Homeless use stereotypes to justify seeking services

By Andrea Falbo
Staff Writer

A Purdue professor has found that when the homeless present themselves to their social workers they will use typical homeless stereotypes to justify why they are seeking help. These stereotypes are created through the media.

"I was interested in how these clients presented themselves to social workers when seeking services," said J. William Spencer, associate professor of sociology and anthropology.

Spencer has studied the features of the homeless and the histories they present when they talk to social workers. Spencer found that the clients presented themselves in ways that provided accounts, or justifications, for their reasons for needing service.

"What was interesting to me was how closely these self—presentations made use of, or appropriated, many aspects of the cultural images of the homeless I was finding in my newspaper research," said Spencer. "I treat these newspaper articles as a kind of window on how our culture defines these problems. These definitions, or images, do not always reflect the "reality" of the problems themselves."

Spencer found that the topic of homelessness is one that is "periodically discovered" or only becomes an issue periodically. Times when homelessness is an issue has been in the late 1800's, the 1930's and in the 1980's. He has found that prior to the 1980's, homelessness was defined with images such as the "bum," "bag lady" and "wino."

"During the 1980's new images emerged, those of the young, unmarried woman with children and the formerly middle class family who lost everything," he said. "Our image of who the homeless were, and how they became homeless, underwent a fundamental transformation."

Spencer has been researching the homelessness in the media project for about three years and has long been interested in how social workers and their homeless clients interact.

"Social problems, or at least specific instances of problems, also come to be defined or be constructed through the use of language in face—to—face interaction," said Spencer.

In this study, Spencer studied the actual use of language between the social worker and their client, rather than the type of advice and information social workers offer.

Another aspect of this research has yielded that social workers also use language to avoid situations where clients may become angry or upset or refuse services that the social workers may suggest.

Spencer is also working on examining media images of youth violence. Spencer conducted his research on social workers in a human service agency in New Orleans and his research on media images was conducted at Purdue.

Spencer came to Purdue in the fall of 1989; before coming to Purdue, he taught at the University of New Orleans for five years.

He came to Purdue because of its facilities. "Purdue is a major research university with an international reputation and lots of resources. The sociology graduate program has both a Masters and a Ph.D. program which were both attractive to me," said Spencer.

He received his bachelor's degree from University of Texas, Austin, in 1974 and both his Master's and Ph.D. from Indiana University.