An Interdisciplinary Classroom in Law and Social Work: Can It Be Done?

Abstract

When our social work and law classes were scheduled during the same timeslot, we took advantage of this unique opportunity to engage in a series of joint classroom activities throughout the semester. We ran three activities that encouraged students to reflect on the roles of their professions when working with shared clients. Our aim was to create an interdisciplinary learning experience that allowed law and social work students to better understand one another and appreciate the role that each profession can play in bringing about positive outcomes for clients. Previous research suggests that personality differences, stereotypes and lack of knowledge about professional roles creates barriers to interdisciplinary learning for social work and law students. However, we found that student attendance and institutional barriers posed the greatest challenges to shared learning programs like ours.