Social work as agency of social change – political engagement and policy practice among social work students and professionals

Abstract

This contribution suggests reporting findings from the first quantitative study on social work students’ and social workers’ policy engagement in Switzerland (Kindler, 2021). With its federal structure and pronounced decision-making competence on the local level, this country offers interesting insights for research in this specific field. The empirical data of the study was collected by means of an online survey in which 1815 social work students and professionals from all the Swiss cantons participated. The results showed a rather low level of political participation, but in comparison with the Swiss population, it can be classified as average. Hypothesis testing procedures revealed six main factors influencing political engagement of social work students and social workers: political interest, number of memberships in mobilization networks, internal political efficacy, support of political social work, strength of party preference and strength of political ideology.