社會工作的意象：社會大眾如何看社會工作人員

社會工作在臺灣社會已有數十年的歷史，然而，社會大眾通常對於社會工作人員不甚瞭解。因此本研究選擇探討社會大眾對社會工作人員的意象，即社會大眾（包括社會工作出身）如何看待社會工作人員。本研究將意象區分為「角色知覺」與「公眾態度」，分別探討社會大眾認為社會工作人員的應有特質，以及對社會工作人員此一職業的態度。本研究採用網路問卷作為研究工具，透過便利抽樣及滾雪球的抽樣方式，總計回收了330份有效樣本。樣本透過獨立樣本t檢定、ANOVA、及迴歸分析之後發現： (1)社會大眾對社會工作人員的意象大致為正向，但有不少社會大眾會把「社會工作人員」（社工）與「志願服務者」（志工）相混淆； (2)與角色知覺最相關的自變項為「是否為社會工作背景出身」、「婚姻狀況」、「與最常接觸的社會工作人員的社會關係」，以及「與最常接觸的社會工作人員相處時，是否會聊到對方的工作狀況」。與公眾態度最相關的自變項為「教育程度」與「年齡」； (3)比較「社會工作背景」與「非社會工作背景」的受訪者，社會工作背景的受訪者對於社會工作人員的信賴程度較高，但卻比較悲觀，認為社會工作人員在社會上的聲望較低。期待研究結果能讓社會工作領域的同仁們能釐清自己在社會大眾心目中的看法，並從中找出能有效提升社會大眾對社會工作意象的方法，例如結合產官學界，一同舉辦聯合宣導活動，透過媒體提升社會大眾接觸到社會工作人員的資訊。除了增強社會大眾對於社會工作的意象外，提升社會工作人員的權能，使社會工作人員能更有效提供服務也是值得思考的部分。

關鍵字

社會工作人員；意象；角色知覺；公眾態度

並列摘要

The history of social work in Taiwan has spanned several decades. However, people in Taiwan often barely understand social workers. Therefore, this study will discuss the image of social workers in Taiwan and how people in Taiwan perceive social workers. In this study, the concept of “image” is divided into “role perception” and “public attitude”. “Role perception” means “what people feel from encountering with social workers and think about what social workers should do”. “Public attitude” means “what do people feel from social workers, and what do people look upon social workers”. The methods of data collection are convenience sampling and snowball sampling. The total number of available data is 330. The data are analyzing data by independent sample t test, one-way ANOVA, and regression, the results are: (1) The image of social workers is roughly positive, but many people in Taiwan are confused about “social workers” and “volunteers”. (2) Values that have significant relationship with role perception are ”social work background ”, “marriage”, “the social status between respondent and social worker that respondent most frequent meets”, and “along with the social worker that respondent most frequent meets, whether talk about work or not”. Values that have significant relationship to public attitude are “education” and “age”. (3) Compared with “social work background” and “non-social work background” respondents, the respondents that are social work background have higher trust in social workers. But they are pessimistic about the future of social workers because they think social workers got lower reputation in the society. The result of this study could make social work field in Taiwan get more clear view about the image of social work in Taiwan and find out how to promote the image. For example, the practice, academia, and government can brainstorm some propaganda programs, such as united propaganda activities, or on media, make people have more chance to acquire the information of social work. Besides promoting the image of social work, empowering social workers, how to serve more efficiently is worthy of reflection.