Social Work Education in Türkiye: Opinions of Students, Academics, and Social Workers

Social work practices around the world began to take root in the West from the second half of the 19th century. Social work started to be institutionalized from the beginning of the 20th century and social work education spread throughout the world following the opening of the first social work schools in Western countries. In Türkiye, university education, which was organized under the name of Social Work Academy in 1961, continued to be conducted within the Social Work Department of Hacettepe University. As of today, social work undergraduate education is given in seventy universities in Türkiye. In this study, it is aimed to look at the current situation and future of social work education from the perspective of students, academics, and social workers. The participants of the research, which was designed in a qualitative method, consist of four students, four academics, and four social workers. It was planned to conduct interviews with the participants using semi-structured questionnaires. The data obtained were subjected to content analysis and thematic coding was done first, and then main and sub-themes were created. The findings of the study were discussed in the light of current literature. Keywords: social work, undergraduate, education, strengths, and weaknesses qualitative method