Social Work Education and criticality: some thoughts from research

This article reports a current ESRC‐funded research project which is examining the development of criticality in undergraduate students, taking social work and modern languages as exemplars. This is a twin‐track study which aims to develop the conceptualisation of ‘criticality’ in the context of empirical research. Two complementary models for the theorisation of criticality are presented, and their implications for social work education are explored. Some preliminary data from the empirical study are presented, enabling further discussion of the relevance of this research to social work.