Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

PURPOSE: The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) and the Canadian Association of Schools of Social Work (CASSW) mandate the inclusion of multicultural content in accredited undergraduate and graduate programs. The accreditation standards of both CSWE and CASSW require diverse content on age, ethnicity, class, disability, race, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Despite this, very little is known about faculty attitudes toward multicultural content might vary by country. Given the more socially liberal climate in Canada, we hypothesized that, when compared to US faculty, Canadian faculty would report 1) more progressive social attitudes and 2) more support for multicultural content in social work education. METHODS: Data from two national, web-based surveys samples of faculty in schools of social work, one Canadian and one US, were analyzed using SPSS. The U.S survey involved a random sample of faculty from accredited MSW schools in the U.S. A response rate of approximately 50% resulted in an N of 175. To obtain a similarly sized sample, the Canadian survey was sent to all available faculty from accredited, English-Speaking, MSW programs in Canada. A similar response rate resulted in an N of 152. We followed Dillman's Tailored Design Method for internet surveys (Dillman, 2000) and used a web survey program with a secure server to administer the surveys. Samples were demographically similar in terms of race (66.4% white in U.S, 64.5% among Canadians), gender (64.2%female, U.S. and 60.9% female, Canada) and rank (60.8% tenured, U.S., and 61.1% tenured, Canada). RESULTS: Results show support for the first hypothesis and a lack of support for the second. As expected, Canadian faculty reported significantly more progressive social attitudes than US faculty t(301) = 2.1, p<.05. These differences were even more striking in several subscales of the progressive social attitudes index. Canadian respondents reported significantly more progressive attitudes on subscales of racial attitudes t(301) = 3.86, p<.01, LGB attitudes t(300) = 2.27, p <.001, gender attitudes t(293) = 3.28, p<.001, and attitudes toward immigration t(286) = 6.18, p<.001. However, the stronger endorsement of progressive social attitudes among Canadian faculty did not correspond with their level of support for multicultural content in social work curriculum. In contrast to our second hypothesis, support among U.S. faculty exceeded support among Canadian faculty in several areas. Specifically, 76.9% of U.S. respondents, and only 56.9% of Canadian respondents reported content on older adults to be “very important,” and content on religious intolerance was reported as “very important” among 59.9% of U.S. respondents compared to 46.7% of Canadian respondents. IMPLICATIONS: The results of this study have significant implications for social work practice and the larger mission of social work. This study suggests that individually held social attitudes may not translate into support for change in a work place setting to bring policies and practices in line with those attitudes. Thus, interventions such as diversity trainings that are intended to change individual attitudes may be ineffective in bringing about change in social work curriculum or policy; alternative strategies to reach such goals should be explored.