Predicting Support for Social Work Education on Immigrants and Refugees: Results from National Surveys of US and Canadian Faculty

Background & Purpose: The experiences of immigrants and refugees are of widespread concern in the field of social work (Padilla et al, 2008) in the US and Canada. Practice with immigrants and refugees has been long been central to social work in the US (Abrams, 2000; Park & Kemp, 2006), and has more recently become a major concern in Canadian social work (George, 2002; Lacroix, 2006).Despite this, little is known about support among US and Canadian faculty for education on immigrants and refugees within MSW curriculum. This study begins to fill this gap by asking 1) what is the level of support for content on immigrants and refugees among US and Canadian faculty? And 2) what predicts that level of support?

Methods: Data from national web-based surveys of faculty in US and Canadian schools of social work, gathered following Dillman's Tailored Design Method for internet surveys (Dillman, 2007) 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. A web survey program with a secure server was used 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: Descriptive statistics reveal high levels of support for content on immigrants or refugees in MSW curriculum, with 70.2% of the sample reporting that such content is “very important” and an additional 27.9% reporting such content is “important.” Independent samples t-tests reveal no significant differences in level of support between US and Canadian faculty. Multivariate regression analysis found three predictors of support for education on immigrants and refugees in MSW curriculum; whether or not faculty have access to resources to support teaching on those issues (standardized beta =.187, p=.006), being female (standardized beta =.118, p=.005) and social attitudes regarding immigrants and refugees (standardized beta =.217, p=.003). The country of MSW program (US vs. Canada), region of country, and being white were not significant predictors.

Conclusions & Implications: Results from this study have important implications for social work practice and education Results clearly show that the amount of resources available for faculty to use in teaching about immigrants and refugees has a significant effect on how important faculty believe it is to educate future social workers about these populations and the issues affecting them. Gender and social attitudes, while also important predictors of these issues, are somewhat less malleable and thus less amenable to intervention. Amount and accessibility of resources, however are highly amenable to intervention. Expanding access to teaching resources on immigrants and refugees has great potential for improving social work education, and by extension social work practice, with immigrants and refugees.