Infusing gerontological content into social work education in New Zealand and Korea

As population ageing looms larger, gerontological social work has emerged as an important area of practice across all cultures and nations. It is an important role of social work education to produce gerontologically competent professionals in this area. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the infusion of ageing-related content in social work curricula in New Zealand and Korean universities. In the study discussed here, data were obtained through the collection of documentary sources, and analysed utilising content analysis and concept-mapping techniques. The content of ageing in course descriptions and other documents was systematically examined. The findings from the study show that there have been limited efforts to infuse ageing-related content in social work programmes in both countries. This cross-national comparison also reveals that there were significant differences in the level of emphasis on ageing issues between New Zealand and Korean social work curricula. Three different approaches were used to determine what and how ageing content was infused in current social work education.