Social work education in Hong Kong has undergone unprecedented transitions during the past decade as a result of the challenges presented by the global tides of marketization and managerialism. It has been suggested that these changes have not only negatively affected the quality of education, but have also given rise to rising consumerism as well as intense institutional competition, and, worst of all, have diluted the sense of purpose and commitment of social workers towards their social ideals. But despite the many cautions raised, the advent of marketization and managerialism has provided many positive opportunities for the development of social work education in Hong Kong. The authors will use some of their experiences encountered in Hong Kong as illustrations to show the ways in which threats and crises in social work education could be turned into positive opportunities for development. From a positive perspective, marketization and managerialism could increase opportunities and choices for motivated learners; increase efficiency and enhance performance; generate additional resources for experimentation and innovation; and revitalize social work education by making the curricula more responsive to contemporary issues and needs. We suggest that while we must be cautious about the negative impacts of marketization and managerialism, we should conceive of this situation as an opportunity to strengthen the organizational capacities of social work education, to revitalize the core values of social work, and to strive for social justice and social betterment.
[Copyright of Social Work Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02615470701456194]

An under-explored area in social work is the development of theories of social work education. The author has made use of her own teaching practice in Hong Kong, systematically experimenting with some of the experiential learning theories developed since the early 1990s, to generate practice knowledge. This paper presents two major findings of one of the author's action research experiences that shed light on the process by which learners who are experts in a particular approach to practice gain new practice knowledge. The first finding contributes to the theoretical understanding of one of the factors that can prevent learners from acquiring substantive knowledge. In particular, the distinct frames that both teachers and learners bring to their teaching-learning experience determine how well learners gain new substantive knowledge. The second finding contributes to the development of practice knowledge, revealing how ineffective teaching and learning can change so that learners can adopt new, more effective frames.
[Copyright of Social Work Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02615470701456442]