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Interviews are a primary source for evidence and research.

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This gives you an idea of what Social Workers do and what is expected. Plus some advice for who is interested in social work.

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Social work theory, models, methods + approaches explained

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The social work discipline is worldwide!

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VCU School of Social Work Online Master of Social Work Program Format

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Rooted in social justice and human rights, social work addresses a range of issues that challenge individuals, families and communities. International social workers apply the principles of social work to address human rights concerns that arise in international settings. Some of the issues that international social work addresses include:

Migration

Clean water and sanitation

Child rights and protection

Disaster relief

Civil-military issues

Gender equity

Educational disparities

Public health

Business and social entrepreneurship

A career in international social work may be rewarding to those inspired to collaborate on solutions that can bring relief to human suffering caused by natural disasters, armed conflicts, political instability, economic crises, diseases, and a host of other circumstances that create distress. Aspiring international social workers can prepare for this role by pursuing an advanced education.

What Is International Social Work?

International social work addresses an array of global humanitarian issues that impact individuals, families and communities as well as those that affect broader society. Many countries, particularly those with underserved populations, benefit from the efforts of international social workers. For instance, in the wake of the massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in early 2023, the sheer scale of the catastrophe called for international support. International social work organizations joined forces with local health workers and social workers and a range of local and international partners to meet the urgent needs of affected communities. These efforts helped deliver emergency medical care, distribute lifesaving aid and provide crucial mental health support to those traumatized by the disaster.

The most notable organizations in the field of international social work include the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW). However, there are several grassroots organizations working to improve the lives of the underserved around the world, including Social Workers Without Borders, which offers support to asylum seekers, refugees and migrants.

Regardless of the size of the organization, international social work is guided by certain ethical principles. According to IFSW, these include:

Recognition of the Inherent Dignity of Humanity: Social workers uphold the inherent dignity and worth of all individuals. They challenge beliefs and behaviors that devalue or stigmatize people.

Promoting Human Rights: Social workers advocate for the fundamental and inalienable rights of all people. They strive to strike a balance between competing human rights while respecting the dignity and worth of each person.

Promoting Social Justice: Social workers are committed to advancing social justice within society and among the people they serve. This includes challenging discrimination, respecting diversity, advocating for equitable resource distribution, and addressing unjust policies and practices.

Building Solidarity: Social workers actively engage with communities and colleagues, both within and beyond their profession, to create networks of solidarity. Through collaborative efforts, they seek transformational change and foster inclusive and responsible societies.

Promoting the Right to Self-Determination: Social workers respect and promote the right of individuals to make autonomous decisions about their own lives, enabling them to exercise control over their personal circumstances while receiving necessary support and guidance.

Other ethical tenets that guide international social work, as outlined by IFSW, include respecting individuals' rights to confidentiality and privacy and embracing a holistic approach to interventions that recognizes the biological, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions that shape people's lives.

What Does an International Social Worker Do?

By focusing on local issues and collaborating closely with local communities, international social workers empower people to identify and implement solutions that are best suited to their unique contexts and circumstances. This approach fosters a sense of ownership and agency, enabling communities to take charge of their own development and improve their overall well-being.

Consider the following example, as outlined in the journal World, to understand how that may play out in an international social work project aimed at addressing food insecurity and poverty in a farming community in rural Africa.

Understanding the Local Context: International social workers begin by taking time to understand the community's culture, traditions and farming practices. Through this process, social workers learn that the village relies heavily on subsistence agriculture and faces challenges caused by erratic weather patterns and limited access to markets.

Engaging the Community: The social workers engage in meetings, conversations and gatherings with community members and involve local leaders and elders to ensure inclusive decision-making and representation of diverse perspectives. Social workers build trust and rapport with the villagers by actively listening to their experiences, needs and aspirations.

Identifying Challenges and Resources: Through collaborative discussions with the community, social workers identify the specific challenges they face, such as the lack of irrigation systems and access to seeds and fertilizers. Simultaneously, they recognize existing strengths and resources, like local farming knowledge and traditional water conservation techniques.

Tailoring Solutions: With a deeper understanding of the community's needs and resources, social workers work together with the villagers to design tailored solutions. Instead of imposing external technologies or practices, they integrate innovative ideas with the community's existing knowledge and cultural practices.

Implementing and Building Capacities: The social workers facilitate the implementation of the agreed-upon solutions. They conduct training sessions to build the community's capacity in sustainable farming techniques, water management and soil conservation. They also connect the villagers with local agricultural experts and resources.

