Study tour reflections: revisiting curricula through an international lens

This article compiles Canadian social work students' reflections of an Austrian study tour and its influence on how they now view, interpret, and analyze the curricula from previously completed undergraduate social work courses. Overall, the study tour appears to have re-animated previous course material and brought new insight into curricula already covered in classes. Of particular interest is the recurring theme of one notable aspect of the tour, a site visit to the former Mauthausen Concentration Camp, which surfaces as an important factor in reflections on numerous courses. Other social service agency visits in the host city invited the students to consider alternate theories in social work practice, building on the ones covered in completed curricula. Further, the students considered ways in which social workers can consider these new study-tour-informed insights and perspectives in everyday social service delivery on macro, mezzo, and micro levels. In sum, international study tours appear to not only notably influence future social work practice but also invite new critical thinking regarding previous learnings.