Deconstructing Hierarchies: A Pedagogical Model with Service User Co-Teachers

Abstract

This article examines the contribution of partnering with service users to the training of health and welfare professionals in Israel. These professions, while professing a shift to the social model of disability, still practise according to a medical model, which functions to strengthen the legitimacy of the professional and sustain the dependency of their clients. In adopting the social model of disability, we present a new pedagogic model in which social work students engage throughout the course with a co-teacher service user to contest these traditional methods and deconstruct accepted hierarchies. This teaching method focuses on the development of a new therapeutic dialogue within the partnerships created in the classroom, which enables the students and co-teachers to participate in the challenging experience of integrating theoretical knowledge with lived knowledge, thereby contributing to the development of a more inclusive knowledge base.