Sociocultural Factors

A child’s environment, for example, their family or school play a huge part in their development. Some of the main factors that influence a child’s development are their family, where the child lives, and socio-economic status. These factors often cross over and blend as they are related.

Sociology is the study of how social forces influence individuals living within a society. Any society is made of norms, values and beliefs that have the effect of constraining individuals’ thoughts and behaviors. Through understanding and sociological imagination, individuals can remove or at least lessen the social forces’ impacts that are causing the constraints.

Education is an important social determinant of health because it affects many other determinants. Generally, people with worst health status have low education levels. Furthermore, people with low levels of education are more likely to have lifestyles which can lead to a chronic illness. Education empowers people with skills to

Being poor is hazardous to one's health. As seen in class, the conditions that are found in poor neighborhoods cause the poor to die earlier and have much less healthy lives than their more wealthy counterparts in better neighborhoods and the suburbs. The poor who are mostly of color are segregated by income into these areas where poverty, toxic waste, pollution and crime make their lives miserable indeed.

Social location, or the status in life that people have because of their place in a society, have a huge impact on everyone. The impact that social location created could be neutral, but most of the time it will have a positive or negative impact on people. For example, an African American could be discriminated because of his ethnicity, or a patient will choose an older doctor when he needs a treatment. Different social location that we have will affect our decisions in everyday life, and most of the time it happened subconsciously, which means we don’t realize that the decisions we make are based on our social location. Like everyone else, I was affected by my own social location, both positively and negatively.

The environment inside the mother’s womb can indeed have a dramatic influence on the development of a child but environment influences such as where the child is raised can have a huge affect on a child development as well. Children of a low income tend to live in more polluted areas, where the air and the water are polluted, pollution can cause brain development in children as well lung diseases that can be development in childhood or can affect them later in life. One the factors that can have a huge impact on a child’s life is housing. Those on a low income are more likely to be living in poor housing conditions experiencing stress from overcrowding including noise, lack of privacy, having to wait to use facilities such as the toilets, poor heating and ventilation in winter, poor washing and cooking facilities, the house can have many hazards for a child due to architectural features, dampness, as well the neighbourhood cannot be safe or have poor facilities such as shops and parking. Poor housing is associated with poor health this is due of poor facilities and opportunities, children that grow up within poor housing are more

This lack of prevention stems from poor education often received in those areas and the culture that often permeates within them (Williams/Torrens). Widely accepted is the concept that people with higher incomes generally enjoy better health and live longer than people with lower incomes.

This chapter discussed the role of sociocultural factors in psychological adjustment. What impact has your own ethnic or cultural background had on your daily life? According to the chapter 1 genetic factors play a role and psychological adjustment and effective behavior, biology is not destiny. One ethnic or cultural background is impacted on my daily life is environmental. When I was a child, my mother who was raised in the south, would often tell me to take my hands out of my pockets when we would walk into a store. I finally asked her in my teenage years, “why do I have to take my hands out of my pockets”. Her reason was fear, the workers from the store wouldn’t think I stole anything. I think her concern impacted my life, today I believe I’m still being watched when I go into a

This essay will discuss ways in which a person’s socioeconomic class and his/her social situation can have an impact on his/her health, using examples. We believe that there is a direct link between socioeconomic/social class and health (Adler et al. 1994). I will be defining the key terms: socioeconomic and health, social class then proceed to discuss about how poverty, income, employability, environment and housing can impact on a person’s social situation and their health.

Health is another issue that has been examined as a potential effect of living in poverty. A large amount of literature links low income to child health problems with studies showing that children in poverty are at a greater risk of infant, child and adolescent deaths (Children’s Defense Fund, 1994) along with malnutrition (Miller & Korenman, 1994) and numerous other health issues. These health issues can also be linked to the low quality living environment, as children in poverty are more likely to be exposed to toxins such as lead along with poorer air and water quality. These have been found to lead to cognitive deficits in children (Holgate, Samet, Koren, & Maynard, 1999).

Poverty is the United States is a major issue and continues to worsen as housing is becoming less affordable for many people across the nation. People that do find housing are often restricted to low-income areas that have few opportunities. In the low income areas there are few jobs and the quality of schools are poor and keep the people in the cycle. To offset this cycle money needs to be put into the education system in these lower income areas to offset this cycle. Education allows for people to have more opportunities and would increase the incentive to live in low-income areas. With a quality education that is equal to the suburbs it would give the children much more opportunities to improve themselves and exit the cycle. This cycle is living in low-income areas gives children a poor education due to the schools lacking money and resources; without the needed education the student is not able to get a good job. Without the well paying job that person is not able to afford housing and has to living in affordable housing that is located in the low-income areas. By breaking this cycle with increased education it is possible for people to get out the cycle that ties them to that area. Education is the foundation to success and it very important that is equal and everyone receives similar opportunities through that education.

There are connections with bad education and the inner cities living in poverty. For starters, disadvantaged neighborhoods are characterized by few well educated adults. This can make things for the youth growing up in these bad areas much harder. If that is not enough, simply growing up in a poor neighborhood decreases the chance of finishing high school. It is no secret that the crime rates in inner cities are through the roof. What

According to Systems theory: all elements of our environment impact who we are as individuals and families (Family Systems, 2015). Being raised in a middle class family by caring parents has had the greatest influence on who I am today. My family was considered middle class, but with five children sometimes things were tight and we went without. This economic hardship has influenced me to still be hardworking and thrifty, as I have two jobs, and only purchase items that are discounted in some way. It has also caused me to be creative as there was no money for games and few toys. Even though I would later disagree with distinct family

Sociocultural perspective is mainly about how different people are from one another. This theory is used to determine what might trigger or influence someone's behavior or mental stage, such as their surroundings, gender, culture, or even ethnicity. A person's surroundings is a major part of their behavior or actions because this could help a psychologist understand why they think something is normal, or where they picked up some of the habits they may have. For example, someone from a more individual or smaller society will have a more independent of others as well as themselves. Society is also put into the socio-cultural perspective because children tend to lean towards what everyone else does so they could feel pressured to do things just to fit into a group.

Before anything else, the term “Sociocultural context” must be defined. Sociocultural context is defined as “the physical, social, cultural, economic, and historical circumstances that make up any child’s environment”. (Siegler, DeLoache, & Eisenberg, 2014) It is a very broad term covering a wide variety of subjects that have the potential to impact a child’s development either positively or negatively. Due to it being so broad, it is critical to give at least one example for each of these terms in the definition. An example of a physical environment is where someone physically grew up, and includes factors such as environment and one’s physical house. (Siegler, et al. 2014) Social environment is who one grew up around, including friends, family, and educators. (Siegler, et al. 2014) Cultural environment refers to a set of beliefs, customs, practices and behavior that influence population. Economic circumstances refer to one’s financial well-being; and historical circumstances refer to the time that one grew up in and the historical events that one was