Editorial.
Heycox, Karen ; Hughes, Lesley ; Irwin, Jude 等
Here it is! The first issue of the Women in Welfare Education
Journal. Like much work done by women, the preparation, editing and
publishing of the journal was juggled between four PhDs, several
research projects, heavy teaching loads, a book and the placement of
over a thousand students (we counted them so you better believe it!).
Not to mention all the other "too numerous to mention" things
we, as women, take for granted.
Nevertheless we are extremely pleased with the standard of work
evident in this first edition and encourage all those women involved in
welfare and social work education, that is welfare and social work
educators, students and practitioners, to contribute to the next issue
(due out July, 1995) in order to keep the feminist debate at the
forefront of welfare and social work education and research.
The Women in Welfare Education group began over ten years ago, when
a group of women met spontaneously at an AASWE conference in 1983. This
group of women educators met to discuss (and complain about) the lack of
gender perspectives in both the organisational and educational aspects
of both welfare and social work education. A national conference was
planned in Melbourne for the following year and WIWE was formally
established. Since then we have met annually at WIWE and AASWWE
Conferences.
Over this time WIWE has been actively involved in leading the push
for affirmative action policies in schools of Social Work around
Australia; involving welfare education in the educational debate and
therefore increasing the national voice to include representation from
the post secondary sector as well as the tertiary sector; developing
feminist teaching strategies and introducing feminist electives in the
curriculum and encouraging and supporting women in academia to conduct
feminist research.
Obviously the next step was to publish the growing body of feminist
work being done in the various institutions. Inspired by the work coming
out of the women's writing group at RMIT and the quality of
academic debate engendered by contributors and participants at the 1992
WIWE conference at University of Western Sydney Macarthur, a Sydney
based writing group was formed. This group included women educators and
students from across all sectors of post secondary education who wanted
to meet regularly and discuss their "work in progress" and
continue to support and encourage the feminist voice in welfare and
social work education.
It was in this arena of positive support that the idea for the
journal was conceived. While the struggle to produce the journal has
been time consuming and at times difficult, the overall experience has
been a positive one for us all. We feel that this journal is the
culmination of the development of ideas, feminist sisterhood and
scholarship which has inspired and encouraged most of us since those
early days of inspiration and action.
In this issue the editorial committee has decided to include a
broad range of articles dealing with the development of knowledge which
will have either a direct or indirect impact on feminist welfare and
social work education and practice. To this end we have included
articles addressing both practice theory as well as educational issues.
Student contributions are included in this issue.
Future issues will consist of the following: articles; a section on
research; a section on the developments in social work and welfare
education; book reviews and correspondence in relation to the debates
arising from the articles. All articles submitted for consideration will
be reviewed by at least two women with expertise in the relevant area.
(On this note, if anyone is interested in going on the list of potential
reviewers, we would be pleased to hear from you.)
We would like academics and field educators to contribute to the
journal. The editorial committee would also like to encourage women
undergraduate and postgraduate students to submit articles for
publication. In order to continue to achieve broader international
interest with our feminist colleagues overseas, we will be sending
copies of this journal to other universities where we have established
contacts from Carolyn's involvement with the women's caucus group of IASWW.
Finally, we very much appreciate the support of AASWWE for
underwriting the cost of this journal and for their general support in
this new and innovative venture.
WE WISH YOU GOOD READING!
Editorial Committee
Karen Heycox
Lesley Hughes
Jude Irwin
Carolyn Noble
