Paper short abstract:

Social Work education is struggling to decolonize and include the perspectives of students. At the same time, students struggle to formalize their knowledge of current societal developments. How can we include the youth's point of view and create an equal production of knowledge?

Paper long abstract:

Social work as a profession has the mission and aim to strengthen society, increase inclusion and fight power disbalance. As a social work teacher and anthropologist, I study the culture of social work education and the struggle Dutch social work is currently facing when it comes to working on a societal level. Past decades, especially addressing structural problems in society underlying individual problems, have been neglected by Dutch social work. In the education of social work, teachers seem to have the same struggle. Teachers struggle to decolonize education and struggle to include current societal developments. For my Ph.D. research, I study this struggle, while at the same time as a teacher and anthropologist I aim to contribute towards a more just and inclusive social work education. In this lightning talk, I present some of the challenges teachers and students face and propose some new directions. Students are part of this current society and do have the knowledge we need to adapt to future society. At the same time, students seem to struggle to formalize their knowledge and seem to rely on the, sometimes outdated, institutional knowledge. How can we as educators adapt to the current and future society and make use of the future society we have in our classrooms? How can we fight the power balance between the adult point of view versus the youth point of view? The hope and transformation could lay within the possibilities and knowledge youth has, how can we as universities incorporate that knowledge?