Cultural Pluralism In Social Work

Social welfare is a career that focuses on the wellbeing of a person. Guided by a personal and cultural approach, the role of a social worker is to deal with social and economic injustice, the elimination of poverty and the enhancement of life. Thus, three factors that has influence my understanding of social welfare is the cultural pluralism model, the strengthening perspective and the effects of language because it highlights the roles and ethics of a social worker. One factor that has influence my perspective of social welfare is the cultural pluralism model. Emphasize by its view on distinctiveness, the cultural pluralism model treats each people based on the unique contribution they offer to society. Unlike, the idea of melting pot, cultural …show more content…
Language can reveal the attitudes, values and opinions of a person. Thus, the use of language in relation to other is important because using the inappropriate words can prevent and hinder communication between members of different groups. Furthermore, language can also be used as persecutor for discrimination, stigmatization and prejudice. For example, calling a person with schizophrenia by its mental illness can not only give the impression that the individual has control over its illness, but that their whole identity encompasses being sick. Furthermore, it can also stigmatize them and create a justification for others to also treat them with prejudice and discrimination. In particular, I resonate with this experience because of my grandmother. Since she suffered from depression and later Alzheimer, she was constantly stigmatized by her co- workers. She was not only denied jobs because of her mental illness, but this also created a step marked for other discriminatory and prejudicial values . That said, if people would have made a distinction of calling my grandmother as a “person suffering from a mental illness”, rather than a “depressive person”, she would not have been stigmatized and perhaps she could have offer better living standards for her children. However, because was identified by her mental illness, her entire social and personal systems was affected. Thus, this influence me to recognize the effects of language and how it can disrupt a person’s