Global Citizenship through Web-Based Social Work Education

Background and Purpose: Globalization has led to an ever-increasing exposure to diversity for social workers. Therefore, to enhance practice outcomes when working with diverse individuals, students need to achieve cultural humility and competency. While faculty-led experiences, short-term study abroad, or international professional placement options provide opportune ways to heighten self-awareness and cultural understanding through cultural immersion, some students face financial or time constraints or a lack of interest. This means many students overall lack experience, knowledge, and exposure to individuals outside the US.

Domestically based alternatives to international experiences can be created to enhance cultural humility and competence. This study offers an example of a cross-cultural learning exchange between social work students from the US and from Ghana, West Africa. The study asks the following questions. Did the program enhance student awareness of social work issues and practice of at least one other country? Did the program enhance students' cultural humility and competency? Was there a difference in outcomes based on respective years of implementation associated with modifications in curriculum design?

Method: One hundred ninety-nine (N=199) undergraduate and graduate US social work students from a southern university participated in a web-based virtual exchange over the course of three years with social work students from Ghana, West Africa. The specific US courses selected were chosen based on instructors' willingness to incorporate the web-based model of cultural exchange within their courses. US student participation was included as part of their overall course grade. WhatsApp and Zoom were used throughout the four-week exchange which focused on biases and assumptions, differences in culture, social problems, social work practice, service implementation, and current and future local and national policies. Students' cultural comfort, cultural humility, and cultural missed opportunities were evaluated through an adapted version of the Multicultural Orientation Inventory prior to the start and directly after the completion of the intervention. Some students also participated in a focus group to share feedback, overall experience, and knowledge gained.

Results: Paired samples t-tests results showed overall improvements from pre to posttest for the entire sample of students in cultural humility (p=.025) and cultural missed opportunities (p=.007). A Wilcoxon signed-rank test determined there was a statistically significant median increase in cultural humility (p=.048) and cultural missed opportunities (p=.013) after a web-based questionnaire and discussion to challenge cultural biases and assumptions and one live video discussion was incorporated into the virtual exchange. Student feedback collected from focus groups included an overall positive experience with enhanced cross-cultural and cross-country learning, relationship building, and cultural awareness.

Conclusions and Implications: These exploratory findings provide encouragement that this web-based model can be usefully employed by other social work educators and programs. This model can serve as a framework to implement methods of engagement in alternative web-based or virtual opportunities with students from other countries. Future research may explore and evaluate these methods, particularly as they have strong implications for cultural diversity and cross-cultural learning in social work education.