Social Work Cultural Values and Value-Orientation

Social Work Cultural Values and Value-Orientation

Social work competence and confidence come from many sources – an educational foundation grounded in a knowledge base that includes understanding and applying theory to practice situations; field placements and supervisory relationships; continuous training, conferences, workshops; and self-awareness and continued personal development. It is difficult for a social worker, regardless of content expertise, specialization, or field experiences, to be optimally effective without continuing to grow and understand his/her/their own assumptions, theories, biases, values. This assignment gives you the opportunity to think about your own cultural memberships and value-orientations.

Answer the following Questions:

1. Define your various group memberships? Which group(s) do you most strongly identify?
2. What are your value-orientations and cultural values? Do they differ across life spheres (e.g., family, political, religious, educational, occupational)?
3. What is your broad ideological position on the nature of the helping relationship? What do you believe to be the most salient influences on human behavior and on the ability of human beings to change and grow?
4. What are your family of origin’s value orientations?
5. What do you perceive to be “dominant American cultural values”? What social institutions/systems reinforce or encourage these dominant values?
6. How were values transmitted to you via culture/society/family/social institutions?
7. Summarize the consonance/dissonance of these three system value orientations (individual – you; family of origin; dominant society).
8. Compare and contrast your cultural values with one other class, race, ethnicity, culture, disability group, etc. Draw from the current literature to support your statements about the values of the class, race, ethnicity, culture, or disability group.

– Watch for grammar and punctuation

– Be detailed

– 3 references from the academic social science literature