Attitudes, Perceptions and Academic Achievement of Undergraduate Social Work Majors in Two Southwestern, Non-Urban Universities.

Abstract

This study investigated social work students' perceptions related to the "self," other ethnic groups and their academic experiences. Social work undergraduate students in two southwestern, non-urban universities were administered a global self-esteem scale, a social distance scale and a propinquity scale. Students were grouped into three major ethnic subgroups, Mexican-American black and Anglo, and were compared on academic success, global self-esteem, perceptions of Chicano militancy, choices of important life-roles, and propinquity related to neighbors, friends and schoolmates. Students were categorized as to age, sex, class, socioeconomic status, state of origin and current residence. Students were found to be at most socioeconomic levels, have positive global self-esteem and were well distributed according to grade averages. A small minority, approximately five percent, of the Anglos, Mexican-Americans and blacks were prejudiced toward one or more of the other ethnic groups. All three ethnic groups tended to be segregated from each other in terms of their friends, neighbors and schoolmates. For the entire sample, the following life-roles were salient: gender, ethnic, religious, person, student and social worker. There was a slight negative relationship between propinquity and prejudice relative to Anglos and blacks as target groups, but this was not true for Mexicans. Minority students were not found to differ significantly from non-minority students in terms of global self-esteem, academic achievement and socioeconomic status. However, they did differ significantly in terms of their choice of the ethnic life-role as being important, ethnic organizational affiliation and agreement with Chicano militancy. Implications of the findings of this study for social work education were discussed. It was proposed that the Council on Social Work Education take into account regional and provincial differences in formulating educational policies.