Poverty in the eyes of the beholder: Social workers compared to other middle-class professionals

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.