Empowering the Community: As the project progresses, the community members take an active role in the implementation process, gaining a sense of ownership and agency over the initiatives because they were actively involved in planning and decision-making. This empowerment enhances their confidence in their ability to address challenges and improve their own livelihoods.

How to Become an International Social Worker

Becoming an international social worker is a matter of getting the right education and experience while developing key skills and attributes, including ethical standards, tolerance, appreciation for the stamina and capacity of indigenous populations, and cultural competency that includes a willingness to learn as much as teach. Some of the following steps are required, while others are only highly recommended.

1. Earn an undergraduate degree. All social workers typically need at least a bachelor's degree. Those interested in pursuing a career in international social work should consider earning a degree in social work, a foreign language, community organization or a related discipline.

2. Learn a foreign language. Although this is not always a prerequisite, learning a foreign language is greatly beneficial for those who intend to work abroad. Communication is a highly valued skill in international social work, so it's advisable for students to learn at least one foreign language.

3. Earn a master's degree. While generally not a requirement, some organizations prefer candidates with a graduate degree, such as a Master of Social Work.

4. Attain licensure. Social workers often need to earn licensure as a means of certifying their skills and knowledge, and licensure is required for clinical social workers. While most international social work is not clinical, earning licensure can expand a social worker's capacity to support individuals in international contexts, including providing mental health support.

5. Gain experience. International social workers can greatly benefit from experience in the field, and in many cases it may be required. For those who wish to work abroad as a social worker, fellowships and internships are a great way to gain experience.

6. Secure employment. After completing the educational steps and acquiring a sufficient amount of experience, aspiring international social workers should seek employment with an organization or nonprofit that aligns with their interests and values.

Important Skills for International Social Work

Through their education and experience, it's vital for international social workers to cultivate qualities that can help them maintain genuine, respectful and reciprocal attitudes in their work. These qualities include:

Cultural Humility: Cultivating cultural humility helps social workers recognize the complexity of cultural differences. This means acknowledging that they may not fully understand the nuances of the local culture and that they have something to learn from it.

Self-Reflection: By engaging in continuous self-reflection, international social workers can better understand their own biases, assumptions and preconceptions. This understanding can help them avoid projecting their beliefs onto others.

Appreciation of Local Knowledge: International social workers should value the wisdom and local knowledge of the community members they serve. Appreciation for a community's insights and experiences breeds trust and can lead to more effective and relevant interventions.

Pursue a Career in International Social Work

International social workers provide support on global humanitarian issues, such as migration, natural disasters, food scarcity and a host of other challenges. International social work represents not only an opportunity to help those in need and perform meaningful work, but also a great way to expand your horizons and see the world.

Those interested in venturing onto this career path should consider the benefits of an advanced education, such as the online Master of Social Work Program format offered at Virginia Commonwealth University. The program - which offers concentrations in clinical social work and macro social work - includes coursework rooted in cultural competence and instills the values of social justice, diversity and human rights.

Learn more about the program to find out how it can help you achieve your professional goals.

Credit
Reviewed by Kathleen M. Korndoerfer, M.A., LPC*

* Kathleen Korndoerfer, M.A., is a licensed professional counselor with over 10 years experience in the fields of mental health and social work. Kathleen currently practices in Colorado and specializes in the treatment of PTSD and trauma-related disorders and child and adolescent counseling.
Kathleen Korndoerfer, Licensed Professional Counselor, Montrose, CO, 81401 | Psychology Today

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International Social Work: A Growing Field of Practice

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How are the values and goals of social work applied on a global scale? Learn more about the importance of international social work and its main tenets.

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Vocabulary is important. You can not understand what you are reading until you understand the particular vocabulary used.

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The Rhetorical Situation is important when writing and reading anything concerning your academic discipline.

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Logical Fallacies and Biases are common in Social Research, especially in studies.

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Think social science is free of fallacies? Here are the ones we use, and where we use them.

Commentary essays, op eds, and blog posts often make arguments by using a few carefully chosen fallacies. Academic writing, meanwhile, is not supposed to have such errors in reasoning. But academic writing takes many forms, from peer review articles and book manuscripts, to grant proposals and publicity materials for funders, to research blog posts and invited essays for public scholarship. And researchers still face the constraints of word length, publishing venue, document genre, and audience that often means committing a few fallacies on the way to delivering a punchline. So argumentative fallacies still appear in social research, and there are three families of fallacies you can often spot even in the best academic manuscripts.

Fallacies of authority are usually found in literature reviews.

Fallacies of logic are usually found in explanations of research questions, hypotheses or findings.

