Improving the Competence and Professional Identity of Social Work Students
A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 90
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The competence and professional identity of social work students play a pivotal role in shaping the quality and sustainability of social work practice. While curricula often emphasize knowledge and skills, professional identity formation remains under-theorized and under-supported. Recent studies, such as Building professional identity during social work education (Björktomta and Tham, 2024), highlight that educational experiences—field placements, reflective assignments, supervision—are critical sites where students negotiate their emerging professional selves. Meanwhile, Moorhead et al. (2025) argue that “professional identity” is variably defined and measured, complicating comparative research. To address this, the Special Issue invites contributions that explore how to improve competence (e.g., in ethics, decision making, cultural humility) in tandem with strengthening professional identity (e.g., through role internalization, value integration, boundary formation). We welcome theoretical, empirical, and pedagogical studies that examine interventions, curricula innovations, longitudinal trajectories, cross-cultural comparisons, and the interplay of identity and competence in social work education. Such scholarship is essential for guiding educators, accrediting bodies, and students toward cultivating socially engaged, confident, and competent social work professionals.
References:
(Björktomta and Tham, 2024) Björktomta, Siv Britt and Pia Tham. “Building professional identity during social work education: the role of reflective writing as a tool.” Social Work Education 43 (2024): 2847 - 2864.
(Moorhead et al., 2025) Moorhead, Bernadette, Kyoko Otani, Wendy Bowles, Mary Baginsky, Karen Bell, Nicola Ivory, Harper Mackenzie, and Rivka Savaya. 2025. Toward a definition of professional identity for social work: Findings from a scoping review. The British Journal of Social Work 55: 877–896. doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcae197.
Prof. Einav Segev
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- professional identity
- competence development
- social work education
- identity formation interventions
- formative experiences
- reflective practice
- role integration
- curriculum innovation
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