Preparing social work students for international field education through intercultural awareness

Abstract

As the world continues to witness increasing humanitarian crises, social work students are filled with a desire to help. International Field Education provides important preparation for social work students for a future whereby complex humanitarian contexts will inform their practice. In this chapter, we use a case study to introduce some of the humanitarian complexities social work students experience during International Field Education. We then show how an exchange between the student and the Field Educator is informed by intercultural awareness pedagogy. We break this pedagogy down into a suite of pedagogical principles. We use this exchange to complement and fill the gaps in existing research on how to improve intercultural awareness in students of the complexities that unfold during International Field Education and thereby set students up to have the foundational knowledge for future work.