Marianna Kopasz and her co-authors Tamás Bartus and Ildikó Husz have published their study “The role of the family’s ethnicity and correlates in social workers’ risk perceptions: Evidence from a vignette study in Hungary” in Children and Youth Services Review (Q1; IF: 2.4).

The article examines child welfare workers’ perceptions of risk at the early stages of child protection decision-making. The main research question is whether child welfare workers perceive higher levels of risk if the child’s parents are Roma. The study is based on data from a vignette-based survey conducted among social workers (N = 600) in Hungary in 2018. The factors influencing social workers’ risk perceptions are analysed using multilevel ordinal logistic regressions. The regression models of risk perception include case variables (e.g. harm to child, parents’ ethnicity, mother’s education, etc.), and the individual characteristics of the social worker. Ethnicity is examined individually as well as in interaction with other case characteristics. Findings show that family ethnicity has no significant impact on risk perception (main effect). However, some case characteristics affect risk perception differently when the family is of Roma origin (interaction effects). Although, no ethnic bias was found in social workers’ perception of risk, our findings indicate that the perception of risk for Roma families is less dependent on the circumstances of the case than for majority families. In some cases, this may lead to an unjustified overestimation of risk or, conversely, an underestimation when the family is Roma.

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019074092400522X?via%3Dihub