USE THIS BOOK FOR ALL ASSIGNMENT IN GENERAL. Kottak, C., Kozaitis, K. (06/2011). On Being Different: Diversity and Multiculturalism in the North American Mainstream, 4th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf Online].
What is your SES level? Think about what we have described as constituting SES. So far within this course, you have focused heavily on race, culture, and ethnicity and you have been asked to do some self-exploration for each of those. Here, let's think about SES or income and education. What is your SES? Since you are a student, it might be fairly low, depending on whether you are working while you are studying. However, keep in mind that temporarily having financial limitations, because you are pursuing a graduate-level degree, would not necessarily put you in a low-SES category. People who are grouped under lower-income class do not usually have the upward mobility that a graduate student has even if that graduate student's financial resources may be temporarily limited.
This naturally brings us to the one component of SES that we have not talked about-education. Simply because you are grouped under this class, you fall into the high on at least one spectrum of SES-education. You already have a bachelor's degree, and you are en route to a master's degree. Therefore, when you meet with clients who are in the low-SES category, there can be differences between you and them. Here, it is time to do some introspective thinking. What are your attitudes toward members of different classes? What biases do you have toward people who are in the low-SES category? How might these biases impact your work with them? And now, let's flip the coin. What about people who are in the very high SES category? Do you have negative feelings toward them? If you encounter them in the work that you do, will these biases come through in your work?
These are all important questions for you to ask yourself, and if you find that you do have negative biases toward individuals who are in a different class than you, you should work to resolve these by challenging erroneous beliefs you have and trying to establish empathy toward these different classes.
Assignment: Socioeconomic Status
Interestingly, researchers have found that many of the cultural issues that apparently impact the human services delivery recipient are actually related to the socioeconomic status (SES) rather than other cultural factors.
In this assignment, you will focus on SES.
Tasks:
Elaborate on how (or whether) the SES impacts the work equation between a service delivery provider and a service delivery recipient. Be specific in your responses and illustrate using examples.