Humanitarian welfare values in a changing social environment: A survey of social work undergraduate students in Beijing and Shanghai

Abstract

• Summary: Internationally accepted social work values are based on ideas about rights, social justice and equitable resource distribution. Does social work education in China embody similar values? Are these values influenced by culture and the current political/economic environment? The research posed three questions. Do social work students studying in metropolitan China support humanitarian welfare values? Are values affected by demographic backgrounds? Does social work education enhance humanitarian values? A self-administered, standardized questionnaire was distributed in 26 classes of social work students studying in seven universities in Beijing and Shanghai ( n = 1328).• Findings: Students do not support humanitarian welfare values strongly; and a decrease in these values was observed in senior students. Significant differences in values were found based on gender and on rural/urban origins. Female students were more likely to agree with humanitarian value statements; rural and urban students tended to agree more with values from which they had potential to benefit.• Applications: Social work knowledge and skills rather than values maybe more immediately relevant to Chinese society. However, independent professional practitioners need a solid foundation of professional values to inform practice and standardize the social work role. There needs to be an ongoing debate in China involving social work educators and practitioners about values and their relation to Chinese society, the ways in which they are influenced by non-Chinese cultures; and how to infuse these consistently into social work curricula in Chinese universities.