Development and influencing factors of punitive attitudes among social work students

• In Event: Public attitudes towards crimes, punishments and policies

Abstract

Social workers are of particular interest in the context of punitive attitudes, as they often exercise social control as part of their professional activities and a gatekeeping position for welfare services. Accordingly, the attitudes that influence social work activities play a role for the recipients of social work. Therefore, analyzing punitive attitudes of students of social work is important as they may shape future social work practice.

The contribution looks at how the punitive attitudes of social work students have developed since 2018, which factors shape punitive attitudes and to what extent these influencing factors can explain the development. Existing studies of punitive attitudes of social work students from German speaking countries are largely based on cross-sectional data and therefore do not allow any statements to be made about trends. Furthermore, these studies focus predominantly on uni- and bivariate analyses and make fewer attempts to explain (trends in) punitive attitudes. The contribution closes this gap and considers not only trends, but also factors influencing punitive attitudes.

The data basis is a repeated cross-sectional survey of social work students at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) with 14 waves. Since 2018, social work students in the first semester of the bachelor’s degree course have been asked about their attitudes to punishment.

Implications for the education of social work students and for society as a whole are discussed.

Authors

• Michael Hanslmaier, Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm

• Maria Kamenowski, Zurich Universtity of Applied Sciences ZHAW

• Christian Ghanem, Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm

• Dirk Baier, University of Zurich/Zurich University of Applied Sciences