Abstract
This study has three tasks. First, it establishes the extent in which current social work students engage in protest activities. Second, it analyzes the ways that a student’s sexual identity may impact their tendency to protest. Lastly, the work explores the reasons why sexual identity may impact protest inclinations. Data for this study were drawn from a 2019–2020 national sample of social work students (n = 811) throughout the USA with over 76 schools of social work represented. Findings suggest that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer students protested more frequently than heterosexual students as did students who had LGBQ friends, took or attended classes/activities on LGBQ topics, joined advocacy groups, and had an activist identity. After running several regressions, the increased activist activity of LGBQ students was mostly attributed to the fact that they felt a stronger commitment to being a person who works towards social change. A core tenant of social work is to address social injustice; often, this happens through some form of protest. This article explored a sexuality gap in protest behavior of social work students, while also examining other possible factors that may contribute to a gap in protesting behavior by using political distinctiveness theories to guide the exploration. Implications for social work education are discussed.
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Atteberry-Ash, B., Swank, E. & Williams, J.R. Sexual Identities and Political Protesting Among Social Work Students. J of Pol Practice & Research 4, 117–135 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972-022-00070-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972-022-00070-5