My culture is essential when understanding who I am as a person and as a future social worker. The top three elements of my culture include my gender, race, and religious affiliation. My gender, race, and religious affiliation can heavily impact an interview with a client by supporting and interfering with the interview process. While some elements of my culture are more easily viewable than others, all may have a gargantuan impact in my future social work career with my clients. Upon interviewing a client, one of the first aspects a client will notice about me is my gender. Discussing my gender is essential when talking about my cultural identity because being female has shaped my perspectives and experiences in this world and can even impact my interview with a client. There are advantages and disadvantages to being a female, mostly demonstrated within my interactions with others, and I will likely bring these advantages and disadvantages with me in a future interview. Many people, including possible clients, view females as more nurturing and compassionate when compared to male counterparts. This bias may influence my ability to do my job effectively and efficiently. This impact will likely be beneficial as clients could be more open to speaking with a counselor whom he or she believes could be more sympathetic towards his or her situation. In addition, being female can also positively impact my experiences with female clients- especially those who have experienced
My cultural interview was with a coworker, 28 years of age and of Hispanic descent. While conducting the interview I learned a lot about the Hispanic culture. Many Hispanics like to be called Latino (a). Some do not like to be referred to as Mexican when they are from other countries other than Mexico. Hispanics also use slang within their culture just like African Americans. Within the culture the male is the dominant figure in the household. All the decisions that affect the family go through the father. If there is no father in the house, the oldest son fulfills that role. The older son may drop out of school so that they may assist the mother at the house in the absence of the father. Many Hispanics
Cultural competency is critical in psychology practice. In the United States, the groups, which considered as cultural and ethnic minorities, are growing in the population (APA, 2003). Culture often influences the content and quality of people’s experience, perception, and response. Thus, it is important for psychologists to be aware of cultural influences on client’s presenting experience(s) (Gardiner & Kosmitzki, 2010). Without a regard for cultural influence, there is a significant risk for the psychologist to misunderstand, misinterpret, and misguide his or her client. Such misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and misguidance are not only unhelpful but can be detrimental for the client (Corey, Corey, & Callanan, 2011; Pope, & Vasquez, 2011).
Culture is defined as the boundary between different people from different ends of the earth. For my project I had to interview another person from a different culture. This was difficult for me because I had no idea where to start because I didn’t know what made my culture specific to me. I found my interview subject relatively fast and I sat down and asked the questions. I found my subject from my boss I interviewed my bosses boyfriends sister and we went at it.
Therefore, the need to be culturally competent is paramount to fostering understanding. Cultural competency is about understanding another’s artifacts, beliefs, values and basic assumptions (Schein, 2010). Schein describes artifacts as the observable elements of a culture, such as ceremonies, non verbal cues, and language. He further describes, belief structures serve as guide posts and are useful in understanding a reason for a behavior. Finally, he states, assumptions are based on previous experience of what was and was not successful in the past for the individual or group. Recognizing and identifying these elements improves an outsider’s cultural
Andre Ebbinkhuysen is the subject of my culture interview. I chose him because I was interested in learning more about the South African culture and its history. We met at McDonalds on South College Road on Friday, June 10th at 11:00 am and interviewed for about an hour. I felt very comfortable interviewing him, as we share a secondary group at Cape Fear Community College, sitting right next to each other in our Sociology class. I feel I know him better than a stranger I would have tried to approach for this interview.
Culture is defined as a set of values, attitudes, and beliefs shared by such a group, which sets the standards of behavior required for continued acceptance and successful participation in that group (Wilson, 2014, p. 84).There are many ways that culture influences individuals such as belief and values, human relations, time, communication, and etiquette and behavior. The culturagram was utilized to identify the cultural influences of the client. The culturagram includes ten categories of functioning that assess the legal status, cultural institutions, family, education, and work values, impact of crisis events, holidays and events, health belief, immigration, and time in the community.. The client provided the information that makes up the culturagram. Alice identifies as a Caucasian female. She is a citizen of the United States and her culture is American. She speaks English and does not have any issues with immigration or the law. She has been a part of the community for thirty-three years. She has always lived in San Francisco, California.
