SW Z505Human Behavior in Social Env

Catalog

This course introduces graduate-level social work students to a set of foundational and influential social scientific theories. Attending to the social work profession's person-in-environment perspective, we will use an interdisciplinary liberal arts perspective to explore theories from a variety of disciplines. These include, but are not limited to, psychology, sociology, political science, anthropology, cultural studies, and medical science. Because social workers practice in a multitude of settings, across a broad scale of social environments (from micro to macro), and with different types of sentient and non-sentient "client" systems (individuals, families, groups, communities, organizations, and nation states), the theoretical content of this course is necessarily eclectic. HBSE offers a theoretical roadmap to the social sciences with the aim of familiarizing students with the basic tenets of historically and/or currently relevant theories and concepts. The applicability and relevance of particular theories and perspectives will vary with student interests and area of practice. Foundational knowledge learned in this course may appear on social work professional licensure exams, inform social service approaches and treatment paradigms, and lay the groundwork for in-depth, targeted learning throughout your career trajectory.