Knowledge Use in Social Work: Exploring the Experiences of Graduates of the International Master Program in Social Work and Human Rights at Gothenburg University, Sweden

Abstract

Applying the obtained knowledge when starting to perform social work can be a struggle for most social workers. Therefore, we studied knowledge use in social work practice to find out how Master social work graduates who just recently joined the field cope. We explored the experiences with social work Knowledge use of graduates of the International Master in Social Work and Human Rights (IMSWHR) at Gothenburg University where we answered five main research questions; what do the graduates of the IMSWHR regard as knowledge?, what do the graduates of the IMSWHR view as social work knowledge?, what kinds of knowledge do the graduates of the IMSWHR think they use?, how do the graduates of the IMSWHR describe their experiences with using social work knowledge? And lastly where do the graduates of the IMSWHR think they obtained the knowledge which they use? A cross-sectional qualitative design was used and sixteen interviews were conducted with graduates of the IMSWHR. We conducted ten in-depth interviews from both Skype (including a pilot study which was also analysed and included in the study) and face-to-face while six participants answered the interview guide on their own and emailed us their responses due to poor internet connection in their countries. The study was conducted from a social constructionist perspective. In addition we reviewed the different typologies of knowledge use by different scholars and came up with our own theoretical model of knowledge use in which we included Payne´s concept of perfoming as a wise person which we used to understand and present the study findings. The data collected was analysed thematically. From the findings, some of our participants thought that knowledge is a very broad and philosophical concept which others stated having a problem with defining. Even with that however, we found that some concepts and key words were mostly used to explain what they thought knowledge is hence their mentions; experience, information and skills. They specifically regard social work knowledge to be the methods and the theories which they learned from their studies in addition to the experiences they gained from practice among other mentions. They also said they viewed social work knowledge as an instrument for practice, but also as knowing what one has to do in a practitioner-client situation. The findings showed that the graduates perceived to use different kinds of knowledge including theoretical knowledge, practice knowledge, system and situation/ context knowledge containing of legal knowledge, organizational knowledge as well as knowledge on the client and finally personalized knowledge to which practice wisdom, cultural knowledge, life experience, critical and analytical thinking belong. The kinds of knowledge named to be used by our participants are highly intertwined with where they perceive they obtained it; such sources are mentioned to include life experiences, their Bachelor and Master, the field and practice, internship and field placements as well as volunteering. They often referred back to both their undergraduate and graduate studies when talking about theoretical knowledge. We found that the graduates perceived themselves to cope with the demands in the field by using their knowledge to take upon adequate roles, being flexible and continuously coping with the social work´s nature of uncertainty to correspond to the needs of the service user. Such is called performing as a wise person by Payne and gives a nice example of how relatively inexperienced practitioners can manage in social work practice after graduation.