Poverty attitudes and their determinants in Lebanon's plural society

Abstract

This paper examines the causal attribution of poverty among Lebanese Christian and Muslim students through a pre-conceptualized scale along fatalistic, individualistic, and structural dimensions. Factor analysis results reproduced the factor dimensions reported by J. Feagin [Psychology Today 6 (1972) 101–129; Subordinating poor persons: Welfare and American beliefs. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1975] explanations for the causes of poverty were more structural than individualistic. The MANOVA regression analysis showed no significant differences between religious affiliations (Muslim and Christian) and students' subjective report of their parents' level of educational attainment (high, medium, low). However, significant mean differences ( F(3,200)=3.43, p=0.018) are found for class on the individualistic dimension. There was some suggestion that parents of students whose occupational status appeared higher were more likely to favor individualistic explanations for poverty. The high rating on the structural dimension of the poverty scale showed Lebanese student attitudes to the causes of poverty in a rapidly changing society. Recommendations are offered for further research on heterogeneous samples.