Deeper Understanding of Sustainability: Ecological Self as Core Competence of Social Work Students in Fieldwork Teaching

Peng Wang ()
Additional contact information
Peng Wang: School of Ethnology and Sociology, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010021, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-16

Abstract: The ecological self is a core competence in social work education. This study aims to deepen the understanding of sustainability for social work students through rural fieldwork in China. Based on home visits with grassland families in Inner Mongolia, the research employed immersive engagement with nature and communities to foster ecological humility and responsibility among social work students. Findings show that students developed a multidimensional view of sustainability, integrating health practices shaped by the environment, women’s roles in maintaining family’ ecological resilience, and kinship metaphors derived from human–animal relations. The study concludes that the ecological self enables a deeper, relational interpretation of sustainability, moving beyond technocratic approaches toward embodied, context-sensitive, and intergenerationally conscious practice. It underscores the need to embed ecological consciousness in social work fieldwork training to strengthen both professional identity and transformative engagement with sustainable development.

Keywords: sustainability; ecological self; social work education; fieldwork teaching; grassland family (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9503/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9503/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:21:p:9503-:d:1779621

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().