Abstract:

Social workers have a significant role in challenging discriminatory and inequitable policies and systems. This presentation addresses the impact of educational discriminatory policy and practice on social work training in the higher education sector, and in preparing social work students to redress the educationally discriminatory effects on the families with whom they will work. Education discrimination occurs at all levels from primary, through secondary and tertiary education systems leading to continued and intergenerational disadvantage. Children who are segregated on the basis of personal characteristics, such as cognitive or physical impairments, or affected by familial low socio-economic circumstances are less likely to be able to access the opportunities provided by higher education thus continuing disadvantage.

The task for social work educators, after firstly acknowledging their own educational advantages, is to enable social work students to develop the critical and reflective capacities to be able to work across all the keys aspects of social work practice in direct service delivery, education and advocacy, and policy action. We provide examples of innovative educational practices in working with social work students using collaborative, and critical counter-oppressive practices to foster such learning. School social work is one domain of practice where such practices as collaborative, critical counter-oppressive practice can be effectively used to address educational discrimination through service delivery, advocacy and policy action. In this presentation we also describe some international (German/Australian) innovative approaches to overcome structural and individual discrimination within schools.

Keywords:

Innovative Education, Educational Inequality, International Exemplars.