Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

Our aim is to make history and the deeply gendered cultural meanings of the
profession up-to-date and thus relevant for the actors who will seek to address
the concerns of people in all stages of life.
How to Teach Gender Issues?
Our teaching philosophy begins with an acknowledgement that communication
is basically a relational activity and that transformative change in learning
situations presumes the engagement of students in an authentic dialogue.
Dialogue is the means to generate the conceptual shifts that characterize
transformation. 1 Openness and reciprocity are necessary elements of a good
dialogue in any teaching process. According to Ruth Grossman Dean, 2 a
good trans formative discussion includes a diversity of voices; it encourages
the participation of those who speak from direct experience. It is personal and
relational, containing a back-and-forth between experience and reflection; thus,
it is a personal anecdote and a general theory – with neither taking over. It is
likely to occur in an atmosphere of trust, in which people engage as equals, listen
effectively, and develop their understanding through feedback and reflection.
Our purpose in this article is to introduce some methods to teachers
by discussing how historical narratives of social work written from a gender
perspective can be used as a resource to problematise gender in social work
teaching. In the following, particular emphasis is laid on the formation of
a gender-specific division of tasks in the field of social welfare, especially in
social work. Rather than explain in detail why gender divisions have become
what they are, we focus on how this happened, using historical documents as
evidence. Influences from abroad have always been an important source
of ideas for developing national social policies and social work. Even so,
such influences have always been modified by national characteristics and
culture. Concerning gender division, the rule in Western countries applies also in
Finland: women tend to take responsibility in the field of reproductive
practices, while men have a stronger hold of administration.
1
See Stanley Witkin, “Toward a Transformative Social Work”, in Social Work Dialogues. Transforming the Canon in
Inquiry, Practice, and Education, ed. Stanley L. Witkin and Dennis Saleebey, 1−21. (Alexandria: Council on Social
Work Education Press, 2007); Adrienne Chambon, “Art Works: Between Social Critique and Active Reenchantment”,
in Witkin, Saleebey, 2007: 203−226.
2
Ruth Grossman Dean, “‘Good talk’: The Art of Transforming Conversations”, in Witkin, Saleebey 2007: 5–54.
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