Global Sustainable Development Goals and social work during the pandemic

Abstract

The article presents the results of research conducted by the study program for social work at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Banja Luka in cooperation with study programs in Sarajevo, Tuzla and Mostar. The research examined the views of social work students concerning social development and the global Sustainable Development Goals from the Agenda 2030. The research sample consisted of 75 students attending the first cycle of social work studies. The research was conducted during the pandemic, which significantly determined its results.

Research results show that social work students are influenced by traditional values. They believe that the society will develop through cooperation and partnership, but also through economic growth and scientific and technological achievements. They are attached to family and family values and they see the institutional strengthening of society as a guarantee of development. They see social work as an area of social change and empathy towards people who are in a state of social need.

Using factor analysis, three components were extracted that roughly represent three different concepts of values held by social work students and their attitudes towards social development: economic optimists (convinced in the power of economic and technological growth), socio-environmental pessimists (convinced that development is impossible without the destruction of natural environment and gross human rights violations) and institutional/resource sceptics (suspicious that development can take place in institutions, infrastructure and industrial capacities).