Here is an assignment that can help you look at your family of origin and identifying what being "White" means.
"Ethnicity patterns our thinking, feeling, and behavior in both obvious and subtle ways, although generally we are not aware of it. It plays a major role in determining what we eat and how we work, relate, celebrate holidays and rituals, and feel about life, death, and illness." (McGoldrick, Giordano, & Pearce, 1996, p. viii)
This assignment is designed to sensitize us as future mental health professionals to the range of values (our own included) within our multicultural society. To begin with, please choose at least one chapter from the McGoldrick, Giordano, & Garcia-Preto, (1996) text that best reflects your own ethnic heritage. In this country, it is often an oversimplification to define one's identity as that of a single ethnic group. If yours is a multicultural family, and you are wondering which chapter to focus on, take into consideration that most often the mother sets the tone in the home and child-rearing. On the other hand, if the father is the parent with the strongest ethnic identification, his ethnicity might have the strongest influence in the family.
After reading the chapter or chapters most pertinent to you, write a paper/outline using points 1-10. Indicate insights you might have gained about your own values and preferences through reading the chapter(s). Speculate how these values and preferences might come into play as you assume the professional role of mental health professional (clinician, administrator, educator, or researcher).
1. Identify the culture to which you belong and the relationship of your group to that of individuals from other groups. Have knowledge of your heritage, for e.g., ethnicity, language, family’s immigration history.
2. Identify the specific cultural group from which you derive your fundamental cultural heritage and the significant beliefs and attitudes held by those cultures that are assimilated into your own attitudes and beliefs.
3. Identify specific attitudes, values, and beliefs from your own heritage and cultural learning that support behaviors that demonstrate respect and valuing of differences and those that impede or hinder respect and valuing of differences.
4. Identify at least 5 personal, relevant cultural traits and explain how each has influenced your cultural values.
5. Identify the history of your culture in relation to educational opportunities and its impact on your current worldview.
6. Articulate the beliefs of your own cultural and religious groups as these relate to sexual orientation, able-bodiedness, and so forth, and the impact of these beliefs in a counseling relationship.
7. Appreciate and articulate positive aspects of your own heritage that provide strengths in understanding differences.
8. Recognize and discuss your family's and culture's perspectives of acceptable (normal) codes of conduct and what are unacceptable (abnormal).
9. Recognize the cultural bases of your communication style, and the differences between your style and the styles of those different from themselves.
10. Identify cultural differences and expectations regarding role and responsibility in family, participation of family in career decision making, appropriate family members to be involved when seeking help, culturally acceptable means of expressing emotion and anxiety and so forth.
Note: Some of this assignment was excerpted from a similar assignment given by Dr. Flora Hoodin for EMU's ethics class. Points 1-10 are excerpted from the learning objectives outlined by Arredondo et al.
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