Attributions for Poverty: A Survey of Student’s Perception

Abstract

In this paper, attribution for poverty have been investigated using 147 marketing students of Sunyani polytechnic who were selected through the use of convenient sample method. The paper is based on exploratory quantitative survey. With the use of self design questionnaire primary data were obtained from the field and analysed using SPSS 16.0. Percentages and frequencies as well as One-Way ANOVA were used for the analysis. The results indicated that individual perspective of poverty attribution dominates among structural and fatalistic explanations. It was also revealed that success depends significantly on the individual effort and that work is one’s contribution to society. Future research should increase sample size, and also consider the relationship between educational level and poverty attributions.

Keywords

• attribution
• poverty
• individualistic
• structuralist
• fatalistic