| Individuals with learning disabilities face challenges in the academic setting and during most daily tasks that require reading, writing, and mathematical skills. This exploratory, descriptive, multimethod study examined the opinions of social work faculty/instructors on teaching multicultural content with the inclusion of individuals with learning disabilities.;Multicultural diverse groups, often termed unique cultures, are defined as a group of individuals possessing shared life experiences peculiar to that group, or possessing unique social status, rules, or languages (Gilson & DePoy, 2001). This research defines individuals with learning disabilities (LD) within a human diversity framework and within the inclusion of the definition of multicultural diverse groups.;Historical oversight of including individuals with learning disabilities in the definition of multicultural diverse groups is discussed and reasons for the oversight are explained. Theoretical framework is discussed, which includes the history of disability theory and the constructionist approach to disability. The history of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) is given to explain the evolution of teaching standards and the challenges of educating and reviewing the competency of multicultural diversity content in accredited social work programs.;Approximately 1000 regionally stratified national social work faculty/instructors were surveyed during January and February 2006, and 326 Internet questionnaires (32%) were completed. Using a Likert scale an exploratory survey was constructed to measure teaching the two constructs of knowledge and attitudes of multicultural competency as adapted from Crisp and DiNitto (2004) and Lum (1999) with the inclusion of content regarding individuals with LD. Ten multicultural diverse groups were defined, with the inclusion of individuals with LD, and for testing purposes the responses were grouped into 22 variables based on knowledge and attitudes constructs. Seven qualitative questions were also created and responses were coded into themes.;Findings of this study show that multicultural content on individuals with LD is not consistently taught in accredited schools of social work. This oversight occurs because the medical model addressing disabilities is still the primary paradigm from which individuals with LD are viewed. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed along with supporting suggestions for more social work research concerning individuals with LD. |
