A Study Of Factors That Affect The Development Of Social Work Department Within The Universities

Since the social work education was restored in China in 1987, it has advanced at an exceptional speed and trained a large number of professionals in this field. Meanwhile, each of the social work programs in universities, both early and newly established have confronted numerous problems and difficulties in this process of fast development, such as the lack of proper subject categorization, poor professional and social identity, insufficient qualified faculty, and immature curriculum design. As a result of problem-solving efforts, some social work programs gradually become well-developed, forming its own characteristics while some others are constrained by lots of obstacles, experiencing the dilemma of closing the department. Thinking about the fact that all the social work programs in China have been operated under the same social context, the question that why the social work departments have evolved in a different way is worth being pursuit.The purpose of this research is to find the key factors affecting the process of the development of those departments established before the year of 2006 and to provide meaningful suggestions for all the social work programs in China. Based on the data collected from the interviews with around 40 deans, faculty and students from six undergraduate social work programs in universities in P1 and P2 provinces, the internal factors contributing to the developments of those programs have been analyzed, the model of the development - the three stage development model has been constructed and explained and conclusion, that the factors within the university under which the social work program is operated are the key factors contributing to the current status of the programs, has been drawn.The thesis consists of 6 chapters. The first chapter is the background of this research. The second chapter is the literature review. The existing relevant research papers have been studied to provide a foundation for this research. The third chapter accounts of the qualitative research methods. The forth chapter presents the panorama of the development of the six social work programs and the three-stage development model is presented. The fifth chapter is the discussion on the validity and reliability of the research concerned to the researcher and the sixth chapter is the conclusion.In summary, the development of social work programs is a problem-solving process. People in the program play different roles in this problem-solving process by making use of different resources available to them. The impact of all the forces (factors) coming from within the university is the key to the problem-solving process. The support from the management at the university level is the most important at the beginning of the program and will decreases when the program grows. The major impact force will change from the administrative force to social work professional force.