Introduction

This chapter seeks to raise issues about the awardees, the award and how it functions, and future changes in international social work education and in IASSW. After an expansive period for international social work education, will growth and exchange continue along the same tracks or adjust to a changing world? If social work education must respond to local cultural, historical and social contexts, how can it at the same time be promoted across regions?

The awardees, in their interviews, represent more than a generation of social work educators and their achievements in spreading social work education around the world. They have accepted leadership in many different contexts, in their own countries, in their regions and in international organizations. In this way, they contributed to the secure establishment of social work education, took up a wide range of social work issues and developed perspectives on important international issues. Some have an extensive record of publications, often of innovative ideas. We ask here: what were the nature of the international developments that they sought to promote and how might this change in the future?

We draw from this experience that successful international careers in social work education require individuals to respond both to the needs of their own community and to international concerns. Educators require a strong concept of social work, administrative and leadership skills, and good social and networking skills. Not least, they need to be committed to social change and prepared to struggle. The international social work educator must be willing to undertake hard and time-consuming work, sometimes spending their own resources; they must be strong-willed, resilient and self-confident.

IASSW and the Katherine Kendall Award

Through launching an award and selecting awardees, IASSW expresses its values and concerns. What do the Katherine Kendall Award and the selection of its awardees say about the kind of people and achievements that IASSW values?

We are not considering here whether the awardees fulfil the formal criteria set out in the preface. These criteria are wide, and awardees are not expected to meet all of them. Rather the question is: on the evidence from the first 13 awards, selected over a quarter of century, what expectations do IASSW and its members have of their leaders?