, - Religion and Spirituality in MSW Programs’ Implicit and Explicit Curricula

Overview: This presentation will report the results of a national survey of social work faculty regarding how content on religion/spirituality is currently integrated into MSW programs’ implicit and explicit curricula and how important faculty consider the integration of religion/spirituality across CSWE’s competencies. Implications for faculty and MSW programs will be presented.Proposal text: Background
Recognizing that religion and spirituality(RS) are important areas of client diversity and many clients prefer their RS be integrated(Harris et al.,2016), it’s important to consider how RS is addressed in MSW programs. Previous studies have assessed whether programs offer a RS course, finding that approximately one-third do(Moffatt&Oxhandler,2018; Moffatt et al.,2019; Russel et al.,2005). However, an infusion model may be more feasible, integrating RS content across the curriculum through lectures, readings, and assignments. To date, no study has surveyed all social work faculty regarding the degree to which RS content is infused across the implicit and explicit MSW curricula, or how important faculty consider the integration of RS to be across CSWE’s competencies.

Our research questions were:1)How is RS integrated within the implicit curriculum at the programmatic level?;2)How is RS integrated within the explicit curriculum through a course offering and content infusion?;3)How important do faculty consider integrating RS to be across the nine core CSWE(2015) EPAS competencies?

Methods
To answer our questions, we utilized data from a 2019 national survey of 1210 faculty in CSWE-accredited MSW programs(Oxhandler et al.,in press). We analyzed descriptive responses to Hodge’s(2007) Spiritual Competency Scale(SCS) to determine RS integration within the implicit curriculum at the programmatic level. To understand RS integration within the explicit curriculum, we analyzed items on whether an RS course was offered and RS infusion across curricular content areas. Finally, we examined items assessing how important faculty consider RS integration to be within CSWE’s nine competencies. Chi square and independent samples t-tests were conducted to compare responses between faculty at faith-based and secular universities.

Results
Our analyses were limited to 781 faculty who responded to this study’s items of interest, representing at least 221(77%) of MSW programs. Participants’ characteristics were similar to CSWE’s(2017) report of MSW faculty demographics. Regarding our first question, about two-thirds of faculty reported their program as being sensitive, respectful, and generally open to RS topics, with the other third reporting neutral or negative experiences. For our second question, approximately one-third of respondents(33.6%) indicated their program offered a RS course. Across curriculum content areas, the highest proportion of faculty indicated minimal inclusion of RS content (one assignment/discussion) while fewer infused RS content. Nearly half of faculty include a discussion/assignment related to diverse RS beliefs(49.3%) and practices(49.5%) upheld by different cultural groups. Regarding our third question, all nine CSWE competencies received averages above the midpoint, indicating faculty generally consider integrating RS across competencies to be important. Finally, faculty at faith-based programs reported significantly higher rates of offering a RS course [χ2 (1,Nf705)=32.68, p