Publication details
Social Work Graduate Profile in the Context of Education during COVID-19 : Self-Reflexive Gloss from the Czech Environment
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | Social work in the Czech Republic is a legally regulated profession. The education of future social workers works with the competence model. The aim of the chapter is to analyse and understand, from the perspective of social work educators and students, the undergraduate education generally shaped by the accredited profile of graduates during the Covid-19 pandemic on the example of selected institutions of tertiary education in the Czech Republic. The data collection tools were a semi-structured interview, educators’ focus group, and students’ “diaries from quarantine” that were analysed by thematic analysis. The results of the analysis show that the changes brought about by the Covid-19 period resulted in a difference in the declared and achieved graduates’ profile. In the area of knowledge transfer, interrelated tendencies emerge. In the case of groups of mobilised students and student volunteers, “their own little theories about sub-aspects of social work” were created, based on field experiences. In the case of students isolated in their homes, the teachers emphasised the application of collective ways of creating knowledge to alleviate students’ atomisation. The forms of verification and evaluation of educational outcomes were changed. The final exams were primarily aimed at verifying the knowledge, therefore, mobilised students and student volunteers in the field and in their families were at a disadvantage. In developing skills and attitudes, groups of mobilised students and student volunteers showed greater personal maturity and, as a rule, identification with the profession. It was about the spontaneous building of values by the students themselves. Meanwhile the students isolated in their homes deal with the problem of belonging to the student community. The invasion of new conditions disrupted the established system and led to the disconnectedness of values. The field training of social work students during the Covid-19 period had to be implemented differently than in the previous period. In the case of teachers, changes occurred in teachers’ approach to students, but also in teaching methods. The absence of “face-to-face” teaching limited the achievement of the desired educational outcomes. The research results raised the question of the adequacy of the current standards in social work education to current social challenges. |