Field practicum is known as the "signature pedagogy" for social work. Though the Council of Social Work Education's accreditation standards guide the placement processes, research on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and other sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQIA+) students shows that this…

This study examines individual factors that influence activity in antiracism advocacy and political-social advocacy among MSW students. The research team sent an online survey link to the current MSW students and recent graduates of five schools in the United States. The results indicate that people who identify as bisexual and queer, study a…

Social work curricula increasingly prepare prospective social workers for practice with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) communities. Yet much of this pedagogy continues to neglect specific attention to the issues of transgender (trans) people specifically. In this article, we draw on…

Social workers use genograms in a collaborative manner with clients to assess family dynamics and to guide their intervention processes. Although genograms are intended to accurately and respectfully depict families, some of the standard genogram symbols and conventions are based on cisnormative and heteronormative assumptions. This article…

This article presents the results of two pilot studies focused on examining social work students' ability to interview two clients at once to provide evidence supporting the use of new dyadic subscales. Students participated in a simulation scenario with either a parent and bisexual child or a parent and transgender child. Licensed social workers…

We investigated the feasibility of a formative objective structured clinical examination adapted for social work (OSCE-SW) with a parent-bisexual child dyad and evaluated self-efficacy and performance learning outcomes for undergraduate social work students. Eighteen undergraduate students participated in a simulation involving two embedded…

This article presents current research on clinical practice with transgender and gender diverse (TGD) persons and introduces clinical social work educators and researchers with TGD-specific counseling competencies from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender…

On March 29, 2021, the Religious Exemption Accountability Project filed a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education on behalf of 33 sexual and gender minority students who reported discrimination at institutions that have a Title IX religious' exemption. Of the 25 institutions named in the suit, 14 have accredited social work…

Social work educators are responsible for ensuring their students are equipped to rise against social injustice. Therefore, the marginalization of transgender, genderqueer, and nonbinary people and communities must be addressed in the social work classroom. Contextualizing the social work classroom within cisnormativity, this article reports on…

The Council on Social Work Education mandates that students be prepared to work competently across lines of difference. Research suggests that social work programs have inadequate curricula for preparing students to work with LGBTQ+ people, and can be unsupportive of the needs of LGBTQ+ students. Little is understood about the experiences of…

Classroom-based microaggressions are a critical problem, associated with a range of negative impacts for students in targeted groups. Central to the problem of microaggressions is that they are often unacknowledged or unaddressed by educators in their own classrooms. Findings from the Social Work Speaks Out! mixed-method survey demonstrate that…

This article reviews how sexuality is addressed in the curricula of Norwegian social work bachelor's programs. The purpose of the review was to examine whether heteronormativity was problematized in social work curricula. A keyword search revealed that sexuality was addressed in only 0.08% of curriculum materials in the 2013-2014 academic year (90…

This study examines students' negative experiences in field placement related to their sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression, examining areas of conflict and emotional responses to conflicts. Using a subset of data gathered as part of a larger survey of 1,018 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) undergraduate and…

This article provides guidance in facilitating the development of culturally sensitive skills for working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) populations that take into account power and privilege. Social work faculty and students have an ethical obligation to be competent and aware of privilege. When working with LGBTQ…