Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

cultural and institutional factors that affect gender relations and inequality, but
also reflect on their own gender perspectives and stereotyping.
Using a power analysis, students are encouraged to recognise that it
is at the individual and interpersonal level where they have most power to
either reinforce or challenge gender stereotyping and norms and that once a
critical awareness is achieved at this level, they have greater potential to engage
critically with the broader complex forces in the organisations where they work
and in society more generally. A continuum-based learning tool, for example,
is used to encourage debate among students in either small tutorial groups or
as a guide for their own personal and professional workbooks, which they are
required to maintain as part of their own learning resource throughout their
generic degree.
Case studies are also used to build on this critical thinking by presenting
students with scenarios where they must make judgements about whether
practice could be described as sexist or prejudicial from a gender perspective. As
in the case of the first framework offered earlier, moving on to a consideration
of anti-sexist approaches opens up the possibility to move beyond progressive
or critical perspectives towards a problematisation approach. Such case studies
can be used to reflect on how attitudes and responses have changed over time;
what, for instance, would be the difference between a response in the twentyfirst
century and one in 1970? And what are the conditions of these differences?
The following are a few examples that create debate among students via
tutorials or the use of the Interactive Personal Response System, which allows
students to express their views anonymously, and thus, arguably, more freely:
Case Study One: IS JANE SEXIST?
Jane, a trainee social worker, enjoys working with families. From her experience,
she knows that children are best looked after by their mothers, because this is
a natural instinct for them. Even though fathers can care well also, ideally Jane
feels it is best if a mother can do it. Jane understands that if someone is a lone
parent, they may have no choice except for to work but believes that where
there are two parents, it is their responsibility to ensure that someone remains
at home and, unless there are unusual circumstances, this should normally be
the mother. All evidence Jane can see tells her that children who have a mother
at home are better off than those left to child minders because the mother
wants more money or a career. She would never discriminate against fathers or
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