cover image: The Professional School and the University.

The Professional School and the University.

An enormous gap exists between the number of professionally educated social workers that are needed and the number available; and further research is necessary to find the knowledge and skills needed for varying levels of social work. Professional education should be more intellectual and theoretical. By organizing it around the disciplines basic to its own systematic body of knowledge, it has a broad foundation and provides bridges to other fields. Study in the disciplines cognate to social work seems to be especially important in doctoral programs. Interprofessional collaboration is desirable and various structural devices have been employed to facilitate interdisciplinary and interprofessional teaching and research in some institutions. Social work education has been handicapped by 2 dominant characteristics a constraining allegiance to Freudian theory and a paucity of research on social welfare problems and education. If schools of social work wish to enjoy full university membership, they will have to increase research productivity and threrfore recruit a different kind of faculty. Research findings (summarized here) have contributed to our knowledge about the psychological attributes of people with strong intellectual interests and about differential recruitment to colleges and fields of study. In professional education, strong theoretical orientation should be balanced with applied research and training. Universities are already heavily involved in meeting social needs and, with the demands for more outside involvement, they must remember that their primary function is intellectual. (JS)

Authors

McConnell, T. R.

Authorizing Institution
California Univ., Berkeley. Center for Research and Development in Higher Education.
Peer Reviewed
F
Published in
United States of America

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