Patterns of teaching ethics in graduate social work education

Abstract

This exploratory study investigated patterns of teaching ethics among graduate social work educators in Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York City. Thirty-eight participants were non-randomly selected from nine graduate schools of social work that included institutions under secular, non-secular, private and public auspices.;Institutional and background factors that contributed to patterns of teaching ethics in graduate social work education were investigated.;Two scales were developed for this study. The Ethical Knowledge Scale, a six-point scale, assessed participants' responses to a critical incident. The Ethical Content Scale, an eight-point scale, measured the teaching of ethical content.;Findings indicate that faculty tend to teach ethics along a continuum, ranging from implicit to explicit. Twenty-four of the thirty-eight participants in this study tended to teach ethics at the implicit end of the continuum.;Faculty scoring in the explicit range were more likely to identify value conflicts than they were to address ethical analysis and problem solving.;Faculty teaching in schools of social work that offered a discrete course in ethics scored at the explicit end of the continuum, (P {dollar}<{dollar} 0.5), in contrast to faculty teaching in schools of social work where ethics was taught pervasively.;Faculty preferences regarding the teaching of ethics in the curriculum indicate that the majority of participants favored the inclusion of a discrete course in ethics in addition to the pervasive approach.;No significant differences in patterns of teaching ethics among faculty who had previous training in ethics were noted.;A striking finding was the lack of specificity regarding ethical content taught in the first and second-year of social work education.;Setting-specific ethical issues continue to challenge social work educators. These include worker-client conflicts in multicultural practice, specifically in the area of parenting and discipline choices and the mandate to report child abuse. Conflicts regarding truth telling and confidentiality were most often mentioned in hospital and school-based social work practice.;Survey findings indicate that more specificity regarding the teaching of ethics is needed from the Council on Social Work Education.