Preparing Social Workers for Global Practice Challenges
A special issue of Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2026 | Viewed by 44
Special Issue Editors
Interests: global social work education and practice; social work pedagogies; cultural contexts; culturally responsive practice; veterans issues
Interests: practice learning; culturally sensitive practice; decolonising social work; anti racist and anti-oppressive social work practice
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Social work is increasingly shaped by global forces, including migration and displacement, climate crisis, pandemics, economic precarity, digitalisation, conflict, enduring legacies of colonialism, political divisiveness, and structural inequalities. These realities demand a workforce that is critically informed, culturally responsive, ethically grounded, and prepared to practise across borders, systems, and diverse sociopolitical contexts.
Given this background, we invite empirical studies, theoretical and conceptual papers, critical reflections, practice-based insights, case studies, and/or innovative methodological approaches. Collectively, the aim of this Special Issue is to advance knowledge on how social work can meaningfully prepare practitioners to respond to complex global challenges with cultural humility, critical consciousness, and transformative intent.
Suggested topics could include (but are not limited to) the following:
- The influence of one or more global factors on social work practice and/or education and contextually based responses.
- Innovative and/or adaptive curriculum and pedagogies that address local realities by bridging culturally responsive interventions with global standards.
- Practice-based learning (Practicum) insights or strategies that prepare social workers for complex global practice challenges.
- Educational and/or professional standards or policies that equip social workers for transnational practice.
- Global social work values such as human rights, social justice, anti-oppressive and anti-racist practice, and/or solidarity, and how they are taught, enacted, contested, or constrained within different national and regional contexts.
- Decolonizing and integrating global standards in social work curriculums to address complex social work practice challenges.
Dr. Beverly Wagner
Prof. Dr. Prospera Tedam
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Social Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
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Keywords
- global social work
- complex social work practice challenges
- transformative education and practice
- transnational practice
- educational or professional standards
- social work research
- cultural responsiveness
- cultural, local, and/or national contexts
- social justice
- human rights
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