Master of Social Work

July. 19,2021
Master of Social Work

The training goal of the Master's degree in social work is to have the professional values of "people-oriented, help others, self-help, fairness and justice", master the theories and methods of social work, be familiar with social policies, and have strong social service planning, implementation, supervision, evaluation and Research ability, competent for application-oriented senior professionals in social services and social management for different groups and fields.



International situation



Internationally, in the field of social sciences, social work has long become an independent discipline and profession. It has the same status as sociology, economics, psychology, and political science, and has formed a relatively mature and complete society. Work professional education system. Developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, as well as developing countries such as India and Brazil, not only recruit a large number of social work undergraduates, but also have a master's degree in social work to train high-level practical-oriented social work talents.



Countries also set up DSW and PHD degrees to cultivate research talents with application orientation, application and academic integration, thus forming a discipline education system composed of three levels of undergraduate students-master students-doctoral students. Among these three levels, undergraduate education is basic education, and postgraduate education for masters is divided into two orientations: one is MSW, which emphasizes practical orientation, and the other is M.Phil, which emphasizes academic orientation in philosophy (social work); and Doctoral students are basically research and academic type. In developed countries, many important universities (such as the University of Michigan, Columbia University, University of California, Berkeley, Oxford University in the United Kingdom, etc.) regard the cultivation of a master's degree in social work as an important part of their education system.



classification



Social work graduate students can be divided into "academic degree" postgraduates (Master of Social Science in the direction of social work) and "professional degree" postgraduates (MSW) according to the type of training.



The difference in training goals



Academic degree and professional degree are at the same level, but the training specifications have their own focuses, and there are obvious differences in training goals. The "academic degree" is set up by subject, which is oriented by academic research and emphasizes theory and research, and mainly trains university teachers and researchers in scientific research institutions; while the "professional degree" is oriented by professional practice, focusing on practice and application, and training in For high-level talents who have received formal and high-level training in their majors and expertise, the standard for awarding degrees should reflect the characteristics of the professional field and the requirements for high-level talents in specialized technical work and academic capabilities. The outstanding feature is academic Sexuality and professionalism are closely integrated, and those who obtain professional degrees are mainly engaged in work with a clear professional background instead of academic research.



The difference in education type



"Academic degrees" and "professional degrees" have their own clear positioning in the training objectives. Therefore, there are differences in teaching methods, teaching content, and the standards and requirements for awarding degrees. As far as the “Sociology and Social Work Orientation” graduate students are concerned, all domestic sociology graduate training units mainly recruit “full-time academic postgraduates”, and the length of schooling is generally two to three years; while the “Master of Social Work” graduate students are clearly classified as “full-time” There are two types of “postgraduates with professional degree” and “part-time postgraduates”. The length of schooling is generally two years.