Summary

The poster presentation examines student reflections on the impact of the study abroad experience in areas such as national diversities, cultural awareness and humility, professional and personal growth, and most impactful and transformative experiences.\  The social work profession has long recognized the importance of human rights and engaging in anti-racism, anti-oppression, diversity, equity, and inclusion (CSWE, EPAS 2022). Gaining a perspective on global human rights requires, at a minimum, information about the world. Although study abroad programs for social work students have existed for decades, a recent literature review characterized this research as “nascent (Gearing et al., 2020). A common thread in social work international field placements and study abroad is student transformation which represents a life-changing, personal, and professional experience (Colton \& Thompson, 2017; Lough, 2009). While the topic of diversity among students who participate in study abroad and differences in their experiences has been explored by Chang (2017) and Salisbury and colleagues (2011), there is limited research exploring the transformative nature of study abroad trips among diverse students. Much existing research is limited to one study abroad site and often only one trip. The poster will present a content analysis of over 40 MSW student reflections after a study abroad experience. The sample covers three years and two study-abroad sites. One study abroad site was in Panama, while the other was in Italy. The poster will discuss the results from the analysis using the following themes: (1) Community, (2) Adaptation, (3) Empowerment / Inspiration / Transformation, \& (4) Culture. The poster will discuss how the themes above emerged from analyses of student presentations regarding study abroad experiences that were the most impactful and transformational.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Diversity, Research, Content Analysis, Study Abroad, Transformative, Global Human Rights, Student Reflections, Panama, Italy, Empowerment, Culture, Community, High Impact Learning, Emerging Themes

Summary

Research of issues related to disability is consistently evolving in several social science related fields such as social work, psychology, sociology, and education. Disability research often employs large public datasets for researchers to conduct secondary analysis. However, these datasets come with many limitations that can impact the overall results. Additionally, participation recruitment can be difficult due to accessibility challenges faced among individuals with disabilities and because of the diversity observed among the different disability categories. The purpose of this article is to discuss the limitations that occur when conducting a quantitative analysis for disability research.

Keywords (separate with commas)

disability social work, quantitative research, disability diversity, intersectionality, special education

Summary

The poster presents results of a qualitative study on diversity in a community and open youth work. The aim of the study is to empirically and exemplarily depict processes of discursive negotiations of normative, political concepts on the topic of diversity based on the diversity policy of a municipality. The focus is on guiding diversity principles that have been implemented in practice in the top-down system and the perspective of social work on diversity. Document analyses, expert interviews and group discussions are used to examine how diversity is negotiated at the levels of municipal administration and social work practice. The study was evaluated using structuring content analysis. The results show that diversity is used as an empty phrase. Furthermore, it was found that not only diversity is used as an empty phrase, but also other terms such as "integration" or "inclusion". As another result, diversity is negotiated as "openness to everything" and hardly reflected by the professionals with regard to its enabling conditions. The open door to the youth center is mentioned as a requirement for young people to access the youth center. An open attitude on the part of the specialists is negotiated as the most important criterion for their own work. However, the openness also has its limits, which is partly due to the lack of staff. First approaches to critically reflecting on the diversity in their own team and in the youth center are expressed.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Diversity, open youth work, qualitative study, administration