Political and Racial Polarization and Its Intersection with Social Work

Abstract

Immediately following the 2016 presidential election, fifty-one people were given an online survey based on several political topics: race, party identification, voting choice, and opinions on the state of political and racial polarization in the United States. Given the role of the media to shape public opinion, an option was given for the survey respondents to give their opinion on controversial articles that were selected. Before conducting the survey, I believed that the respondents would agree that the United States is polarized, but agree with the message that the controversial articles were giving off. The clear majority of respondents agreed that the United States is becoming more politically and racially divided. I then used their responses for a discussion-based presentation and connected the issue of polarization to social work; social workers must validate the concerns of their clients following the election, but must also teach resiliency.