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By Denise Horton
dhorton@uga.edu
As a substitute teacher in the Watts section of Los Angeles during the late 1960s, Marty Markward found her calling--not in the classroom, but working as a school social worker.
 “During that time, I observed many students who I thought needed more than formal education,” Markward says. “Several years later, I was fortunate enough go to the University of Illinois School of Social Work at Champaign-Urbana where the pioneers of school social work as a specialized field of study were on the faculty.”
After earning her master’s degree, Markward spent six years as a school social worker before returning to college for her doctorate.
School social work differs from other types of social work and from school counseling, according to Markward.
“Unlike most social workers, who work in a setting surrounded by others from a similar background, school social work is different because you are in a setting that has a different philosophy,” she said. “As social workers, one of our missions is social justice, so social workers are interested in other outcomes besides those related directly to education. By comparison, the focus of educators is--as it should be--on educational outcomes.”
Compared with school counselors, school social workers are more likely to focus their efforts on the school-community-pupil linkage, according to a recent study of Markward’s.
“It seems that in Georgia, at least, school social workers pay much more attention to working with the community, with other agencies,” she says. “Also, when it comes to working with the parents, or providing services to the children, they are often the persons who are more likely to be involved in linking parents to the school. It appears from my data that counselors in Georgia tend to be doing more one-on-one work with the children in the school; they generally do not leave the school.”
Markward’s current research focuses on whether students receive the social support they need from their parents, peers and teachers. Specifically, she conducted a survey of students who attend a large metropolitan high school regarding what sort of social support they want vs. what they receive.
“I actually began this study anticipating that there would be differences based on ethnicity, but found none,” Markward says. “What I did find were gender differences.”
For example, females reported receiving more social support from their parents and their peers than males did. However, they also reported wanting more support than their male counterparts.
“The question becomes whether women’s development is different from men’s, as has been suggested by some researchers who say that women are more affiliative and need more connections and more relationships,” Markward says. “On the other hand, if this is coming from society and is socially constructed, and we choose to believe that women need more support, then we may very well be ignoring males.”
The questions raised by Markward’s findings are far from esoteric, particularly when paired with statistics showing that boys are referred more often than females for various types of supportive services.
“Clearly, understanding gender difference in terms of externalizing and internalizing behaviors is important for school social workers,” Markward says. “My sense is that we are ignoring males. I’ve been very concerned about how females are socialized in this society, but I’m growing much more concerned about how males are socialized as well. I think that school shooters are boys who became alienated and isolated at some point, or victimized--primarily in the school setting. They also receive the message that they don’t count, that they have no outlets and that they have no friends.”
Not only is it important to determine whether or not there’s a connection between male students acting out in school--whether through violence or other disruptive behavior--and their need for better social support, there’s also the flip side.
“Girls tend to internalize feelings, and as a result, they may internalize problems very early on that go undetected because they do not cause any trouble for teachers,” she explains.
In addition, Markward is still concerned about the additional needs of vulnerable populations, such as members of minority groups and students with disabilities.
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