student and faculty evaluation, the commercialization of knowledge, the pursuit of efficiencies in the postsecondary sector, and the corporatization of governance that are occurring within higher education.

A social work re-reading of students as consumers

Abstract The concept of student as consumer highlights significant shifts in what Canadian students pay for their education and how this transition has shaped their relationship with learning as well as their overall expectations for, and participation in, the project of higher learning. Consumerism in social work education reflects broader trends towards academic capitalism in Canadian universities and is a result of neoliberal ideology reshaping higher education. In this paper, we explore student and faculty participants’ reflections on the impact of consumerism on progressive social work education, exploring how participants use the term to make sense of their experiences and how doing so reshapes progressive social work education itself.

Managing Funding Constraints in Frontline HIV/AIDS Social Services in Canada

ABSTRACT The need for HIV/AIDS social services continues to grow; workers confront increasingly complex client needs, and changes to government funding policies present new challenges to frontline social workers. Drawing on a qualitative study involving 59 social service practitioners in Ontario, Canada, this paper explores how frontline workers experience policy changes that restrict government funding. Respondents report that many of their clients are focused on immediate needs, such as food or shelter, rather than their HIV infection. They describe how funding cuts can introduce uncertainty into their work, and they note that their work now feels more bureaucratic and less caring. More organizational work is required to access resources and workers often find themselves playing a gate-keeping role. The paper describes how workers try to minimize the negative policy changes they perceive, but some of their ways of managing increased demand can actually end up increasing barriers to clients. Findings suggest that changing policies can undermine efforts to involve people with HIV in service delivery and to advocate for changing the social context of the epidemic.

Strengthening the Signature Pedagogy of Social Work: Conceptualizing Field Coordination as a Negotiated Social Work Pedagogy

ABSTRACTAlthough field education is considered the signature pedagogy of social work, the work of field coordinators appear to remain peripheral to other aspects of social work education, such as coursework and research. In this article, we suggest that field coordination requires a far more complex set of knowledge and skills than merely matching students with placements based on availability and interest. Using critical and relational theories, this article conceptualizes field coordination as a negotiated pedagogy in which the coordinators navigate complex and often competing needs among students, field agencies, and social work practice. In making visible its nuances and intricacies, we suggest that field coordination is a critical relational pedagogy essential to advancing social work education.