Mexican culture is colorful and rich, enriched with pride and heritage. Family values and strong moral constitution have sustained the culture for hundreds of years. I have had the pleasure to interact and consort with the Mexican culture most of my life in the business that I'm in. Dedication and hard work are the stables that bound the stigma of the Mexican culture. Being that I truly honor the culture I have chosen a friend of mine that I work with to perform my interview upon. My interviewee is Maria Dimas; she was born in Cancun Mexico but has lived most of her life in the United States.
Culture has an effect on behavior based on the beliefs, values, and norms accepted in that culture. To understand a client’s behavior, it’s important to understand their culture and the influences it has on the client. By understanding culture and analyzing it through one or more sociocultural lenses, social workers can understand how society perceives clients and how clients view themselves (Rogers, 2016). According to NASW standard 1.01a (1999), social workers need to understand how culture influences human behavior and society. To efficiently work with clients and understand their behavior, a social worker needs to view a client through an applicable sociocultural lens.
My cultural informant was a friend who I have known for about six and a half years, Lisa. Lisa’s sister, Liya, and I became close friends during my freshman year of college. Liya, two other girls, and I became roommates from sophomore year through senior year. Lisa is a year younger than me, so I met her during my sophomore year. Liya and Lisa were international students from Ethiopia, so they often spent holidays and breaks with my family and I. The three of us became close during our college years, and I had the opportunity to visit them in Ethiopia in the summer of 2015. Liya is currently living in Ethiopia; therefore, I am not able to speak with her as frequently as Lisa; however, modern technology does
As I entered the home to conduct my interview, I was immediately greeted by very soft spoken female. She’s a 42 yrs old African American female, who’s married with two children. She migrated from the south 30 years ago along with her mother and sister. She’s currently working for the Department of Education as a substitute teacher with aspiration of becoming a child psychologist. The subject was eager to be interviewed. She thought it would be great to sure her views and perspectives of her culture. Culture is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as , the total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge, which constitute the shared bases of social action. To me culture is rich and fascinating filled with family, traditions, memories, and many dialects.
The assignment was about interviewing somebody, whose culture and background differ from mine. After conducting such interview, I decided to convert that interview to a narrative and well-written form, which will certainly shed light on miscellaneous aspects of Mr. K’s culture. Knowing more about someone’s culture will enhance my awareness about the diversity that exists on this planet. Therefore, I decided to conduct the interview with my friend, Mr. K, whom I know since I came to this University. I was hoping that I will be surprised by knowing a lot of things that I thought I knew them well.
When contemplating the topic of gender role and its impact on identity one cannot help but realise that these gender roles have a huge part to play on a person’s identity. As gender is a combination of male and female it gives way for a number of characteristics to accompany each sex making them different from each other. This has an important position to play on identity which Kath Woodward stated in her book “Questioning Identity: Gender, Class, Nation” where she said “Without difference there would not be such thing as identity”. (Woodward, 2000, pp.51) Unfortunately, however, with these differences there are inequalities. In this essay I would like to elaborate on this further by looking at the meaning of gender and how it impacts
fter the interview I conclude that there are many things about beliefs and cultures I don’t know
In response to what we have discussed thus far in Interpersonal Communication, I would like to further explore the idea of gender in the interpersonal communication arena. As was said in class, ”gender influences cultural perspectives.” Gender also influences how we view ourselves in society. On the flip side, I’ve seen how society can mold the way we label ourselves in terms of gender.
Culture surrounds us every day, it is in our arts, ourselves, our community and our careers. Everybody has multiple cultural elements that help create the personality of that person along with helping us identify similarities within a community that we individually reach out to be a part of. Casey, my interviewee, is a junior at Washington University of Saint Louis undergoing a Neuroscience major along with minors in music, linguistics, and French. She identifies herself as a Democratic, Christian, Caucasian. These are the three most stereotypical culture identities that most people are aware of and refer to themselves as. She also considers herself a multilingual, vegan, and bisexual. These identities too, are looked upon by other people in which they would like to express and follow in their everyday practices.