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Competency 2: Engage Diversity and Difference in Practice
Social workers understand how diversity and difference characterize and shape the human experience and are critical to the formation of identity. The dimensions of diversity are understood as the intersectionality of multiple factors including but not limited to age, class, color, culture, disability and ability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status, marital status, political ideology, race, religion/spirituality, sex, sexual orientation, and
tribal sovereign status. Social workers understand that, as a consequence of difference, a person’s life experiences may include oppression, poverty, marginalization, and alienation as well as privilege, power, and acclaim. Social workers also understand the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination and recognize the extent to which a culture’s structures and values, including social, economic, political, and cultural exclusions, may oppress, marginalize, alienate, or create privilege and power. Social workers:
apply and communicate understanding of the importance of diversity and difference in shaping life experiences in practice at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels;
present themselves as learners and engage clients and constituencies as experts of their own experiences;
apply self-awareness and self-regulation to manage the influence of personal biases and values in working with diverse clients and constituencies
Introduction: Core competency two states that social workers should engage in diversity and practice differences, which will be demonstrated in my two artifacts. Artifact 1: The self-study paper I wrote in SW 300: Social Work and Difference, Diversity, and Privilege. Artifact 2: The My Family/ Mi Familia assignment answering questions about the film in SW 300: Social Work and Difference, Diversity, and Privilege.
Artifact 1: Self-study
This assignment was about our experiences and what we learned through the semester taking SW 300. I know about gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity/nationality, race, religion/ spirituality, class, and ability/disability in the class. In the self-study paper, we had to make a connection with each section with our own experiences. For example, race and religion related to how I grew up in my house and what was expected from my siblings and me. In social work, one needs to manage and understand a client with a diverse culture and learn how to keep judgment aside. This assignment has helped me apply self-awareness and self-regulation. My cultural background will be different from someone else's cultural background which will help me, as a social worker, understand the dimension of diversity.
Artifact 2: My Family/ Mi Familia
This assignment involved watching a film called Mi Familia in SW 300 and critically answering the following questions. The film helped me understand how different cultural groups view people. The film is about Jose and Maria, the first generation, who come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, and face deportation, all in the 1930s. The deportation of their mother impacted the family because they thought they had lost her forever; the kids were too young to understand what had happened to their mother. As a social worker working with a diverse population, recognizing these values and traditions can help me understand identity formation.
Conclusion: Looking back at the beginning of my social work education, I have grown significantly in understanding the importance of diversity and differences that characterize and shape the human experience and identity formation. I have learned to not to judge someone so quickly, and to consider each individual's with unique qualities. An area of improvement to further my education is to keep growing and better understand all the different cultures that will help me in my future as a social worker.
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