School Social Workers in the Multicultural Environment: New Roles, Responsibilities, and Educational Enrichment

School Social Workers in the Multicultural Environment is a new approach for creating diversity in classroom and field curricula. The contributing authors offer practical advice for the effective teaching of multicultural content, which is now a requirement in the Curriculum Standards of the Council on Social Work Education. The authors address existing fears some readers may have regarding the teaching of multicultural content in social work and provide educators and field instructors with a model for overcoming these fears and for creating classroom excellence. Multicultural Education offers educators a chance to explore how to implement the required material effectively.

While offering guidance to educators, School Social Workers in the Multicultural Environment focuses on fundamental and controversial approaches to multicultural social work education by answering these questions:

• Do educators know how to teach multicultural social work content?
• Where should multicultural content be taught?
• Should schools offer courses or workshops to facilitate faculty development?
• How should schools monitor multicultural outcomes?
• In what way should content be evaluated--peer evaluation, formal teaching observations, or other methods?
  
  School Social Workers in the Multicultural Environment, written by experienced educators, field instructors, and practitioners, provides advice on the teaching of multicultural social work content in both urban and rural areas and among many different populations. The book examines in depth the unspoken myths and fears encountered in teaching multiculturalism to students and helps educators and curriculum planners avoid common, unfortunate mistakes often made in multicultural classrooms and field instruction. Topics discussed include:
• Student Learning Processes for Multicultural Content
• Classroom-Tested Teaching Strategies for Cultural Competence in Practice Classes
• A Model for Measuring Multicultural Outcomes
• Perceived Racism and Minority Student Retention
• Differing Student and Educator Perceptions in Field Instruction
• Field Instruction Strategies for Successfully Teaching Cultural, Ethnic, Gender, Class, and Age Characteristics
• Rural Diversity Education Strategies
• American Indian Social Work Student Issues Human services educators and curriculum planners, who must effectively teach and implement multiculturalism in their programs, will find School Social Workers in the Multicultural Environment leads the way in creating classroom excellence. It stresses the importance of creating a new model for teaching and practice, for students and educators.