Social Work Education For Aboriginal Communities

This paper examines aboriginal social work education in Canada and suggests that current education practice may be facilitating the assimilation of aboriginal students into a mainstream culture and profession. Developments in aboriginal social work programs and curriculum are reviewed and a philosophy of recognition and accommodation of aboriginal perspectives as a basis for future developments is posed as an alternative to assimilation. Further, a strategy for teaching, termed interface teaching, is suggested as a way in which non-aboriginal educators can take individual responsibility for wrestling with some of the issues that arise in the professional education of aboriginal students.