Internationalizing Social Work Education

A historical and contextual account of how social work education became widely adopted in different national and cultural environments.

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Social work education has developed internationally over the past 50 years as part of wider processes of economic and cultural globalization. Diverse political and social events across the world have shaped social work and its education, leading to aims and methods that are shared and contested.


This book brings together, through 13 interviews and biographies, the lives, experiences and contributions of leading social work educators from Comoros, the Caribbean, India, Mexico, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom. Their receipt of IASSW’s Katherine Kendall Award recognized that they were at the forefront of establishing and securing social work education during this period of internationalization.


Exploring the aims and priorities of these leading social work educators, Askeland and Payne draw out a historical and contextual account of how social work education became widely adopted in different national and cultural environments. The Awardees’ diverse lives and professional experiences reveal the issues they faced, the paths they travelled and the prospects and threats confronting social work and its education more widely.