Fallacies of emotion are usually found in grant proposals or public scholarship, such as reports to funders, policy makers, employers, journalists, and the public.

The process of actually doing research, getting a manuscript reviewed, and working with an editor can often clean up the fallacies in research writing. But some invariably slip through. So here is a guide to the most prominent kinds of fallacies in research writing.

Creating a "Straw Man"

This occurs when an academic dismisses an unreasonable counterargument. "Some people think students should spend all their time studying, but I think it's important for students to use their college experience to expand their social and cultural capital outside of the classroom." Does anyone really think that students should only study? This fallacy creates the illusion of different opinions, and forces the author to overlook the specific aspects of a topic where real differences of opinion exist. The argument is set up just so it can be knocked down, and it is a fallacy often found in literature reviews where a researcher is trying to justify their new study.

Irrelevant Conclusion (Non Sequitur or Ignoratio Elenchi)

This occurs through the (often accidental) omission of information needed to for the reader to make a connection between two ideas. For example, "The professor is attractive therefore the class must be good." The connection between people who are attractive and people who teach well is missing in this argument. In attempting to prove that a public policy is guilty of exacerbating homelessness, a researcher might argue that homelessness is a horrible social problem in every country. This fallacy can be found in conclusions, where researchers need to demonstrate that their findings are relevant for public policy.

Killing the Messenger (Argumentum ad Hominem)

This fallacy disputes an argument by attacking the person who makes the argument. When a researcher skewers "feminists", "conservatives," or "positivists" they are usually guilty of killing the messenger. Using this fallacy means singling out people who are aligned with a theory or ideology without examining the validity of their arguments. This kind of fallacy can be committed by either insulting someone or by misrepresenting their associations. An abusive example would be "Don't believe anything John says, he does social network analysis." An example of circumstantial association would be "Of course he thinks social network analysis is the best. He a quant jock." This fallacy can occur when researchers want to quickly dismiss how a rival subfield approaches the same research question.

Faulty Authority (Argumentum ad Vericundiam)

Can someone with a Ph.D. in history really give you good medical advice? Is a TV star or pro-athlete a good person to ask about the best computer software, insurance, or automobile to buy? The fallacy of faulty authority is when we use someone whose name is familiar or whose credentials might seem relevant to validate an opinion beyond their expertise. This fallacy appears in two forms in academic research: when a researcher claims that "studies show" something without providing citations; when a researcher makes passing, unsubstantive references to great scholars like Habermas and Foucault without actually using their ideas.

Correlation is not Causation (Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc)

When an event happens in close proximity to another event, it can be easy to assume that the first caused the second. Social phenomena always have multiple, conjoined, non-linear causes - it is the researcher that has to simplify things. "John played a lot of violent video games. Then John did this this awful deed, so the violent video games must have caused John to do the awful deed." John may have often played violent video games before behaving badly, but demonstrating that violent video games caused the bad behavior and the particular awful deed requires complex, multi-faceted evidence. This fallacy can also be used in reverse, to deny any connection between facts. "Student workloads have increased, and the college dropout rate has also increased. However, students also suffer more psychological damage in high school these days, so the increased workloads in college must not be the real source of the problem." Psychological damage in high school may be part of the problem, but that doesn't mean student workloads should be dismissed as a causal factor. This fallacy can appear in quantitative social science, which often relies on correlational statistics. Whether or not traditional statistical models support causal arguments depends on the study design.

Begging the Question (Petito Principii)

This fallacy usually occurs when researchers misread their audience, treating an arguable proposition as if it were a fact. "Because students are no longer concerned about receiving a broad range of knowledge in college, the university should not require courses outside a student's major." In some research communities, everyone would agree that students no longer want a broad range of knowledge. Across broad discipline, or among policy makers and journalists, this assertion would be highly debatable. For example, a social scientist may present "because I said so!" as a justification, but doing so begs the question, "why say so?" This fallacy can often take the form of complex questions such as "Have you given up falsifying your data?" This fallacy can appear when a researcher is writing for a cross-over journal, the disciplinary flagship journal, or an audience of non-specialists.

Hasty Generalization (Dicto Simpliciter)

We often generalize in order to prove our points, and this is not necessarily bad. We rarely come up with an absolute truth, and natural scientists also have to use generalization to prove their theorems. These generalizations are only considered fallacies when the sample we take is unrepresentative. Using three people who voted for a Presidential candidate does not prove that most voters voted for that candidate; you would need a larger sample to make that assertion responsibly. Convincing an audience that a sample is representative is one of the great challenges of social research, and if conclusions are unsafe the researcher will be accused of hasty generalization. This fallacy can also be called a converse accident. "That man is an alcoholic. Liquor should be banned." Hasty generalizations are usually found in the conclusions of academic articles and books - the points in a manuscript where a researcher has to make their findings seem important and transportable.

