Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service Professor Winnie Kung, Ph.D., has published new research exploring social work education in China, its challenges, and its efforts to overcome them.
The study, titled “Challenges to Theory-practice Integration of Social Work Education in China: Theory Learning” and published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development, found that challenges for social work education in China include faculty lacking social work training and practice experience, limited teaching materials, systemic higher education constraints, and a lack of Indigenous social work theory.
The authors note that these challenges can be attributed to social work’s relatively recent reemergence in China. Although the first social work program was created in 1920, it was suspended for 36 years as the People’s Republic of China was established “because the profession was regarded as a remedy for social problems in capitalistic societies, which was no longer needed in communist ‘New China.’” The profession was revived in the 1980s, and its growth was accelerated due to the Sichuan earthquake in 2008—China’s government ultimately announced a goal of 3 million social workers by 2020.
Kung’s qualitative study was conducted through interviews with students, faculty, and school administrators of 7 schools in China, with over 90 individuals participating.
One of the biggest challenges the study found was the teachers’ limited training. Since social work is a newly revitalized profession in China, many faculty members come from other disciplines (sociology being a popular starting point). This can result in a lack of understanding of the material, negatively impacting the theory-practice integration vital to social work education. Moreover, since many theories taught in China come from the Western social work perspective, adapting them to Chinese culture and norms can be difficult. Kung et al. suggest encouraging practice-oriented over theory-oriented research to help “build indigenous social work theories and practices that are compatible with Chinese culture and systems.”
