Field work education in social work in Italy

Field work education has been considered a crucial part of training social workers ever since Italy’s first schools of social work grasped the importance of linking theory and practice in the middle of the last century, and thus introduced innovative practice learning programs. Continually reviewed and revised, when social work became part of the university curriculum in the 1990s, field education was addressed by a large number of studies that explored its methodological, relational, formative and didactic components, as witnessed by the extensive literature produced in Italy from the ‘80s onwards. After discussing the background for field work education in Italy and reviewing the literature, the paper focuses on an empirical analysis of the information provided on the websites of Italian universities’ social work degree programs. In particular, we focus these websites’ similarities and differences in the following areas: the importance assigned to field education, how it is organized, the people involved with the students, access procedures, how students are assigned to placements, tutorship and monitoring, final evaluation, and the relationships between the university and the agencies.