This study describes student perceptions on health inequalities and causes of poverty. Background: As frontline providers, social workers and nurses are expected to engage with patients from socioeconomically diverse backgrounds. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a socio-demographic questionnaire, a questionnaire on health inequalities and the Perceived Causes of Poverty Scale were administered using a convenience sample of 155 students in social work and 266 students in nursing undergraduate programmes at a state university in Turkey. Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman correlation coefficient were used in the analysis of the data. Findings: Social work students were more likely to attribute the cause of poverty to social injustice and a lack of opportunities, whereas nursing students had more fatalistic explanations or beliefs, maintaining that outcomes are pre-determined and therefore cannot be changed. In both groups, those who agreed that there were problems and deficiencies in health service provision and that there was ill-health among poor groups were more likely to associate poverty with social injustice and lack of opportunities. Those without a systemic understanding of poverty and health inequalities showed a tendency to hold more individualistic/fate-related perspectives. Conclusion and implications for nursing and education policy:The nursing students, as compared to the social work students, tended to explain poverty more on the basis of individual responsibility and fatalism and were less likely to link poverty with health inequalities and to advocate for policies to end health inequalities. The students' perceptions on the causes of poverty affected their views on health inequalities. These findings suggest the need to develop curricula that equip nursing students with an understanding of poverty as a systemic cause of health inequality. Health inequality and poverty need to be positioned at the centre of training curricula by professional accreditation bodies. Interdisciplinary collaboration is recommended to foster advocacy skills in students. Furthermore, transformative changes are needed in nursing and social work education to prepare students to adequately address the Social Determinants of Health. Curricula should incorporate leadership and political activism within courses to facilitate structural change. K E Y WO R D Shealth inequalities, nursing education, nursing students, perceptions of causes of poverty, social work students 

No abstract

The purpose of the current study was to identify Turkish women’s social capital formation. This study consisted of 170 women with low SES residing closer to shantytowns. The authors performed the Logistic regression analysis to examine the social capital formation (civic engagement, trust, social participation, and social networks) of women in terms of six variables (age, educational level, employment and marital status, homeownership, community centers, and the length of stay in the same neighborhood) in four different community centers in Ankara, Turkey. Logistic regression results suggest that the length of stay in the same neighborhood was associated both with staying in touch with neighbors (social networks) and trust in municipal service provision (trust), and women’s educational level was associated with voting (civic engagement) and the utilization of municipal services (social participation). Further research should be conducted by comparing men’s and women’s social capital creation by adding other variables.

Similar to the trajectory in many countries, social work education in Turkey developed in the aftermath of World War II, the foundations of which were shaped along international dynamics rather than local context. In this regard, there has been an ongoing debate on localization of social work education. This article discusses the historical trajectory of social work education in Turkey through a systematic review of literature and analysis of data collected by semi-structured interviews with key informants. The implications of neoliberalism for the social work profession in Turkey reflect a dual framework where the human rights perspective co-exists with a faith-based approach.