Enhancing the cultural competence and sensitivity of social work students through an embedded course structure
As Hong Kong’s ethnically diverse population has grown over the last two decades, social work education faces challenges in equipping students with the cultural competence and sensitivity needed to serve our clients. To ensure registered social workers embrace and practice cultural diversity, the Social Worker Registration Board (SWRB) established criteria and standards for assessing qualifications. However, according to the principles, criteria, and standards for recognizing qualifications in social work, the core courses related to multicultural education, such as diversity and cultural sensitivity, are seldom included in the aspect of human behaviour and social environment. Other foundational courses, such as Introduction to Social Work, typically cover only basic concepts of respectful attitudes and values related to diversity, social justice, and anti-discrimination.
Under an intensive curriculum with a social work practicum, there may be limited capacity to design new courses that encompass the professional knowledge, skills, and values of cultural competence and sensitivity. Instead, embedding the new competence and sensitivity framework across essential courses and the fieldwork preparatory workshop can ensure consistent, reflective learning for students throughout the teaching and learning journey.
This project will develop a new cultural competence and sensitivity framework for the social work curriculum across both undergraduate (BASW) and postgraduate (MSW) programmes in the department. Three features of the teaching and learning experience are emphasized:
- Developing Flipped Learning experience in cultural competence and sensitivity social work education, such as: interactive experience through human library, case dialogue and discussion, and role play analysis within and outside the classroom.
- Embedding the curriculum into existing courses with a consistent learning of skills, knowledge, and values as a culturally competent social worker.
- Using AI and immersive technology to experience oppressive and discriminatory experiences in a “do-not-harm” principle for social work students and the clients, such as: Chatbot dialogue with clients
Beyond the project’s features, it aims to achieve the following objectives:
- To equip the cultural competence and sensitivity of the social work student within the existing courses of the social work curriculum
- To develop a teaching pedagogy of using AI in social work education about anti-oppressive and discriminatory practice
- To evaluate the effectiveness of culturally specific flipped classroom teaching and learning for social work education
Teaching and learning in the target course/training:
- Four Skills of Cultural Diversity Competence Training (Skill-set)
- Culture of Human Library (Knowledge-base)
- AI Chatbot – dialogue with people who suffer from oppression and discrimination (Value-driven)
Sustainability strategies
All teaching and learning tools in this project will adopt various strategies to create and sustain impact, ensure duration, and support follow-up after the project. First, once the train-the-trainer workshop and cross-cultural teaching materials are developed, the Four Skills of Cultural Diversity Competence Training will be offered as regular training within the preparatory workshop in the social work curriculum. Both videos and the AI Chatbot will continue to display on the Culture of Human Library website. The website will be registered under University Central Web Hosting Services as a standardized solution for centrally managed websites on the Linux Docker platform (OKD). Subject teachers of the course can use the resource to support course development, review both courses on human behavior and the social environment, and introduction of social work.
This project is supported by PolyU APSS Departmental Learning and Teaching Grant Funds 2025/26
Project Leader
Dr. Lo Kai Chung
Lecturer, PhD., MSScSW, BSS, RSW
GH321, Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 2766 7727
Email: Kai-chung.lo@polyu.edu.hk
