MA Social Work

Groups and Power is a short, experientially focused unit. The teaching consists of two asynchronous sessions exploring sociological and psychological theoretical understandings about power. Students then work together in four workshops to reflect on this theoretical knowledge and consider how these ideas could be applied to your own experiences of being group members. The group then considers how best to work effectively and inclusively with power issues in a diverse study body at university and within diverse practice settings on placement.

This unit aims to:

• Support students to understand key sociological and psychological theoretical ideas about groups and power.
• Enable students to reflect on this knowledge in relation to their own experiences in groups and to be able to actively work with power issues in a diverse student body and diverse practice communities. 
• Challenge some of our ‘taken for granted’ ways of being in groups and to actively reflect on group processes. 
• Encourage students to consider their own practices and interactions in groups, including how systems of social difference such as gender, class, race and other social differences play out and are given meaning in social interactions.
   

Two asynchronous learning sessions take place before the workshops focus to on psychological and sociological understandings of power and how power operates within groups.

Four one-hour experiential workshops take place to explore these theoretical issues further and to consider their application to groups students themselves are part of. This application covers groups within the university and their future placement settings. Students are encouraged to reflect on their previous experiences of working in groups and how power has been used within those group interactions by themselves and others. Students are encouraged to explore issues around social difference and structural privilege when discussing power issues in past, current and future groups. 
 

A1: Integrate knowledge and understanding and critically evaluate key relevant psychological and sociological theories about power and how power operates within group settings.

A2: Critically reflect on the relevance of these theoretical ideas to themselves and their own experiences in groups.
 

B1: Critically reflect on and debate the implications of theories of power for social work practice.

B2:  Explain, debate and critically explore the need for self-reflection about both power and group processes in social work to ensure that practice is based on principles of empowerment.
 

C1: Articulate and critically examine how social differences are performed into being by social actors.

C2: Articulate and debate how meaning is given to social differences through interactions and experiences including how structural privilege can translate into individual and group interactions.
 

D1: Increase levels of self- awareness for students about how power operates in groups and how they themselves are social actors in such operations.

D2: Encourage awareness of how students can seek to use their own power positively in group situations and seek to practice in an anti-discriminatory and empowering way.
 

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