Ideology and Advancing Human Rights: Implications for Social Work Education

Overview: Amidst a political divide little is known about social work educators' political ideology. Results of a national descriptive correlational study provide insight concerning political ideology of social work faculty members. This paper presentation will review the findings and implications of this research for social work education and human rights.Proposal text: Traditionally, the social work profession is progressive, with social work practitioners’ and students’ social policy preferences generally keeping with this practice (Gasker & Vafeas, 2003; Murdach, 2010). However, there is a dearth of research into social work educators’ policy preferences (Castillo & Becerra, 2012; Weiss, et al., 2002). America is politically divided. The current political divide raises the questions: on which side do social workers fall and what role should social work educators play in politically advancing human rights? This is important as understanding the political ideology of social work educators has implications for human rights, both in the US and abroad, as the insurance and protection of human rights is an outgrowth of social and economic policy that is ideologically influenced (Witt, 2020). Therefore, this proposed paper presentation will review results from an online population survey of social work educators’ current policy preferences and provide discussion of how these preferences impact human rights at the global and local level.

The current study investigated the potential effects of demographic variables on full-time social work faculty social welfare policy preferences using an online population survey that utilized a descriptive correlational design. Descriptive statistics were used to examine participant characteristics (Nf1,037). Principal components factor analysis (with varimax rotation) was used to confirm domains identified in the existing subscales of the Welfare Policy Questionnaire (Bullock, et al., 2003). Cronbach’s alpha was used to check for internal consistency. Pearson’s R correlational analysis was used to determine the relationship between variables studied. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to further assess the relationships identified by the Pearson’s R.

The majority of full-time social work faculty (86%) identified as being on the liberal spectrum, with over 30% selecting “extremely liberal.” 10% identified as moderate, while only 4% identified as conservative, with one individual respondent identifying as “extremely conservative.” Faculty social welfare policy preferences were decidedly progressive, pro human rights, and significantly correlated (.357) at the 0.01 level with their political ideology. These findings are congruent with a liberal bias in higher education and have significant implications for social work's role in advancing human rights, social, and economic justice (Fram & Miller-Cribbs, 2008).

Social work faculty are in a pivotal role to aid in upholding human rights and social justice as the motivation and justification for the social work profession (IFSW, 2014). A liberal/progressive ideological perspective and progressive social welfare policy preferences align with the NASW Code of Ethics (Author, 2015). This is not to say that social work educators do not respect and include alternative political ideologies in the classroom (Rosenwald, et al., 2012). However, research demonstrates that political ideology is central to attitudes and behaviors towards human rights, with liberals showing decidedly more support (Braun & Arves, 2017). Understanding the liberal/progressive policy preference of faculty, this paper presentation seeks to spark conversation within social work education about the role educators play in politically advancing human rights through policy.