Date of Award
6-2017
Document Type
Project
Degree Name
Master of Social Work
Department
School of Social Work
First Reader/Committee Chair
Deirdre Lanesskog
Abstract
Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST) affects hundreds of thousands of youth every year. In the past, DMST youth were often viewed by law enforcement and the criminal justice system as "offenders" and were usually arrested for solicitation even though they were minors. While new laws have begun to identify youth as victims, it has not yet been ensured that social workers have adopted this perspective. This quantitative study's purpose was to examine Cal State University San Bernardino (CSUSB) Bachelor of Social Work (BASW) and Master of Social Work (MSW) students' attitudes toward DMST youth. Participants completed an online questionnaire using Qualtrics software. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 21, using statistical tests including frequencies, Pearson's R, and ANOVA. The hypothesis that knowledge, exposure to curriculum, and past experiences impacted students' stigmatization of DMST youth was not supported by the data. Instead, results indicated that CSUSB social work students did not stigmatize the DMST population. Because these findings cannot be generalized to social workers in the field, future research should explore whether social workers currently working with DMST youth stigmatize this population. These findings also have implications for the CSUSB School of Social Work as they revealed that some students lacked education about this population and, consequently, felt unprepared to work with this population.
Recommended Citation
Marinelli, Crystal Lorraine and Hunt, Andrea Sara, "Cal State San Bernardino Social Work Students' Attitudes Toward Domestic Minor Sex-Trafficked (DMST) Youth" (2017). Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations. 454.
https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/454