Integrating Diversity Into Graduate Social Work Education

Abstract

The study surveyed a national sample of 100 African American master of social work graduates to retroactively assess perceived diversity content in Human Behavior courses before and after the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) established accreditation standards on diversity. Seventy-one percent of the respondents were females, the mean age was 45.8 years, and their graduation years ranged from 1958 to 2002. Most graduated from northeastern schools (34%), followed by midwestern (28%), southeastern (22%), northwestern (11%), and southwestern (5%) schools. Investigators used the Preparation for Graduate Education Social Work Education Scale and the Human Behavior Survey Addendum (alpha = .97). There were no statistically significant differences on diversity content scores for participants enrolled before and after CSWE diversity standards were established, but graduates of historically Black colleges gave higher diversity content scores in every area. Study includes discussion and implications for Afrocentric theory and the need to prepare practitioners for future social work careers in multicultural communities.