Causal attributions of poverty among social work faculty: a regression analysis

ABSTRACT

Social work faculty have a professional obligation to train students who will likely work with individuals and families in poverty. Yet it is unknown what social work faculty think about the etiology of poverty. This study filled a gap in the literature by examining factors associated with causal attributions of poverty among 1,037 full-time social work educators. Descriptive statistics revealed that, overall, social work educators’ beliefs about poverty reflect more the structural paradigm than the individualistic paradigm (M = 5.68, SD = 1.27 for structural items and M = 2.99, SD = 1.54 for individualistic items). Meanwhile, multivariate regression analysis results indicated that political ideology is the strongest predictor of poverty attributions among the study participants (β = −.324, p < .01). The implications of these findings for social work education will be discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Political ideology
• attributions of poverty
• social work education
• regression analysis
• social work faculty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen W. Stoeffler

Stephen W. Stoeffler is an associate professor in the Department of Social Work at Kutztown University where he primarily teaches in the policy sequence in the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs. His scholarship focuses on poverty, community empowerment, and social justice. He has published in Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work, Journal of Poverty, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Social Development Issues, Social Work & Christianity, Social Work Education, and elsewhere.

Stephen E. Kauffman

Stephen E. Kauffman is a Professor at Widener University’s Center for Social Work Education, where he has taught community practice, program evaluation, research and policy since 1991.  He has a Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College and an M.S.W. from Washington University in St. Louis. His research and practice have focused on trauma-informed care, citizen participation and community and organizational responses to global problems, such as environmental decay, poverty (in all its dimensions), and education. With this focus, major research projects have included program evaluations of USDOJ violence prevention programs, USHHS housing programs, Century 21 school performance studies, lead abatement, and teenage pregnancy prevention.  The programs (and evaluations) have received funding from U.S. Department of Justice, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the state of Pennsylvania, and several private foundations. Most recently, his work has focused on the assessment organizational trauma-informed care. Funded by the United Way, he is developing a web-based platform for no-cost utilization by human services organizations. In addition to a 2021 co-authored book (published by Springer), he has published in Social Work, Journal of Social Work Education, Journal of Community Practice, Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work and elsewhere.

Rigaud Joseph

Rigaud Joseph is an assistant professor of social work at California State University San Bernardino where he carries a research and teaching agenda. He focuses his scholarly activities primarily on poverty and social welfare policies, economic self-sufficiency among low-income populations, and theory development and analysis. To date he has published over 20 articles in various peer-reviewed journals.