Social work education, curriculum mapping and educational taxonomies

Abstract

This literature scan is written to support the first phase of enhance R2P: an Ako Aotearoa funded project focused on developing a professional capabilities framework to clarify the capabilities of newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) and social workers at experienced and advanced levels of practice. The first phase of the project is designed to answer the following question: what is the content of the current New Zealand social work curriculum and how does it relate to the core competencies of the Social Workers’ Registration Board (SWRB)? This literature scan is written for the research team, our project participants and the wider stakeholder community of interest. Its aims are twofold: to introduce social work education in Aotearoa New Zealand and to explore the rationale for two aspects of our proposed methodology - curriculum mapping and the development of a taxonomy of Terms for Indexing Social Work Education in Aotearoa New Zealand (TISWEANZ).