Some potential conflicts between social work education and the roles and duties in practice spans from what a social worker may think is qualified or not. In the article "Letters to the Editor" the writer states that it is "absurd to judge someone based on how hard of a life" you think they've had. This very subject is important because background and history is not available unless they are long time clients. We are to help the client as is, without judgement, and to look past the differences.
But couple of questions come to mind:
But couple of questions come to mind:
- Who decides what is fair and what isn't?
- How are we to know that we aren't just giving limited resources to someone who is taking advantage of the system?
- What if the client was rejected available resources, would this cause the social profession to lose it's status as a helping hand?
Individual versus group membership is something that is a hot topic these days. Sad to say, but stigmas and stereotypes exist and they follow us where ever we go, intentional or not. Sure there may be some benefits that comes from stigmas, but most are negative one.
Here is a crazy example, Bunnies (rabbids) are known to be crazy spenders who spend all their money on carrots and fluffy pillows.....
Would you help this bunny (Rabbid) out knowing his background and bad spending habits? He needs this help to pay for rent and food and he just recently lost his position in the Wii company. How would you go about assessing this Rabbid's case?
All jokes aside, I think that group memberships (race, gender, social affiliation) affects and sometimes hurts us more than we would want. Social justice is focused more on individual than group membership, but group membership is always at the forefront when we see it almost everywhere. Social welfare for the client can cause them to get lost in the system and thus hurt the individual.
In the article, Pelton's argument is that equality could be increased by alternating and eliminating "cultural denomination and marginalization", termed "Relational Justice". Scanlon and Longres however, disagree that when this happens others are overlooked and neglected. Their example of African Americans receiving affirmative action over Europeans shows that some Europeans (and any others) may be in need just as much as African Americans. What do you guys think? Should one group be overlooked in order to help another? Is it far to any of us?
Photos from Google.com and Tumblr.com
Hi Thanh,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I laughed over your example of the bunny SO HARD. How creative! And hilarious! Also, that's a great lyric for your title, that song might just be my new song of the week:)
But anyway, on to the real issue at hand! I think you raised some really great questions between the conflicts raised in the readings. I enjoyed your point about maintaining a client-centered mindset. While doing the readings, for some reason I focused on hashing out the philosophical issues about social justice and didn't spend much time thinking about the more practical issues. So, the questions you posed were really helpful. Maybe we'll all have a better answer to them once we become more "seasoned" social work students (by the end of this class?)!
As for your view about group vs. individual social justice, I agree as well. In such a group-centered society it seems hard to even imagine a universal system that isn't designed around trying to even the playing field between groups of people. Your example about affirmative action is a tough question, but I really liked the way Pelton approaches the issue. He believes that affirmative action is merely a replacement of discrimination with more discrimination. The REAL issue--the price of higher education and the fact that qualified students cannot attend college due to financial need--is much deeper. I think his example about same-sex marriage and health care really help to understand his point about the depth of injustice in this country, as well.
Thanh! You funny, I love the bunny :)
ReplyDeleteIn response to your question about should we overlook one group in order to help another, I would say that unfortunately it happens all the time.
While billions of dollars have been given to bail out the banking industry and other fatcats, while our most at risk citizens are having their meager benefits slashed as a way to balance the budget.