Conclusion and Future Directions

We conclude the book in this chapter, and discuss a summary of chapters, limitations and future directions. Defining culture is a complex task, and we provided practical guides for social work students and researchers to make cross-cultural comparisons in their research. We began this book with a discussion on culture and its relation to social work. We then outlined the process of data management and the use of descriptive statistic techniques to describe differences among cultural groups. We demonstrated and illustrated the application of cross cultural comparisons using linear regression, logistic regression, structural equation modeling (SEM), hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), and geomap visualizations. We concluded with a discussion on limitations and our hope for future directions in cross-cultural research in the social work discipline.