Preparing Students to Practice in an Interconnected World

Addressing social justice and human rights issues—immigration, poverty, climate change, mass incarceration, and pandemics, among others—requires that social workers understand the global interconnections of these issues. It is impossible to fully understand the roots and ramifications of the social problems that we as social workers seek to solve without looking beyond our national borders. To this end, the Diversity Center, with support from the Katherine A. Kendall Institute for International Social Work, is developing an evidence-based teaching resource that uses literature from around the world to bring international content to the social work curriculum designed to be integrated into existing courses. The resource maps to the CSWE Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards which require an understanding of the global interconnections of oppression for competency in advancing human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice (Competency 3).

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