Attitudes of social work students towards older people

Abstract

Demographic ageing is a challenge for many countries. Even though Turkey has a relatively younger demographic composition, the proportion of the older people (65+) within the population is rapidly increasing. Within this framework, older people are becoming more important clients for both social work students and social workers in Turkey. This study aims to reveal the attitudes of social work students towards older people and determine the various factors that affect their views on older persons. In the scope of the project, Kogan's Attitude Towards Old People Scale was applied to 419 social work undergraduate students at a university located in Central Anatolia. The findings showed that social work students scored a mean of 130.96 and they generally had positive attitudes towards older people. The correlation between year of study, gender and age was not statistically significant. However, having lived mostly in urban areas was positively correlated with the mean Kogan scores and this finding was found to be statistically significant. Exposure to personal contact with older people at both the personal and professional levels was influential in shaping attitudes about the older people.

Demografik yaşlanma birçok ülke için bir meydan okumadır. Görece genç bir demografik kompozisyona sahip olan Türkiye'de bile yaşlı insanların (65+) nüfusa oranı hızla artmaktadır. Bu çerçevede, yaşlı insanlar hem sosyal hizmet öğrencileri hem de sosyal hizmet uzmanları için daha önemli müracaatçı grubuna dönüşmektedir. Bu çalışma, sosyal hizmet öğrencilerinin yaşlılara yönelik tutumlarını ve yaşlılara bakışlarını etkileyen çeşitli faktörleri ortaya çıkartmayı amaçlamaktadır. Araştırmada, Kogan Yaşlılara Yönelik Tutum Ölçeği 419 sosyal hizmet lisans programı öğrencisine Anadolu'nun merkezindeki bir üniversitede uygulanmıştır. Bulgular, sosyal hizmet öğrencilerinin 130.96 ortalama puan aldıklarını ve genelde yaşlılara yönelik olumlu bir tutum içinde olduklarını göstermiştir. Cinsiyet ve yaş ile yaşlılara yönelik tutum arasındaki korelasyon istatistiksel olarak anlamlı değildir. Bununla birlikte, daha çok kentsel yerlerde yaşamayla Kogan ortalama puanı arasında pozitif yönde korelasyon bulunmuştur ve bu bulgu istatistiksel olarak anlamlıdır. Hem kişisel hem de profesyonel düzeylerde yaşlı insanlarla kişisel temasta olma yaşlılara yönelik tutumları şekillendirmede etkilidir.

Keywords:

• social work students
• older people
• attitudes
• Kogan's scale
• social work education
• gerontological social work

Anahtar Sözcükler:

• sosyal hizmet öğrencileri
• yaşlılar
• tutumlar
• Kogan ölçeği
• sosyal hizmet eğitimi
• gerontolojik sosyal hizmet

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Gülsüm Çamur Duyan is Associate Professor of Social Work and the Head of Department at Turgut Özal University. Her research interests include poverty, poverty and gender, family, disability, youth and elderly.

Tarık Tuncay is Associate Professor of Social Work at Hacettepe University. His research interests include research methodology in social work, social work training, psychosocial health, medical social work, immigration, social work management and ethics.

Burcu Özdemir is a research assistant at the Department of Social Work, Ankara University. She has an MSc degree in ‘Comparative Social Policy' from University of Oxford and she is working towards her Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Oxford.

Veli Duyan is Professor of Social Work and the Head of the Department at Ankara University. He has numerous articles, books and book chapters published in both English and Turkish. He took part in many academic projects, supervised doctoral and master's level students and worked as an editorial board member in many journals. His research area includes social work theories and applications, family and family consultancy, social work ethics, disability, youth problems, ageing and sexuality.