Abstract
This study investigated the attributions for poverty among secondary school and university students in relation to socio-economic. The questionnaire was adapted from Feagin's[1] and Abouchedid & Nasser[2], and included 15-item poverty questionnaire. It was administered to a sample (n = 242) of secondary school and university students from public and private schools and universities in Lebanon. Findings showed that Lebanese youth were more inclined to attribute poverty to structural factors. Socioeconomic variable of parents' education was the only significant predictors for the causal attribution for poverty. Research in this area should extend to relate stereotypes and various socio-economic attitudes as liberalism or conservatism and their relation to attribution for poverty.
Highlights
Social research based on Heider’s[3] attribution theory can be generalized to discern four attributions for poverty, these being individualist, structuralist, fatalist[1,4], and cultural[5,6]
Internal attributions are seen to be causes of poverty made by individual lack of ability, work ethic, self-motivationor laziness
External attributions for poverty according to Feagin[1], are classified under three main schemes
Summary
Participants: A random sample of 242 Lebanese high school students were opportunistically selected, these students were taking the entrance exam to enroll into a private university. Level 1= "Retired, unemployed and clergymen," 2= "Employees in the farming, or industrial organizations and farmers," 3= "Employee (technician)," 4="Professional employee (Accountant or Teacher)," 5= "Trade and small scale industry," and 6= "Own business and white collar profession." Occupational levels were collapsed in the following manner: 1 and 2 as "low," 3 and 4 as "middle" and 5 and 6 as "high" occupational status Students entered their parent's income, and this was recoded into three-income levels lower one-third group, middle one third and top one third group. By adding educational level of mother and father, their own perception of social class, income and occupational status and dividing by five (i.e., average score) a one subjective class measure was identified; (i) High Class; (ii) Middle Class; (iii) Poor
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