Conceptions and beliefs about spousal abuse among social work undergraduate students in Hong Kong.

摘要

The lay conceptions and beliefs about spousal abuse among social work undergraduates in Hong Kong were studied and lay conceptions were compared with legal and experts' perspectives. Adopting an ecological model, it was hypothesized that gender, attitudes toward gender, socialization of gender stereotypes and violence approval, and identification with Chinese traditional and modern cultural values were psychosocial correlates of conceptions and beliefs about spousal abuse.;A post-positivistic research paradigm was adopted and a qualitative (less dominant) with quantitative (dominant) method was the research design. Phase I Study was a focus group study aiming at understanding conceptions and beliefs about spousal abuse with five focus groups involving 40 undergraduates. Phase II Study was a questionnaire survey with some of the items in questionnaire derived from the qualitative findings of the focus groups. Based on a stratified sampling strategy, 361 social work undergraduates were randomly selected from all undergraduate social work training institutions to participate in this survey. They completed a 252-item questionnaire which measured their conceptions and beliefs about spousal abuse and the psychosocial correlates within the proposed ecological model.;Results showed that social work undergraduates' conceptions of physical abuse were highly consistent with legal and experts' perspectives, while their conceptions of psychological abuse were more from laymen's perspectives, which were relatively unclear and less consistent with legal and experts' perspectives. They also had broader conceptions of wife abuse than husband abuse by identifying more behavioral manifestations as wife abuse. In general, the breadth of their conceptions of spousal abuse depended on their gender (same sex favoritism), victims' gender, and types of abuse (physical vs. psychological). Furthermore, they endorsed more biased beliefs about husband abuse than wife abuse. Male students endorsed more biased beliefs about spousal abuse than their female counterparts.;By applying the ecological model, attitudes toward gender, identification with Chinese traditional and modern culture were significant correlates of the conceptions of spousal abuse; while gender, attitudes toward gender and identification with Chinese traditional culture were the significant correlates of beliefs about spousal abuse. The socialization influences were also significant correlates of the outcome variables in the male sample. These observations provided support for the thesis that there are individual and environmental correlates of conceptions and beliefs about spousal abuse. Coverage on spousal abuse in social work curriculum was found to be inadequate and request for training was high. Meanwhile, undergraduates with adequate training showed broader conceptions of spousal abuse, which indicated that training might help to broaden their conceptions of spousal abuse.;This study has several contributions. First, it enhances our understanding of the conceptions and beliefs about spousal abuse from the lay, legal, and professional perspectives. Second, with reference to our limited understanding on husband abuse, the present findings enhance our understanding on husband abuse. Third, it contributes to the development of theoretical models pertinent to the psychosocial correlates at the individual, interpersonal, and cultural levels. Finally, it facilitates improvement in coverage of spousal abuse in social work education.