Training for future professional practice : Students’ descriptions of elderly people in need of social services

This article shows how students in Swedish higher education are being trained for future social work (e.g., practitioners and professionals working in elderly care). Their training consists of carrying out a social service evaluation of the needs of the elderly. The students complete a written task that largely mimics the investigation process used by social services in their effort to provide aid. In this way an assessment of the students’ various abilities is carried out and the students’ formulations and descriptions of an older individual are revealing. The empirical material is based on students’ evaluations of cases (the cases are constructed by teachers). These are written within the framework of university courses in social work. The results show that students use categorizations based on their ideas about age and aging. The article problematizes and discusses whether the descriptions can be considered reasonable in relation to the decisions that are then proposed by the students, thus highlighting ageism. It also appears that the educational context, within which learning is designed, can be influenced and that higher education could consciously raise these issues in a relevant way.Open Access. " Our goal is to share the journal more widely. We're eager for SYSTED 23 to become known as a source of empowerment science that's accessible to everyone." (email 4/9-2023)