A Relational-Reflective Approach to Competence in Social Work Education: Integrating Chinese Cultural Values and Reflective Practice

Abstract

The global expansion of competence-based social work education has carried with it deeply embedded Western individualist assumptions, which clash with the relational ontologies of non-Western societies. This paper argues that genuine indigenization in Chinese social work education demands not merely the addition of cultural content to imported frameworks, but a fundamental reconceptualization of what it means to be a competent practitioner. Drawing upon Chinese Confucian ethics of the relational self and the Western tradition of reflective practice, this conceptual paper proposes a “relational-reflective competence” framework comprising four interconnected dimensions: ethical presence, contextualized discretion, integrative embodied knowing, and symbiotic growth. The framework seeks to shift the educational paradigm from the acquisition of demonstrable skills to the cultivation of the practitioner as a moral and relational subject. The paper discusses the macro-level implications of this framework for curriculum redesign, pedagogical transformation, and the educator’s role, while also critically reflecting on the tensions between this ideal and institutional realities. It concludes that such a cultural-epistemological grounding is essential not only for the relevance of Chinese social work education but also for its potential to foster a more pluralistic global social work knowledge base by drawing on Eastern epistemological traditions.