Color-Blind Racial Attitudes Among Social Work Students: Exploration of Individual and Social Network Correlates

ABSTRACT

Racial attitudes can be shaped by personal attributes and social network properties. Literature on White social work students’ racial attitudes remains scarce. The purposes of this study are to explore racial attitudes among social work students and identify personal and social network correlates of such attitudes. One hundred and sixty-three White social work students in a major Midwest public university were recruited via social work electronic mailing list to complete an anonymous online survey measuring personal-level characteristics (e.g., demographic information and racial attitudes as measured by the color-blind racial attitude scale) and social network composition (e.g., information regarding network diversity). Descriptive analysis and linear regression models were conducted for the study. Social work students demonstrated moderately low levels of color-blind racial attitudes. Age was positively associated with unawareness of institutional and blatant racism. Identifying as politically liberal was associated with lower unawareness of racial privilege, institutional racism, and blatant racism. Having more social network members to talk to about topics related to race and ethnicity was associated with lower unawareness of blatant racism. Being familiar with a campus antidiscrimination protest was negatively associated with unawareness of racial privilege and blatant racism. Implications for social work educators are discussed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura Danforth

Laura Danforth, PhD, LCSW, is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Hsun Ta Hsu

Hsun Ta Hsu, PhD, MSW, is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri Columbia.

John W. Miller

John W. Miller, PhD, LMSW, is an associate professor and Chair of the Social Work Department at Benedict College.