Social Work from a Global Perspective, International Summer School in Social Work and the Social sciences at 19.5.-4.6.2014

Monday

17th International Summer School started on Monday with 79 participants from 14 countries, for example United States, China, Germany, Austria, Swaziland and Japan. First, Professor Merja Laitinen had an introduction about the University of Lapland. The University of Lapland was founded on 1979 and it is the youngest university in Finland. The faculty of social sciences was established in 1982 by the social work program. 

The second lecturer was professor Stanley L Witkin from the University of Vermont, which was founded on 1795 in Burlington. Professor Witkin, who is a little bit younger than the University of Vermont, has been part of the International Summer School from its early beginning. It was  a great honor to have him here again. Besides, Professor Witkin is not the only well-known thing from Vermont, Ben & Jerry´s ice cream comes from there too. Professor Witkin’s main topic was social work from a global perspective. It was interesting to notice how social work is a western product and how even global social work is focused on western values. In the western world there is an influential ideology of the consumerism and our way of looking the world is often materialistic.  One of the main issues in global social work should increase the knowledge about different cultures, different ways to do social work, international trends and social conditions in other countries. What could be a better way to learn about these things than International Summer School?

Professor Marjaana Seppänen from the University of Lapland told us about Finland as a welfare state. There have been some changes in the welfare system in Finland during last decades, for example economic cuts, increasing liberalism and polarization between poor and wealthy people. Is Finland still a welfare state because of all these changes? Still as Professor Witkin reminded us, Finland is the best country in the world for example to be a mother and Finland has the best education system, too. It let us to think that in global perspective we still have a quite strong social welfare system in Finland. 

Professor Stanley L Witkin and Austrian students

Minna Leppänen &  Jussi Putkonen, students of Summer School from the University of Lapland