Services with Minorities

Chapter 17

Introduction

• Social work has a deep tradition in social reform.• Early efforts was in working with minorities and

addressing such issues as immigration laws, relocation, and work with individuals.

• Social work is attempting to strengthen and broaden its approach in its effort to bring about institutional change that will benefit minorities in America.

Minority Problems

• Racial discrimination is real.• Carmichael and Hamilton describe “individual”

and “institutional” as the two kinds of racism.• The first consists of overt acts by individuals,

which cause death, injury, or the violent destruction of property.

• The second type originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than the first type.

Minority Problems

• The Civil Rights Act that afforded minorities important lifestyle gains was passed on June 29, 1964.

• According to the U.S. Census projections for the year 2000 the white population will decline slightly while minority populations will increase slightly.

Minority Problems

• The Dual Perspective model developed by the Council on Social Work Education suggests that individuals develop two self images: personal (through the individual’s family and immediate community – the nurturing system) and social (through the society’s political, economic, and educational systems – the sustaining system).

Two Other Perspectives

• Cultural dissonance has been thought to be created by the differences between the culture of the minority group and the culture of the majority group.

• Institutional racism deals with minority problems in terms of discrimination practiced in social structures.

• The most glaring is found in the employment structures of the United States.

Intervention with Minorities

• One theoretical model that seems to hold promis for systemic social work intervention with minorities includes 3 stages:– Individual intervention (traditional casework,

cognitive theory, etc.)– Interactional intervention (ecological systems,

family, communication therapies)– Sociocultural intervention (structural

functionalism, sociocultural therapy).

Intervention

• On the basis of this understanding, professionals can objectively and openly help minority clients to identify goals by choosing to:– Accommodate to the majority structure so as to share

in its social rewards– Reject to accommodation to the majority structure and

build separate majority institutions– Strike a compromise between accommodation to and

rejection of the majority structure

Intervention

• The second theoretical model, developed by de Anda, is entitled biculturalism.

• Thrust was to propose a model that would help social workers conceptualize minority people living and being socialized in two cultures simultaneously.

Social Services

• A controversial issue is whether or not social workers need to be of the same color and race to be effective in working with clients and their problems.

• Harper and Lantz view cross-cultural social work as both potentially damaging and useful.

Social Services

• “Only by respecting the sameness of our common human needs and the uniqueness of our different cultural methods of meeting those needs can a person begin to become a competent cross-cultural social work practitioner.”

Educational Developments

• Three important parts of the educational venture relevant to minorities are;– Students– Faculty– Curriculum

In 1999, minority students made up 32.7 percent of the juniors and seniors in BSW programs.

Educational Development

• Two major thrusts in relation to social work education for minority students are minority student recruitment and minority faculty recruitment.

• Turner suggests that there are two major issues confronting social work education in relation to minorities:– How to equip social workers with the knowledge,

skills, and attitudes that enable them to improve the status of minorities

– How to attract more minority group students into social work education

Educational Development

• In addition to increasing the number of minority students and faculty, one important element of social work education should be altered as well: curricula

• The four actions that a social worker should be able to perform in the minority arena include:– Recognizing racist policies and acts– Respond constructively to efforts to eliminate racism– Commit personal resources to change racism– Bring racist practices to the attention of those who

have responsibility and power to stop them.

Continuing Efforts

• More than any other profession, social work has tried to address the problem of women, discrimination, minorities, and social groups.

• The United States Department of Labor study indicated that unless policies are changed, minorities will have less employment opportunities in the year 2000 than they presently have.