Circular Logic (Circulus in Probando)

Circular logic occurs when the reasons offer in support of an argument simply restate the argument itself. "To succeed in college, students need to effectively manage their time because success comes from a balance of work and social time." Students need to balance their time because they need to balance their time. Circular arguments are ineffective because they don't provide support for the author's opinion, they just restate the opinion. Culture and deviance are among the most difficult things for social scientists to study, because clumsy wording around findings can appear to offer circular logic. "These social deviants are peculiar and interesting because they do peculiar and interesting things." "Culture explains what is going on here because these are unique and local phenomena." Sometimes social researchers call culture a "black box" variable because it appears as both cause and effect.

Appeal to Tradition (Argumentum ad Antiquitatem)

Appeals to tradition can appear when researchers justify their method choices by referring to what previous researchers have done. "Following the accepted methods in our field, we interview 30 people and generalize with this sample." Other researchers would say that the sample is too small. So rather than providing citations to past scholars who generalized from this sample size, it is best to offer citation to a recent methodologist who confirms that this sample size is appropriate for generalization. "We've always done it this way. Why do we need to change now?" This fallacy can also work in reverse, when an author evokes the appeal of the new. "We need a new method because this is a new phenomenon." Appeals to tradition also appear at the end of an argument when researchers need to quickly run through the caveats and qualifications to their findings, but reassure readers that any problems are minor and acceptable in the discipline.

Appeal to Pride (Argumentum ad Superbiam)

Scholars are often guilty of assuming that the methods they have chosen are the best or only route to generalizable knowledge. For example, critical scholars may claim that they are best equipped to study power and study social injustice, qualitative researchers may claim that they are at developing strong causal narratives, and quantitative researchers may claim that they are best at making empirical arguments. Such claims are usually not necessary, and they help reinforce disciplinary silos. All forms of scholarship, well composed, can study power and social injustice, offer convincing causal explanations, and marshal significant amounts of evidence. This fallacy can appear in disciplinary newsletters, grant proposals, or in studies where one discipline is beginning to take up research questions that another discipline has been asking. "Media Sociology is better than Science and Technology Studies at explaining the culture of internet use in the United States because media sociologists have rigorous training in the distinguished field of sociology."

Appeal to Pity (Argumentum ad Misericordiam)

This fallacy is often committed by researchers who want to demonstrate the social importance of the study they have conducted. This is an argumentative fallacy but it is not always a bad one. It is usually committed by researchers who study how institutions replicate social inequality, or who study marginal and under-represented groups. "Think of the children!" "My research has found some important things, and dismissing my findings is dangerous for the victims of this social process."

Appeal to Popular Opinion (Argumentum ad Populum)

This may be among the hardest academic fallacy to avoid, because it is impossible to fully explain every assumption in a study. Providing citations to every single assumption would make a piece of scholarly writing unreadable. A parent's favorite fallacy: "If everyone else jumped off a cliff," you may have heard your parents say, "would you join them?" It is also an advertiser's favorite fallacy - "A million users can't be wrong." This fallacy says that because everyone else is doing it, it must be the best, correct, or only way. Like the appeal to tradition, it is a shortcut that takes advantage of research precedent. In the literature review sections of social research, this fallacy can appear in two forms: when scholars offer a long string of citations as examples of what everyone else is doing without referring specifically to findings; when scholars offer a citation to someone else's literature review, review essay or meta-analysis.

Some of these examples are adapted from a handout that appears to be lost in internet time. There are several large collections of lots of other argumentative fallacies at Purdue's excellent writing lab website, and the philosophers who work on fallacies of logic have their own extensive catalogs. This work can be cited as Howard, P. (2016). 12 Common Fallacies Used in Social Research. Retrieved from philhoward.org. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial - Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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12 Common Fallacies Used in Social Research

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Commentary essays, op eds, and blog posts often make arguments by using a few carefully chosen fallacies. Academic writing, meanwhile, is not supposed to have such errors in reasoning. But academic...

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During my senior year of High School, I volunteered at the Elementary School that I went to when I was a child. Carmen was very special to me and we would discuss how she was feeling every day. She would always sing "You are my sunshine" if another child was sad. She helped me discover this career. Helping children and teens with their day-to-day problems and well-being is what I am looking forward to doing. Thank you, Carmen!