Identity-Based Processes and Clinical Social Work Education
Creators: name: Trujillo, Michelangelo
Publisher: name: My University
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Social Work Eduction
subject: Identity Theory
subject: Dual Process Theory
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology
subject: Social Work
subject: FOS: Sociology
subject: Sociology
subject: Social Sciences

description: The development of competencies is a central concern within the social work profession. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) code of ethics, for example, states that social workers develop and maintain competencies relevant to their professional obligations, designating “competence” as one of six core values of the social work profession. The Council of Social Work (CSWE) accreditation standards similarly consist of the designation of specific competency guidelines. Despite this, there is no existing social work education research examining how social work student identities and identity-based processes are implicated within the context of social work education. This gap in the social work education literature is concerning because research on identity and self-concept have been shown to predict of a range of behaviors and preferences known to be important for learning. This dissertation begins to address this gap in the social work education literature by conducting three studies that draw on different theories of identity to examine their relevance to clinical social work students and clinical social work education. Chapter 2 examines the relationship between fixed and growth mindsets and the learning orientations of sample of clinical social work students. Mindsets are beliefs about the malleability or fixity of a domain specific ability and have been shown to predict behaviors and preferences known to support or impede educational outcomes. This chapter examines the relationship between fixed and growth mindsets and the likelihood of asking for help when struggling, preferences for learning goals vs performance goals, and the likelihood of volunteering to demonstrate a newly learned skill in class. Chapter 3 draws on the theory of possible selves, understood as the future imagined selves we hope to become or avoid becoming. Possible selves have been shown to be an important source of motivation to behave in ways that support the realization of these imagined future selves via their influence on self-regulation in the present, and like mindsets, have also been shown to predict educational outcomes. Chapter 3 consists of a qualitative thematic analysis of social work possible selves for a sample of clinical social work students. Chapter 4 is a theoretical discussion, synthesis, and application of identity theory and Sociological Dual Process Theory (SDPT). Identity theory is a developed approach to understanding the situated, dynamic, and interactive features of identity and identity-based processes yet does not distinguish between the explicit (deliberate) and implicit (automatic) aspects of identity. Sociological Dual Process Theory (SDPT), in contrast, provides what is arguably the most developed account of implicit and explicit cognitive processes within sociological literature to date, yet has typically relied on psychologically reductive measures ill-suited for the study of more complex and dynamic features of social explanation. I propose a Dual Process Model of Identity (DPMI) that draws on the strengths and addresses the limitations of each. I illustrate the benefits of this model for social work educators by examining how the use of video recorded practice sessions can serve as a site for the identification of implicit and explicit barriers to clinical practice. I then explore how the identities of different social work actors (e.g., students, clients, and faculty) might be implicated in the implementation of video recorded practice into social work curriculum.