Social welfare policy curriculum content in Central Europe in comparison to United States policy and social work education (Hungary, Poland, Romania)

Over the past decade, researchers and scholars have sought to rebuild educational systems and government services in the former Soviet controlled region of Central and Eastern Europe. With social work, and other similar programs of study, having been virtually non-existent from the end of World War II in the region, the reemergence of these programs of study provide a rich research environment. Several researchers have suggested that complete programs of study have been imported from other parts of the world into Central Europe. Although these studies allude to an import of Western European and American programs, no study has documented the curriculum content in social welfare policy and service courses. The current study looks at the social welfare policy and services curriculum content in social work and social welfare policy programs in Central Europe. The political systems in each country with regard to programs and services for social security and health care are also reviewed. Four universities in three different countries, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, provide descriptions of their curriculum content regarding social welfare policy and service courses. Books, articles, syllabi, and department brochures for the social work, social pedagogy, or social welfare policy and services programs are reviewed. The Council of Social Work Education curriculum policy statement 2002 guidelines are used to describe the material gathered from the Central European universities for standardization of terms in social welfare policy and services courses. Social Security and health care in the United States are also compared to similar programs and services in Hungary, Poland, and Romania to determine the match of course content with the actual policies and services in each country. The study is important for beginning to tracking the flow of information internationally in social work and for the respect of cultural applications in social work education throughout the world.