Social work education:A (hi-)story in two halves¹

This chapter explores the implications for social work education and the profession it serves. It develops and defends a critical, progressive and value-based approach to social work education and practice, a process and outcome that require a more collective educational practice than is currently in evidence. The chapter provides a historic reading of social work education, taking as its dividing line Scottish devolution in 1998. It provides a short history of social work education in Scotland which evolved, until 2001, within an integrated UK frame. The chapter tells the story of social work education’s present, attending to developments arising from devolution, globalisation and public sector reform. It considers the key questions raised, chiefly: how to educate for a profession positioned perpetually at the crossroads? Mechanisms of review and regulation are a recurring theme in the story of social work education, prompted variously by attempts to improve and/or correct educational practice and/or the broader organisation and practice of social work itself.