Breaking the silence: sexual orientation in social work field education.(Report)

FIELD EDUCATION, MORE SO than any other component of the social work curriculum, challenges students to integrate professional knowledge, values, and skills into their personal identity and sense of self. This multifaceted integration is clearly a process that takes place over the span of professionals' careers, as social workers examine, deconstruct, and reconstruct values, beliefs, and preferred practice approaches. However, opportunities early in students' professional education are crucial for learning about the ways in which the personal self and professional self are interrelated (Bogo, 1993; Grossman, Levine-Jordano, & Shearer, 1990). Field educators and students have underscored the importance of an open, supportive, and trusting relationship with a field instructor as the ideal place for reflection on practice, increasing self-awareness, revealing vulnerabilities, and learning how to relate to clients (Bogo, Globerman, & Sussman, 2004; Walter & Young, 1999).

Conceptual frameworks that address educational processes in the field instructor-student relationship have generally been articulated at a broad level with the implication that they would apply to all students. For example, Bogo and Vayda (1998) provided a model that includes reflection on how personal aspects of the self are understood by students and brought into their practice both intentionally and in subtle and unintentional ways. They identified a wide range of individual student identity characteristics as illustrative of self issues that students are concerned with as well as approaches for field instructors. Recent empirical studies focused on educational processes for helping students with personal and professional integration have found that students in the final year of their social work programs improved in their ability to achieve a greater differentiation of their personal and professional selves (Deal, 2000) and to be self-critical (Fortune, McCarthy, & Abramson, 2001; Knight, 2001). However, these authors do not address specific social identity characteristics of students.

Social work theorists have incorporated an analysis of the effects of diversity, power, and social identity characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability, on practice and education. A recent text on field education advocates infusing content on cultural self-awareness and an understanding of power, privilege, and oppression throughout the field experience (Hendricks, Finch, & Franks, 2005). These authors briefly discuss unique concerns of lesbian and gay students and provide recommendations for field instructors in working with students "who are 'coming out' or being 'outed' in an agency" (p. 185). A review of the social work field education literature, however, found few studies that examine the possible impact of identity characteristics on the relationship between field instructors and students. Investigations have focused on gender (e.g., Thyer, Sower-Hoag, & Love, 1987; Vonk, Zucrow, & Thyer, 1996) and race/ethnicity (e.g., Black, Maki, & Nunn, 1997; Gladstein & Mailick, 1986; Marshack, Hendricks, & Gladstein, 1994; McRoy, Freeman, Logan, & Blackmon, 1986). These studies suggest that participants largely downplay the impact of social identity. Furthermore, although field instructors reported being aware of cultural, ethnic, gender, class, and age similarities and differences between themselves and theft students, they rarely discussed these issues with their students.

One recent study explored field education issues and concerns from the perspectives of 30 lesbian and gay social work students in field placement (Messinger, 2004). The majority of these students identified barriers or issues related to their sexual orientation on individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels. General feelings of lack of safety and anxiety pervaded students' experiences at all levels. Individual-level issues included managing disclosure and pressures in regard to hiding one's sexual orientation, identity development concerns, and issues around professionalism as a gay or lesbian person. Homophobic and heterosexist attitudes and behaviors and an unfriendly agency climate were characteristic of both interpersonal and institutional levels. At the interpersonal level, conflicts in relationships with field instructors or with intimate partners were raised as additional concerns. At the institutional level, participants identified lack of acknowledgement or discussion of gay and lesbian issues.

Despite the myriad concerns about field education raised by lesbian and gay social work students, which traverse interpersonal and institutional as well as individual levels of experience, we are aware of no research that assesses the perspectives of social work field educators in regard to working with lesbian and gay students. Given the paucity of research literature in this area, we determined it to be premature to adopt a preconceived theoretical framework. We used a grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2006) to explore, through in-depth interviews, the ideas, opinions, and knowledge of field instructors regarding lesbian and gay MSW students in social work field education. Grounded theory is particularly apropos of investigation in a domain in which scarce empirical data exists. The overall purpose of this formative investigation is to provide initial data to support social work educators, field instructors, and lesbian and gay students in addressing and negotiating sexual orientation-related issues that may arise in field education, and to serve as a basis for further empirical research.

Method

Eight key informants were identified by the investigators, in consultation with the school's field practicum director and faculty associated with the practicum, using purposive sampling. Given the preliminary nature of the study in a largely unexplored domain, we aimed to engage field instructors with advanced knowledge of field education and awareness of sexual orientation-related issues to generate ideas and explore their experiences rather than merely to assess knowledge and awareness across a representative sample of field instructors. Accordingly, selection criteria included having at least 5 years of post-MSW social work professional experience and expertise in field education based on at least 3 years as a field instructor and performance in field instructor training seminars. In addition, selection of field instructors was based on their history of working effectively with lesbian and gay students or involvement in diversity training initiatives and on self-identification as lesbian or gay or being known as a heterosexual-identified ally to lesbian and gay communities. The selection procedure also attempted to include diverse key informants based on gender, race/ethnicity, and field practicum setting. All field instructors who were contacted agreed to participate and gave written informed consent. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Board of the University of Toronto.