Crossing the Threshold: Addressing Multiple Exclusion Homelessness in Social Work Education

Karl Mason, Jess Harris

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study considering the extent of teaching on ‘multiple exclusion homelessness’ in social work curricula in England. A national ‘Call for Evidence’ was sent to all universities in England providing a social work qualifying programme and yielded 45 responses from 39 universities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 key informants (social work academics, students and placement providers) in order to elaborate upon the results of the ‘Call for Evidence’. We found that only 50% of universities provided specific teaching on this topic, but that 85% offered placements in homelessness settings, suggesting ambiguous attitudes towards teaching about multiple exclusion homelessness in social work education. Whilst an overview of the ‘Call for Evidence’ results will be presented, this article focuses on a thematic analysis of the qualitative interviews. The findings suggest that teaching in this area has the potential to be troublesome, affective, integrative and transformational, challenging fundamental ideas about what ‘real social work’ comprises. As such, multiple exclusion homelessness can be considered a ‘threshold concept’ for social work education. The article concludes that social work education needs to cross this threshold in order to equip social work students for working in this complex area.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages19
JournalSocial Work Education
Early online date20 Jan 2025
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 20 Jan 2025

Keywords

  • Multiple exclusion homelessness
  • curriculum
  • threshold concepts
  • transformational learning
  • social work education

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