Social Work Values and Education

The underpinning of social work practice is reflected in social work values. Formalized by numerous entities at national and international levels, social work values are embedded in ethical codes and statements of core values. Within these codes and values lies common themes of social justice, advocacy, and practice from micro, mezzo, and macro perspectives. Social work educators embed ethics and values into curriculum and within the experiential practice settings such as internships. Values and ethics within a teaching environment are challenging and require a heightened level of self-reflection by educators as they model and express the core values of practice. Incorporating a global perspective provides added challenge and depth to the classroom experience. Globally, societal discourse, disinformation and distrust of higher education, and the ever-changing political climate challenge social work educators to maintain strong values-driven curriculum. This chapter explores commonalities and uniqueness with the codification of national and international social work ethics and values. This chapter also explores how social work educators reflect values as part of their own classroom behavior as well as within the curriculum. Challenges to educators as they navigate policies and regulations while staying true to social work values are discussed as part of the content of the chapter.