engleski

Challenges for Social Work Education in Croatia: Lessons from a Post-socialist Context

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries many regions of the world faced a rapidly changing society. Post-communist countries in Europe were among them. These changes had a major influence on both social work education and practice, but very often not in a compatible manner. Based on the experience one of these countries went through, this paper tries to suggest a conceptual framework of changes regarding social work education and practice. During a period of more than 50 years, two levels appeared. Initially, education was the result of an already developed practice based on a certain ideological background. Its role was to reproduce this system of social work practice. The second level appeared in a reverse order when ideological changes occurred first without having developed new practices. The role of the educational system was to produce a new practice system. However, this didn’t simply result in new practices, and nowadays there seem to be parallel practice systems. There are certain factors that legitimise both existing systems. However, this situation had many unfavourable implications for achieving the contemporary aims of social work. Some suggestions for addressing this situation are made, and certain proposals that could help in managing future changes that are inevitable in these times are discussed.

Transition society ; Social work education ; Social work practice ; Post-communist context

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