Attitudes toward poverty among exit students of undergraduate social work programs in eight Latin American countries

Abstract

What is the attitude of Latin American undergraduate social work students toward poverty? An earlier study from Europe and other countries worldwide found that most graduating social work students who participated in the research were clear about the socio-structural causes of social problems such as poverty. Still, no data on this topic is available for Latin American countries. The aims of this study were: (1) to describe and to compare eight Latin American graduating undergraduate social work student groups regarding their attitudes toward poverty, as measured by two scales: Causes of poverty scale and Ways of dealing with poverty; and (2) to discuss some of the implications of the study for social work education and practice. Using a quantitative transnational-comparative design, a total sample of 525 nonrandomly selected, graduating undergraduate social work students from eight Latin American countries responded to a self-administered questionnaire. An individualistic attitude to understanding and to dealing with poverty emerged in the majority of the student groups. Multivariate procedures and inferential analyses demonstrated variations across the student groups. Implications for social work education and practice are discussed.

¿Cuál es la actitud de estudiantes sub-graduados de trabajo social en América Latina hacia la pobreza? Una investigación en Europa y otros países alrededor del mundo llevada a cabo hace más de una década encontró que la mayoría de los estudiantes sub-graduados de trabajo social entendían la pobreza como un problema macro-estructural. Ese estudio no incluyó países Latinoamericanos de habla hispana. La presente investigación busca: (1) describir y comparar la actitud hacia la pobreza de estudiantes sub-graduados de trabajo social en ocho países latinoamericanos, utilizando como medición dos escalas: Causas de la pobreza y Formas de lidiar con la pobreza; y (2) discutir algunas de las implicaciones del estudio para la práctica y la educación en esta disciplina. La investigación fue dominante cuantitativa y responde a un diseño transnacional-comparativo, donde 525 estudiantes seleccionados por disponibilidad en los programas y países participantes respondieron a un cuestionario auto-administrable. Los hallazgos muestran que la mayoría de los estudiantes explicaban la pobreza y las formas de lidiar con ella desde una perspectiva individualista. No obstante, análisis estadísticos multivariados y análisis inferenciales mostraron que existe diferencia de opiniones entre los grupos participantes respecto a las causas y formas de lidiar con la pobreza.

Keywords:

• social work education
• human rights/social justice
• equality/diversity
• attitudes toward poverty
• global agenda for social work
• cross-national study

Palabras clave:

• educación de trabajo social
• derechos humanos/justicia social
• igualdad/diversidad
• actitudes hacia la pobreza
• agenda global para el trabajo social
• estudio internacional

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the faculty involved as collaborators in this project from the UPR Social Work Department, among them: Isabel Montañez, Lourdes Morales, Ana M. Martínez, Mercedes Marqués, and Mabel López. My gratitude is also expressed to our statistical consultant, Professor José Rodríguez-Gómez; to our research assistants, Natalia Matos and Gustavo Pérez, and to all the students who participated in diverse stages of this research project. International collaborators are also very much appreciated. My gratitude to Dr Ralph Rivera Gutierrez for editing this manuscript and for his excellent recommendations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Dr Gisela Negrón-Velázquez is a Full Professor and Director of the undergraduate Social Work Department, at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. She has a Ph.D. in Social Work from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and a masters and undergraduate social work degree from the UPR, Rio Piedras Campus. Her research interest includes physical and mental health issues, drug policy reform, social work education, and program evaluation, among others. She has pubished three books in the past two years targeting the following topics: HIV/AIDS and quality of life; Program evaluaion; How to conduct focus groups. She has presented her work in diverse professional scenarios around the world, including Italy, Australia, USA, Argentina, Ecuador, México, and Hawai.