Germeen Riad

Abstract

Despite governmental and legislative efforts (Hassanin, 2008), societal tolerance of sexual and gender-based violence is widespread in Egypt, even among health professionals (Rasheed, 2011). Moreover, there is a lack of understanding and misconceptions regarding human sexuality. Such misconceptions often lead to harmful practices such as female genital mutilation/cutting, childhood marriage, and child sexual abuse (WHO, 2010). Child protection social workers must be equipped to deal with children who have been victims of such practices and must be able to provide the sex education that is necessary for its prevention. A survey of 86 child protection social workers and eleven in-depth interviews was conducted in order to better understand how they viewed and dealt with sexuality, gender roles and sexual and gender-based violence. It was found that they had a number of misconceptions about sexuality as well as a tendency to gender stereotype. Female social workers were overall less tolerant of gender-based violence, more supportive of gender equality and had fewer misconceptions related to sex compared to male social workers. Male social workers who were married were more likely to hold attitudes supportive of women facing sexual and gender-based violence, had more flexible views of gender roles and lower double standards, and were more open to gender equality, than male social workers who were single. Based on these results, recommendations are made for culturally appropriate training to build social workers' capacity for addressing sex and gender issues in their child protection practice.

Department

Psychology Department

Degree Name

MA in Community Psychology

Graduation Date

6-1-2019

Submission Date

February 2019

First Advisor

Forden, Carie

Committee Member 1

Salah, Yasmine

Committee Member 2

Bakhoum, Atef

Extent

98 p.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Approval has been obtained for this item

Download

Share

COinS