The In-Class Experience of Rural Social Work Students Based on Political and Religious Ideology

Overview: Rural social work students are more likely to differ from their instructors in political and religious ideology. Results and implications of a survey of rural social work students about their experiences in the classroom will be presented and discussed. Suggestions to engage rural students in critical conversations will be identified.Proposal text: Social work education must involve critical conversations about topics that intersect with students’ political and/or religious beliefs (Fenton & Smith, 2019; Miller et al., 2004; Sloane & Petra, 2019). For social work educators this can feel empowering or risky in a national political environment charged with high emotion mixed with misinformation (Greenfield et al., 2018; Lerner, 2020). For most social work students, the political perspectives shared by the great majority of social work educators can feel like home (Zipp & Fenwick, 2006). For other well-intentioned social work students, these perspectives can feel uncomfortable, if not threatening (Flaherty et al., 2013; Fram & Miller-Cribbs, 2008; Mirick & Davis, 2021). The latter can be particularly true for rural students, who disproportionately identify, both politically and religiously, differently from their educators and their urban peers (Force & Mackie, 2007; Helton, 2010; Lerner, 2020; Sweeney, 2017). At the same time there are not enough social workers in rural communities to meet the social service demands, making recruitment and retention of social workers, especially in public settings, a top priority to build a culturally-competent workforce in those communities (Pollack & Markowitz, 2021). Thus, understanding how rural students experience and navigate these ideological collisions can provide meaningful guidance to social work educators to “meet the [student] where they are” in facilitating critical conversations in the classroom, as well as in providing meaningful mentorship, and ultimately in preparing students to serve their communities grounded in social work values (Boys et al., 2018). In this workshop the presenters will briefly review the literature related to the experience of rural social work students based on their political and/or religious beliefs. They will then share the results of a recent mixed-methods anonymous survey of BSW and MSW students attending several different rural satellite campuses of a land-grant university. The survey was designed by faculty in the University’s social work department to gain better understanding of the representation of political and religious views and experiences among rural social work students. More importantly, the results of the survey illuminate how students internally experience and externally respond to collisions of political and/or religious perspectives during their social work education. Specific implications of the collected data will be shared and discussed. The presenters will then facilitate an opportunity for session participants to share their own experiences, challenges, and successes in smaller groups. Finally, using the Johari Window as a theoretical guide, time will be dedicated to collaboratively identify concrete suggestions for engaging critical conversations in a rural context with social work students who may be experiencing an ideological collision due to their political or religious perspectives (Daddow et al., 2021; Greenfield et al., 2018; Luft & Ingham, 1955; Mirick & Davis, 2021; Rosenwald et al., 2012).