Career preferences of social work students in Beijing and Shanghai

Abstract

Professional social work is a recent development in China. This article reports the results of a survey of social work students (<i>n</i> = 1331) in Beijing and Shanghai concerning their career preferences, the work they intend to be doing in five years time and their views about the training that they were receiving. The sample included students from sub-degree, Bachelor and Master's degree levels in all years. Results indicated that social work is strongly linked with individual counselling and psychotherapy which is preferred over work with families and groups. Community work and resource mobilization were relatively less popular despite being the most appropriate modality for the social problems that Beijing and Shanghai face. Students show a marked preference for working in government or other large organizations. After graduation, those in degree programmes hoped to move into administration and management. Fewer students were interested in grassroots work. Many of those studying at Master's level intended to become university based social work teachers. Limitations of the research included the cross-sectional nature of the design, lack of information about the levels of motivation of social work students, and limitations to the generalizability of the findings as Shanghai and Beijing are not necessarily representative of China.