Development of New Social Work Education in an Era of Rapid Social Changes in South Korea

Background and Purpose: The social work curriculum and education in Korea is currently under challenge due to rapid social changes and social problems caused by high speed advancements in social technology and diversity. The traditional paradigms of social work education and practice are no longer in line with Korean society, which faces fast increases in diversity, social class divisions, and severe disparities in health and mental health. This study aims to explore if current social welfare education responds to the multi-dimensionally increasing welfare needs and desires in the rapidly changing Korean society and how social work educators develop methods and curricula that timely respond to these social needs. Methods: We conducted a series of focus group interviews with nine social work educators in several universities in South Korea. The sample comprised 4 males and 5 females, with an average of 13 years of teaching experience. Focus group interviews were conducted twice in March 2018 with semi-structured questions. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim in Korean. The transcribed qualitative data were analyzed based on grounded theory and Nvivo 11.0 software, and several themes and subthemes emerged that can be used to construct theories. Findings: After analyzing the interview content with Nvivo 11.0 using frequency and categorization of words, 199 codes were formed. As a result of categorizing each code, 3 upper themes and 10 middle and 28 sub-themes were created. The three top themes included (1) social welfare education reconstruction in response to social changes with sub-themes of difficulty of defining future society, anxiety about future society, and creating social work education that responds to sensitivity and people-centered practice; (2) the changing reality of social welfare education in the preparation of future society with sub-themes of new opportunities to strengthen professionalism and the need for a new paradigm structure to meet Korea's changing social welfare system; and (3) new models of social work education for the future society with sub-themes including developing an interdisciplinary educational system, social education and engagement with underserved communities, and the importance of lifelong education needs for all citizens and field social workers. Conclusion: Our findings indicate the necessity to reconstruct the philosophy, goals, methods, and contents of social welfare education in consideration of rapid social changes, and this is expected to play an important role in social welfare education in response to future changes in Korean society. Increased attention to new social work curriculum development and education requires social work educators to deliberately adjust demanding needs of service areas in practice and policy. Social work educators and practitioners should reconsider traditional modes of teaching and assess new means of social work education and practice through various theories, values, behaviors, policies, and attitudes that eventually meet the needs of the rapidly changing Korean society.