School Social Work Education: A Content Analysis of Current Msw Syllabi

Background & Purpose: Social workers in schools are frontline mental health providers for most children and youth, especially those who have low-income or are underinsured. Their roles span universal prevention, social-emotional learning, teacher consultation, and special education services. The educational context has changed since the last MSW syllabus study on school social work (SSW) was conducted by Berzin and O’Connor in 2010, with increasing emphasis on social-emotional learning, parents’ rights, and multi-tiered systems of support. The current study replicated the 2010 research by conducting a content analysis of current MSW-level SSW syllabi to assess the content offered in SSW education and understand how it has changed since the previous review.

Methods: Syllabi were solicited from all 308 CSWE-accredited MSW programs in 2023 via an online submission portal. The online site asked people to indicate if they have a SSW course and to upload the syllabus. All syllabi were reviewed to ensure that they were focused on SSW and offered at the master’s level. Two researchers open coded the course topics from a random sub-sample of 4 syllabi. The resulting 247 codes were used to create a codebook. Three researchers piloted the codebook with an additional 4 syllabi. The remaining syllabi were coded independently, with researchers meeting periodically to establish themes and compare findings against the 2010 baseline.

Results: 135 course topics organized into 15 categories were identified across the syllabi. The most common topic categories were Social Work Profession and Interventions across Tiers 1, 2, and 3. Most of the course topics identified in the 2010 study were identified in this sample, yet additional topics emerged that reflected current priorities: Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, the National SSW Practice Model, Anti-Oppression and Anti-Racism, and Equity. Some topics once prevalent, such as school reform, learning and school failure, and health issues, were absent from this sample. A full list of all course topics and categories will be shared in the presentation.

Conclusions & Implications: SSW education has evolved in response to changing needs and priorities within the education system, while also maintaining emphases that were previous priorities. The absence of school reform, including charter schools, vouchers, and standards-based assessment, is significant, as these are highly debated topics in the current political climate. Social work educators may consider including these topics as they did in the past. Health issues and information about learning and school failure were also absent, yet these topics are not as prevalent in national discourse today. These findings provide a snapshot of how current SSW education aligns, or fails to align, with national educational discourse and changing SSW practice.