Rate My Professor Kalpana Goel

Dr. Kalpana Goel serves as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Work and Social Care within the College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences at Adelaide University. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work and has built a distinguished career in social work education and research, previously as a Lecturer at the University of South Australia. Her teaching specialties include rural practice, community development, theories for social work, mental health, and ageing populations. Dr. Goel delivers courses such as Social Work with Older People, Working with Community, Social Work Field Education 1 and 2, Professional Development, Preparation for Field Placement, Contemporary Practice Theories for Social Work, and Advanced Research Methods. She is eligible to supervise Masters and PhD students and currently oversees doctoral research on topics including how intergenerational care is perceived and practiced in Chinese international families living in Australia and the transition experiences of young people from African humanitarian backgrounds from higher education to employment in South Australia. Additionally, she acts as a doctoral advisor for two PhD candidates at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Karnataka, India.

Dr. Goel's research focuses on immigrants’ and refugees’ settlement, coping and resilience, aged care and ageing, multiculturalism, rural and regional place and space, and teaching and learning in higher education. She welcomes inquiries from students for higher degree research and from colleagues for collaborations in areas such as ageing and aged care, intergenerational care, immigrants, refugees and migration, community development, curriculum development in social work, and mental health coping and resilience. Her scholarly contributions include co-editing the books Collective Flourishing in India: Culture, Social Cohesion and Community Well-being (Springer Nature Singapore, 2025) and The Complexities of Home in Social Work (Routledge, 2022). Key peer-reviewed publications encompass Determinants of adverse childhood experiences and substance use among emerging adults (PLoS One, 2025), Barriers encountered by African refugee youth as they integrate into the Australian labour-market (Australasian Review of African Studies, 2024), Supervision framework for international field education in India (International Social Work, 2024), Migrant Muslim women's experiences of coping and building resilience in Australia (Advances in Social Work & Welfare Education, 2022), Making continuing professional development relevant and accessible in regional social work (Australian Social Work, 2021), Building research capacity for social work practitioners (Social Work Education, 2018), and Employment experiences of immigrant workers in aged care in regional South Australia (Rural and Remote Health, 2015). Through her work, Dr. Goel advances social work practice in migrant, regional, and ageing contexts.