**Part I (3 pages): Describe the various aspects of your social identity in terms of gender, ethnicity/nationality, race/color, sexual orientation, ability/disability, social class, and religion/spirituality. Discuss how these attributes and dimensions of your identity might influence your attitudes toward and interactions with others who are “different,” or similar. Also discuss how their attitudes toward and interactions with you might be impacted. This aspect of the assignment is to heighten your awareness of your own identity and its various dimensions: gender, ethnicity/nationality, race/color, sexual orientation, ability/disability, social class, and religion/spirituality, and to assist you in developing a sense of self in relationship to others with shared or dissimilar social identities.
**Please note this part of the assignment was adapted from Faye Y. Abram, PhD, St. Louis University.
Part II (4 pages) : The purpose of this part of the assignment is for you to summarizes your understanding of generalist Social Work practice with an oppressed group. Specifically, describe what you think it would be like as a social worker to work with clients from an oppressed population.
Select one oppressed group you are interested in learning more about. If you are member of an oppressed group, choose a different group. For example, if you select gender and you are a woman, then you can explore transgender, or males, or some other gender orientation. If you have a learning disability and select disabilities, you need to explore a different disability. You can choose a group from one of the following categories:
Ability/disability
Social Class
Gender
Religion
Sexual orientation
Race or ethnicity
Read about this group and how to engage in culturally competent practice from each of the following three sources:
a social work textbook
the Encyclopedia of Social Work
professional social work journal
Based on your academic reading:
Provide a brief history of how your chosen group has been oppressed
Discuss three of the following areas with regard to the oppressed group you have
General information about family structures within this group (for example, nuclear, extended, single-parent)
Education disparities
Health concerns and disparities
How might members of this group access and respond to mental health services.
Describe/discuss culturally competent social work practice guidelines for this group and what it might it be like to provide culturally competent services in the U.S. for this group. Use the NASW Cultural Competence Guide. How might a member of this group respond to help from sources, such as a social worker who is outside of their culture or group or a member of their group?
We all have actual and potential biases. Given the various aspects of your own social identity what are some of the potential ‘challenges’ that you might face in working with this population – both from the client and within yourself? What would you do to address these potential biases? The paper length is a total of 7 pages which does not include the title and reference page. The paper should be formatted using APA 6 writing style. Cite and paraphrase your sources and do not use more than 2 direct quotations. Provide a complete list of references on your reference page using APA 6 formatting.
