Taking the importance of the role of social work in coping with poverty problem
and 'poverty aware social work' into account, this study looked into attitudes
towards poverty(a.p.) and their relations with other variables for undergraduates
majoring in social work(n=142) compared to nonmajors(n=67). As results, first, this
study performed both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of Attitudes
towards Poverty scale developed by Atherton et al.(1993); drew three major
factors(i.e., characteristics of the poor, attribution to individual work ability, and
social remedies for poverty problem); and these three factors were used in the
following analyses. Second, social work majors were more positive to the
characteristics(factor1) and institutional remedies(factor 3) than the nonmajors;
significant differences were found between majors and nonmajors in factor 3 and
overall score of a.p., and anti-individualism, and the three factors and total average
score of a.p. by the majors demonstrated more frequent correlations with other
variables than the nonmajors. Finally, from the regression analyses, social class and
anti-individualism showed significant and consistent explanatory power for the three
factors and the total average score of a.p.. Based on these findings, implications
and suggestions for poverty aware social work education were discussed.