Abstract

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the poverty perception of social work students. The research was designed in accordance with the qualitative research method. The study group of the research consists of 22 students studying in the social services program in the fall semester of the 2023-2024 academic year at a vocational school of a university in Istanbul. A semi-structured interview form was created by the researcher in order to collect the research data. Thematic analysis approach was used in the analysis of the research data. As a result of the research, while social work students defined poverty in the dimensions of economic inadequacy, economic and social inadequacy and social inadequacy, the majority of the students associated poverty more with economic inadequacy. The disadvantages of poverty were determined by the students as inability to meet basic needs, inability to benefit from health opportunities, inability to benefit from educational opportunities, anxiety about the future, limited social life and exclusion. The labor market, inflation, individual reasons, inequality in income distribution and lack of education were expressed as the causes of poverty by social work students. While the need to help, pity and sadness, ignoring and seeing as a tool for exploitation are presented through the eyes of the students as the society's perspective on the poor and poverty, improvement in the economy, social assistance, providing employment and creating social awareness are developed as suggestions for preventing poverty.

Keywords: Social service, Poverty, Perception of poverty