BJSW Advance Access originally published online on February 1, 2007
British Journal of Social Work 2008 38(8):1588-1609; doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcl378
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Diversity and Progression among Students Starting Social Work Qualifying Programmes in England between 1995 and 1998: A Quantitative Study
Shereen Hussein is a Research Fellow for SCWRU following doctoral studies at the London School of Economics and Masters studies at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Science. She is a Demographer with a background in statistics and computer science. She is experienced in quantitative research techniques and applied statistics methods in demography and population studies. She is particularly interested in demographic factors affecting social care workforce as well as international variations in handling the global demographic changes. She also has experience in marriage and family dynamics and relationships between cultural diversity and social care needs.
Jo Moriarty is a Research Fellow at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit. She has undertaken a series of studies looking at community care services, with a particular interest in services for older people with dementia and their carers and people from minority ethnic groups.
Jill Manthorpe is Co-Director of SCWRU with a background in university social work and health professional training at pre- and post-qualifying levels. She has undertaken a range of research studies in areas of community care, adult protection, professional training and risk. She has published widely, with recent books on social policy, inquiries, abuse and students’ mental health. Her particular interests are in social gerontology and she has undertaken a range of research into older people’s services for voluntary groups, local providers and national bodies.
Peter Huxley is a qualified social worker with practice experience in child and adult mental health settings. He also has management and Board-level experience in adult mental health and social care services. He is Professor of Social Work, Head of the Section of Social Work and Social Care, and Deputy Head of Department in the Health Services Research Department at the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College, and Director of SCWRU. He recently completed a national survey of the mental health social work workforce in England and Wales which has been published in several papers, including one which compares the provision of ASWs in 1992 and 2002. His current interests include workforce performance (how the work environment, such as team climate and culture, affect user outcomes); the changing workforce (he is conducting a pilot evaluation of Support, Time and Recovery workers); and the development of better-quality data about the social care workforce in all sectors.
Shereen Hussein, Jo Moriarty and Jill Manthorpe are all currently working on the evaluation of the social work degree qualification in England alongside colleagues from Sharpe Research and the Glasgow School of Social Work.
Correspondence to Shereen Hussein, BSc, MSc, PhD, Research Fellow, Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London, 5th Floor, Melbourne House, 44-46 Aldwych, London WC2B 4LL, UK. E-mail: shereen.hussein{at}kcl.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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There has been no large-scale study looking at the proportion of social work students in the UK who achieve the professional qualification, although there is some evidence that different groups experience different rates of progression. This article examines progression rates among students studying for the DipSW in England and analyses the factors that influence whether students achieve an award on time (defined as achieving an award without being referred, deferred, failing or withdrawing). The results show that male students, students from a black and minority ethnic group, and students with a self-reported disability have poorer progression rates. However, contrary to the picture in higher education as a whole, older students and students with previously lower levels of educational attainment do not have poorer progression rates. Social work education has important lessons to share with higher-education colleagues in terms of working with an increasingly diverse student group. However, work is needed to identify students at greater risk of non-progression than others and to develop more effective student support strategies.
Keywords: professional training, minority ethnic groups, gender, disability, social work, progression rates, higher education