Abstract:

This paper examines the implications of social work education upon licensed social workers' desire, knowledge, and competency to work with members of the trangender community. Data were collected from 150 randomly selected licensed social workers from a southern state. The results suggest that 1) it is not the norm for social workers to receive educational content regarding the transgender community and 2) the presence of education content was assocaited with a stronger desire to work with this population, more knowledge of the transgender community, and greater perceptions of competency to work with the transgender community. The results of ths exploratory study suggest that educational content regarding the transgender community should be an intergral part of the curricula provided by baccalaureate social work programs.