Effects of Jewish Ethnicity, Religiousness and Gender on Child-Placement Recommendations of Israeli Social-Workers

Introduction:

Among the most difficult and complex decisions facing courts of law are those related to parental custody conflicts. Their role is to minimize the damage to the child during the decision making process and to maximize the benefit to the child by its outcome. Social workers are called upon as expert witnesses to assess risk to children and recommend interventions. It is hypothesized that risk assessments and decisions are influenced by the objective risk to the child as well as personal attitudes and biases of the social workers involved. The current study examined the role of the family ethnic origin, religiosity and the child gender on such decision making process and recommendation.

Methods: The current study used an experimental-design embedded within a survey. Data were collected from 120 Israeli social workers regarding risk assessment and placement recommendation. The research design was a factorial survey, based on 8 vignettes of low-SES families with ambiguous risk to the child. The vignettes that were drawn from actual welfare files and validated in a previous study were edited to fit the experimental manipulation. The manipulated factors included (1) the child’s gender; (2) religiosity of the family (ultra-orthodox vs. secular); and ethnic origin of family (Majority=Ashkenazi vs. Minority=Mizrahi). Each participant was presented with eight vignettes. Following each vignette, participants were asked (1) to assess the level of risk to the child ["subjective risk"], and (2) whether they would recommend out-of-home placement. Analyses were conducted at the vignette level, controlling for the within-subject-clustering using GEE models of regression and of logistic-regression in STATA.

Results:  In average, the respondents assessed these ambiguous-risk cases of children from low-SES families as being in moderate risk for the child (M=3.02, SD=0.06, range 0-5). A recommendation of out-of-home placement was given in one out of five of the cases (20%). Risk assessment was significantly higher for boys compared to girls (M=3.11, SD=0.06 vs. M=2.93, SD=0.07, P<0.001). Risk assessment was also higher for children from ultra-religious families compared to children from secular families (M=3.07, SD= 0.06 vs. M=2.97, SD=0.06, p<0.05) and for children from Mizrahi families compared to children from Ashkenazi families (M=3.11, SD=0.06 vs. M=2.92, SD=0.06, P<0.001). Regression of risk assessment confirmed the results. Logistic-regression of placement-recommendation indicated that risk assessment was the strongest predictor, whereas the manipulated variables had no direct effect, and workers' level of religiosity and level of education reduced odds for out-of-home placement recommendation.

Implications: The results suggest that in ambiguous-risk cases of children from low-SES families the social workers tend to perceive child’s male-gender as a risk factor in and by itself, as well as family religiosity and Mizrahi origin. Such biases were especially noticeable in the assessment stage, and indirectly affected the placement recommendation. The results demonstrate a heuristic process that influences the professional judgment.  Awareness of social workers to these potential biases is a vital step that may reduce the influence of heuristics on the professional decision making process.