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Profession in crisis? - Gender and Motivation in Social Work

Profession in crisis? - Gender and Motivation in Social Work. Dr Fredrik Velander Ms Heather Barton Dr Bill Anscombe (Presenter). Background. Men are underrepresented in the social work profession in Australia and many other countries.

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Profession in crisis? - Gender and Motivation in Social Work

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  1. Profession in crisis? - Gender and Motivation in Social Work

  2. Dr Fredrik VelanderMs Heather BartonDr Bill Anscombe (Presenter)

  3. Background • Men are underrepresented in the social work profession in Australia and many other countries. • This is reflected in the low number of males enrolled and graduating from social work educations. • Charles Sturt University, which has one of the largest number of social work students in Australia with 585 students enrolled in 2010, only 13% where male.

  4. Issues • More people migrate to Australia from non-European countries and this will increase the demand for male social workers as many male clients will find it culturally inappropriate to have a female counsellor asking intimate questions about their life. • Aboriginal male clients who have been initiated into adulthood according to traditional law, cannot be counselled by a woman.

  5. Aim of the project • The aim of this project is to investigate men’s motivation to become social workers in a three pronged process by establishing an evidence base through a comprehensive literature review; survey Australian social workers; and conduct an international comparison.

  6. Where are the men? • There are many hypotheses to why there is such a gender imbalance in the profession; historically social work has been seen as women’s work although there appears to be both a horizontal and vertical differentiation between men and women. • More women are working in frontline social work, while men are disproportionally represented in managerial positions.

  7. Why are men not studying social work? • There have been several suggestions as to the reasons why men are less well represented in social work education than women. • During the last two decades there has been a transformation in the gender balance of higher education in Australia • There have been efforts to attract more women to higher education and these programs have been successful to the point of women now being more likely to attend university to a greater extent than men

  8. Conclusion (so far) • Changing clientele characteristics due to globalisation, environmental change and altered migration patterns require higher numbers of male social workers in frontline positions rather than in managerial positions. • The need to be culturally appropriate is thus placing the Australian social work profession in a challenging position due to the disproportionately small numbers of male social workers and social work students.

  9. For further details regarding the project Contact: Dr Fredrik Velander Ms Heather Barton fvelander@csu.edu.auhebarton@csu.edu.au Tel: +61 2 6933 2558 Tel: +61 2 6933 2783

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