Community Fieldwork Experiences: Socio-Cultural Challenges, Communication, and Adaptation Strategies among students of Social Work in Meghalaya

Author(s)	Dr. Lindsay Murray M Sangma, Ms. Gamre Chima R Marak
Country	India
Abstract	A community fieldwork setting plays an integral part for students to learn about community settings for developing new skills and cultural competence from community perspectives. Despite rich cultural and linguistic diversity in Meghalaya, students encounter various different challenges related to communication and socio-cultural problems during fieldwork placements. These challenges includes different social norms, language barriers, difficulty in building trust with community members, unfamiliar social norms and customs, not willing to cooperate with students. This paper entirely focuses on socio-cultural challenges, communication problems and adaptation strategies. Data was collected through structured questionnaire and descriptive design was adopted where students studying in different social work institutions of Meghalaya were selected for the study. The findings shows that students exposed to community settings for fieldwork enhances their fieldwork education about community and people’s lives , cultural competence, promotes culturally responsive social work practice and improve communication skills in community settings.
Keywords	Fieldwork, Community, Socio-Cultural Challenges, Communication, Adaptation Strategies, Meghalaya
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 4, July-August 2026
Published On	2026-07-06
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i04.82918

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