Rejoinder to “Reinventing Social Work Education”

Abstract

The main assumption of the article under discussion seems flawed and misconstrued. The “professional decline of social work” neither is because of the “lack of scholarship of the Board of Directors” nor is an outcome of an imperfect accreditation process. The presumption that independently achieved accreditation will improve the quality of scholarship and educational programs and raise the deans' and directors' caliber is also misconceived. The author, though in general agreement with many of the observations of Stoesz and Karger, finds the crisis of social work deeply rooted in the field's cultural contradictions, academic malaise, and professional mendacity. The triangularity of this problem obscures basic issues that are crucial to unraveling social work education, its variegated crisis, and its possible transformation.