Exemption Exam Details/Study Materials

SW 708 Field of Social Work

SW 708 provides a basic introduction to the history, evolution, and current status of the profession of social work and social welfare institutions. It covers historical and political development that shaped the emergence and role of the social work profession and highlights critical issues for the profession as we move into the 21st century.

Students preparing for the SW 708 exam should review and study the following:

Day, P., & Schiele, J. (2013). A new history of social welfare (7^th. Ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Popple, P. & Leighninger, L. (2005 or 2008) Social work, social welfare and American society (6th or 7th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Trattner, W. (1999). From poor law to welfare state: A history of social welfare in America(6th ed.). NY: The Free Press.

Wilensky, H. and Lebeaux, C. (1965). Industrial society and social welfare:The impact of industrialization on the supply and organization of social welfare services in the United States. NY: Free Press, Ch 6, 10, and 11.

Encyclopedia of Social Work. (2008) Articles on Historical Overview, Origins of Casework, History of Social Work as a Profession and Community Organization (20th ed.). Silver Spring, MD: NASW.

SW 709 Social Policy

Social Work 709 has three main purposes: To provide an overview of American social welfare policy, particularly income support policy (including descriptions of all the major social programs); to provide an analytic framework that can be used in understanding current social policy discussions; and to provide a brief overview of policy making processes. The course also includes content on the measurement of poverty, trends in poverty, causes of poverty, and the antipoverty effectiveness of various social programs.

Students preparing for the Policy exam should have knowledge of current events and should study:

Dolgoff, R. & Feldstein, D. (2013). Understanding social welfare: A search for social justice (9th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

The Social Work Library has this textbook on reserve now.

SW 612 Psychopathology for Generalist Psychopathology

Please be aware: If you exempt from this course and plan to seek licensure for clinical social work in the State of Wisconsin, you are strongly encouraged to take SW712!

This foundation course prepares social work students to recognize major mental health concerns across the lifespan. The course includes an introduction to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders (DSM) as the organizing framework for reviewing major mental disorders and critique of the current “medical model” approach to mental health in the United States. The course considers mental health issues from a generalist perspective including the role of the social environment, culture and stigma in mental health services, access and policy.

Students preparing for the SW 612 exemption exam should review and study the following:

• Review the SW 612 syllabus.
• Review the course materials on stigma and cultural formulation.
• Corcoran, J. & Walsh, J. (2015) Mental health in Social Work: A Casebook in Diagnosis and Strengths-based Assessment (2nd Ed). New Jersey: Pearson Education.

SW 710 Diversity, Oppression and Social Justice in Social Work

Social Work 710 (formerly 640) is designed to provide students with a knowledge base that should enable them to make their assessments and interventions more responsive to racial and ethnic differences. Typical themes include socio-economic inequality, discrimination, prejudice, stereotypes, assimilation, biculturation, cultural pluralism, traditional helping networks, etc. Problems are explored in light of the combined implications of having simultaneous membership in multiple groups — racial, ethnic, gender, class, and/or sexual-affectional orientation groups.

Students preparing for this exam should study and review:

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, 1962-. (2014). Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.,

Anderson, Margaret L. & Collins, Patricia Hill (2016). Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology, 9th edition. Cengage Learning. ISBN: 978-1-305-09361-4

Tracy E. Ore, (2018). The Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality, 7th edition. Oxford University Press, ISBN: 978-0-190-64796-

Carbado, D. et al. (2013) “Intersectionality: Mappings the Movements of a Theory.” DuBois Review, 10:2 (2013) 303–312.

Takaki, Ronald T., 1939-2009. (1993). A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

SW 650 Methods of Social Work Research

The purpose of SW 650 is to develop students’ understanding and skills in the approaches, techniques, and challenges of conducting social work research and to enable students to be competent and discerning consumers of social science literature.

Students preparing for the Research Methods exam should study:

Rubin, A. & Babbie, E. Research methods for social work (7th ed. or later). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Thompson Learning. [NOTE: Chapters 22 and 23 will not be covered on the exam.]

SW 711 Human Behavior and the Environment

Social Work 711 surveys the behavioral science knowledge base of social work practice as it relates to understanding and intervening in the problems of clients and constituents. It draws together relevant social science theories – primarily from sociology and psychology but also from biology, anthropology, economics, history, and political science – to form a multi-disciplinary view of human behavior. Current knowledge about individuals, both male and female, families, communities, including racial and ethnic minority communities, society, and culture is included in the course. The primary social work practice goal is to facilitate the process of problem identification and assessment, and intervention planning at both direct and indirect service levels.

Students preparing for the SW 711 exam should study:

Hutchison, E. (2018). Dimensions of human behavior: The changing life course (6th ed.). CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

SW705 Basic Statistics for Social Work

Students preparing for the statistics exam should study any basic text in statistics. It is not advisable to take this exam unless you have taken a course in statistics.

• Course topics that must be covered include: distributions, measures of central tendency, dispersion and shape, the normal distribution, experiments to compare means, standard errors, confidence intervals, effects of departure from assumptions, method of least squares, regression, correlation assumptions and limitations, basic ideas of experimental design.
• A passing grade is required