Research: Transgender awareness in child and family social work education (DE)

Research into the adequacy and consistency of knowledge on gender variance in social work training and continuous professional development.

This review takes a systematic approach, providing an overview of the density and quality of evidence on social worker education in regard to gender identity and gender variance. It scopes and critically assesses published and unpublished literature from 2000 onwards and covers evidence from the UK and its constituent parts, as well as international research where relevant.

Literature searches were undertaken using pre-determined protocol, and using a wide range of databases and search engines. This was supplemented by the manual searching of key organisations’ websites likely to hold relevant information.

Bibliographies of publications identified to be relevant were also searched to ensure maximum coverage.
 
As this review will identify, the quantity and quality of evidence on the nature and experiences of the transgender population is poor; hampered by data and sampling difficulties in regard to gender identity. As a result, there is a significant lack of transgender-specific social work research conducted in the UK. There is however some transgender-specific international literature (mostly from the US and Canada) that seeks to inform social work practice. This report will therefore make reference to this international research, signposting its relevance throughout.

Download the full report here.