Understanding Social Work Students' Field Education Experiences in China from the Professional Socialization Perspective

Background and Purpose:

Field education is unanimously recognized as an essential component and signature pedagogy in social work education to develop students’ professional identity. In Mainland China, social work educators as an emerging profession are grappling with how field education could impact on students’ professional development. Most current studies are descriptive without adopting a theoretical framework. To contribute to this line of inquiry, this study has two purposes: (1) to introduce the concept of professional socialization in understanding the importance of field education in students’ professional development; (2) to identify challenges to professional socialization based on students’ experiences in field education in China.

Methods:

Through convenient sampling, 5 student focus groups from 2 MSW and 3 BSW programs from 5 universities in China were conducted. Each group included 6-8 voluntary student participants. The interviews were semi-structured, covering topics of classroom learning, field experiences, and career choices.

This study adopted the grounded theory approach in data analyses. Using Atlas.ti 7, data were coded line-by-line with open codes first, which were then categorized into topics. Focusing on students’ field experiences, thematic codes were created to understand how students’ field experience impacted their professional socialization.

Findings:

This study identified three themes related to students’ professional socialization in field education.

(1) Not recognized as future social workers and not being provided professional practice opportunities: students often reported that agencies were not professionally oriented, did not recognize social work as a profession, and did not assign professional practice tasks to them. Thus professional socialization hardly happened when agencies did not acknowledge and/or support students’ professional learning needs.

(2) Lacking instruction from schools and agencies: most students reported difficulties in connecting what they learned in class to practice in the field because agency supervisors did not have social work training, and/or professors in schools did not have practice experiences. Students’ professional socialization needs support from both schools and agencies to connect class to practice.

(3) Making self-directed learning efforts: students showed themselves as active agents in the professional socialization process through identifying needs for social services, actively reaching out to clients, and exploring practice opportunities in semi-professional agencies. However, their socialization was often stunted by inadequate support to resolve difficulties in intervention or program implementation.

Conclusion and Implications:

Findings indicated that students’ professional socialization was hindered by the social work profession’s development in the macro environment (e.g. lacking professional agencies and competent instructors/supervisors) and field education policy (e.g. lacking designated field educators and sufficient connections with agencies).

To support students’ professional socialization, this study identified four implications for social work education in China: (1) to develop field education policy specifying field placements’ credentials; (2) to increase field education orientation for both students and agencies, such as raising agencies’ awareness of students’ educational needs in field, and preparing students to communicate their practice needs to agencies; (3) to develop field practice seminars to enhance students’ pioneering spirit, discuss difficulties encountered in field, and help them develop a balanced view of their positive and negative experiences.