Becoming aware of the grand social challenges: how an international and interdisciplinary educational context may broaden students perspectives on human rights and public health

The understanding of contemporary social problems and challenges in an international and national perspective is a significant issue for social work because of globalisation and social problems are too complex to handle by single actors themselves. The need for interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration is important. This paper focuses on experiences from an Erasmus Intensive Programme with the title Human Rights, Public Health and Social Service Challenges on Local Government in the Nordic-Baltic Sea Area. Social work students from different countries interacted with students from other disciplines such as political science, psychology and economy to discuss common challenges and solutions in this field. The analysis of the findings shows students reflect upon human rights issues as universal rights and how challenges presented by contextual differences in preconditions for everyday lifebetween the countries, are reflected from different disciplines/professional perspectives. The paper argues that international and interdisciplinary programmes, where students get the opportunity to meet and to work with overarching and transnational issues, have a great potential for engaging students in global development in a rapidly changing world. ABSTRAKTForstaelsen for samtida sociala problem och internationella ochnationella utmaningar ar viktiga fragor for socialt arbete. Globaliseringen bidrar till att manga sociala problem ar for komplexa for enskilda aktorer att hantera pa egen hand. Behovet av en interdisciplinar och interprofessionell samverkan ar darfor betydelsefullt. Detta paper har fokus pa erfarenheter fran en internationell kurs via Erasmus Intensive Programme. Kursens namn var Rights, Public Health and Social Service Challenges on Local Government in the Nordic-Baltic Sea Area. Studerande fran socialt arbete i olika lander samverkade med studenter fran andra discipliner sasom statsvetenskap, psykologi och ekonomi for att diskutera gemensamma utmaninga