Examination of social workers' attitudes towards sustainable development and environment in the focus of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the views of social workers concerning theoretical and practical courses covering their professional responsibilities, focussing on sustainable development and the natural environment. It also investigates the impact on their attitudes towards sustainable development referencing their adoption of ecocentric or anthropocentric attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This study used a structural equation model to answer six research questions, while the descriptive statistics answered one of the research questions through an online survey conducted with 315 social workers. Findings This study demonstrated the need to consider attitudes to sustainable development focussing on the ecocentric and anthropocentric attitudes, as well as the current COVID-19 global pandemic. Originality/value This study is the first initiative to examine attitudes towards sustainable development and the natural environment from a social work perspective focussed on the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, it is the first to emphasise the responsibilities of social workers in relation to micro, meso and macro level interventions during and after the global pandemic.

Imagining the ecosocial within social work

“…Instead, the eco‐social worldview emphasises the need to defend ecological rights, taking into account the benefits to all living beings. (2021, n. p.)…”

“…Six articles focus on ecosocial initiatives: they discuss ecosocial innovations (among other things with respect to alternative economies and unemployment) in the UK, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Finland (Matthies et al, 2019(Matthies et al, , 2020Stamm et al, 2020); community gardens in Australia (Bailey et al, 2018); an initiative in Midwestern USA which combines work against e-waste and digital injustice (Izlar, 2019); and ecosocial agriculture, mainly in Italy (Nicli et al, 2020). Another group, the seventh, eighth and ninth empirical articles, investigate the profession of social work in New South Wales (Australia) (Boetto et al, 2020), Australia, the USA and the UK (Bowles et al, 2018), and Turkey (Yildirim et al, 2021). Furthermore, the tenth article addresses the education of social workers, based on experiences in the USA (Powers et al, 2019).…”

“…Some articles explicitly state that they ascribe value to the non-human as well as the human. They write about ecological justice (which in the vocabulary of this article is understood as holistic justice, since intrinsic value is ascribed to both the social and ecological dimensions), the achievement of social and ecological goals, as well as the well-being of both humans and non-humans (Bailey et al, 2018;Bowles et al, 2018;Matthies et al, 2019Matthies et al, , 2020Närhi & Matthies, 2018;Powers et al, 2019;Stamm et al, 2020;Yildirim et al, 2021). Moreover, the empirical articles demonstrate this understanding in concrete examples.…”

Environmental sustainability, healthcare workers and healthcare students: a literature review of attitudes and learning approaches

“…This has been particularly the case with face masks and other personal protection equipment (Kutralam-Muniasamy et al, 2022). Unsustainable healthcare environmental practices are being recognized as a general problem in the industry (Sherman et al, 2020) and in speci c healthcare settings, including intensive care units (McGain et al, 2020) nursing (Hu ing et al, 2014), primary care (Nicolet et al, 2022), oral healthcare (Duane et al, 2020), social work (Yildirim et al, 2021) and in the veterinary eld (Schiavone et al, 2022).…”