Purpose
This assignment is meant to expand student knowledge of the multicultural aspects of their own communities. A secondary goal of the assignment is to strengthen the student’s ability to communicate a dense amount of information in a digitally creative way and in a manner that can easily be adapted to different forms of professional practice. It is important for master’s level social workers to be able to use digital technology (and personal experience/knowledge) to convey information as part of professional practice. Visme produces a free downloadable e-book titled How to Make an Infographic: A Visual Guide for Beginners. It is highly recommended that you look over this resource before beginning the assignment and/or view this quick take on how to put together a good Infographic (here). Please keep in mind that every part of an Infographic (color, shading, shapes, pictures, graphs, charts, text, flow, and overall aesthetic) should help convey information about the community, and that wording should be concise and to the point. A reference page using APA style should also be included, however, this assignment is not to be a paper. You should feel free to use whatever Infographic program meets your needs, but please save the final product as a PDF and submit the PDF file for this assignment.
To help you complete the assignment, here are some free infographic resources with examples you can use:
* Canva (canva.com)
* Visme (https://www.visme.co)
Requirements
The Community-Culture Infographic requires students to investigate multicultural aspects of a community of their choice. For the purposes of this assignment, community is defined liberally: it can be an entire community (a small town), a specific part of a community (“the south side” etc.), a historic area, or a well-defined neighborhood area (for example, the central district in Seattle; Hyde Park in Chicago; Wynwood section of Miami).
The Community-Culture Infographic should include the following:
1. A brief description of the neighborhood and its most salient cultural features and your relationship to the community (e.g. what is it called? Does it have distinct boundaries or is it organized around some central place or institution? What, if any, is your experience with this community?)
2. A description/analysis of important events or histories that shaped its past and present (Was it once associated with a particular ethnic group or population? Who or what are the major streets named after? Are there markers, murals, statues etc. that reflect its history?)
3. A description of the current cultural milieu of the community (this can include demographics, references to housing, businesses, churches, community organizations, parks, schools/universities, etc.)
4. A description of the ways in which this community appears to be culturally robust (for example, a community with vibrant institutions, Gay Pride flags on apartment or business windows) or perhaps unhealthy (an area with no cohesion, bars on windows, abandoned buildings, empty lots, etc.)
5. Provide a summary description/analysis of your perspective as either an Insider or Outsider to this community, and the ways in which this assignment may have changed your view of the community’s culture(s).
Online resources available to help you explore your community include (but are not limited to):
* Health insurance (lack of) among <65
* Med debt, by county & % without health insurance
* State (city) Facts: Min Wage, Avg renter wage, 2-bedroom housing wage, number of hours needed to afford rent
* Neighborhood income, poverty
* Black homeownership gap
* Hispanic homeownership gap
* Eviction Lab
