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BJSW Advance Access published online on October 31, 2006
British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcl340
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved

Article

Poverty in the Eyes of the Beholder: Social Workers Compared to Other Middle-Class Professionals

Idit Weiss 1 * and John Gal 2

1 Senior Lecturer at the Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, 69978, POB 39040, Israel
2 Senior Lecturer at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Idit Weiss, E-mail: iditweis{at}post.tau.ac.il


  Abstract

This study examines the differences in perceptions of the causes of poverty of social workers and other middle-class professionals in Israel. A large-scale sample of 647 participants, of whom 482 were social workers and 165 middle-class professionals, was employed. Initially, the attitudes of the 482 social workers were analysed. The findings indicated that social workers preferred structural over psychological or individualistic explanations. However, a comparison between a matched subset of 165 social workers and the other middle-class professionals revealed that the social workers were not unique in their preference for structural explanations. The difference between the two groups was rather in the tendency among social workers to attribute greater importance to psychological causes.

Keywords: social workers, poverty, middle classes, Israel.
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