Political Primacy and MSW Students' Interest in Running for Office

Abstract

Although social workers are understood to participate in politics more than the general public, little is known about their interest in running for office. To understand how individuals in "helping" professions like social work may think about running for office, this study introduces the concept of political primacy. Political primacy refers to the value individuals assign to elected office's ability to make a difference, relative to alternative ways of making a difference. Using data from the Michigan Law & Social Work Study, representing a sample of 545 MSW and 200 JD students across Michigan, political primacy was shown to significantly predict MSW students' interest in running for office at the local level. Consequently, the more MSW students see elected office as a more effective way of making a difference than alternatives, the more interested they will be in running for office. Implications for social work education are discussed, including the socialization of social work students into politics.

The policy engagement of social workers: a research overview

“…Later studies found that SW managers engage more in policy because they have more opportunities, greater expectations and more knowledge and self-efficacy (Makaros et al, 2020). Finally, studies have identified personality traits (Schwartz-Tayri, 2020), gender (Meehan, 2019;Ostrander et al, 2019;Shin, 2020) and ethnicity (Bent-Goodley, 2003;Lane and Humphreys, 2011;Nouman and Azaiza, 2021;Darawshy et al, 2022) as factors that influence SWs' engagement in policy routes.…”