For this assignment, prepare a reference list that includes the sources you will be citing in the paper. The paper must include a minimum of 10 scholarly references in addition to the textbook. More references may be used if necessary.Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.I believe the paper you completed has 4 already can you add 5 more references to work into the paper that you completed for me.Running Head: Social and Cultural Diversity
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Social and Cultural Diversity
Social and Cultural Diversity
Introduction
As we live, we come across a lot of people from all walks of the world. It is quite sure
that the people we interact with have diverse backgrounds bearing in mind that they come from
different parts of the world. Therefore, it not an easy task to cope with everyone we interact with
because we vary in one way or the other. For instance, we may vary in religion, gender issues,
behavior, ideologies and many other aspects of life. Since this world is made of diverse people,
it is true to say that cultural diversity is common and is felt by all people. Cultural diversity
simply refers to differences in terms of people’s culture existing in the society (Baer, 2004). It is
the coexistence of diverse socioeconomic, gender, ethnic and racial groups in one organization.
In relation, the paper will critically discuss social and cultural diversity in different perspectives.
Part 1: Information from personal history
Truly, I am an experienced individual who can handle cultural diversity with easy.
However, just like any other person, I tend to do things that do not seem to comply with the right
ways of dealing with social and cultural diversity. In other words, I tend to be biased in terms of
cultural diversity when handling some situations. Obviously, it is a weakness that a large
number of people are biased in different ways when dealing with other people. For instance, in
my case I usually find myself being gender biased when serving my clients. In the most cases, I
serve poorly those clients who are not of my sex. It is always a challenge to me because it
happens without my plan. I find it difficult to follow up on the clients of the opposite gender as it
is for those of my gender. This is a common behavior with most of therapists as well. However,
Social and Cultural Diversity
to limit this bias, I try to engage myself more with clients of opposite sex in order to create a
good working environment for myself.
Lack of flexibility is another challenge that I usually face when carrying out my duty as a
therapist. In this case, I may fail to be flexible enough to work with the client-centered approach.
This is a weakness because it is hard for me to follow clients’ goal, instead I make them to adapt
mine. As a therapist, one needs to work with the client-centered approach for the best results to
be realized. Therefore, to solve my weakness I usually mix clients goals together with mine
during therapies and this helps me to get good results at the end of it all.
Having interacted with people from different regions and of diverse cultural backgrounds,
I have experienced discrimination in various ways. In some cases, it is not must that people
discriminate you willingly. In my case, I felt discriminated especially when people I interacted
with decided to do purely according to their culture hence ignoring mine. This happens mostly
lllwhen someone is in a totally new group of people. Truly, my knowledge and cultural
background enabled me to accept those discrimination since I honor and value cultural diversity
and I expect any form of discrimination resulting from such diversities. As noted, interacting
with people who are culturally different from us is never an easy task. For my case, I have
differed a lot in terms of ideologies with people whom we do not share culture. Due to such
differences, it has come to my mid that people are unique in their own way and as result, we
need to understand and accept cultural variations that we come across.
My life experience has been quite useful to me simply because I realized that one needs
to understand social and cultural diversity in order to interact with other people comfortably. I
have learned and recognized all people cannot be the same in life aspects. There must be some
Social and Cultural Diversity
variations between us. Through this experience, I am able to promote people’s dignity,
uniqueness and potential within their social and cultural contexts. I can freely mix with many
people despite the fact that we differ in one way or the other. To achieve this, I usually cope with
and respect the differences among us.
Part 2: Understanding of the concepts of racism/discrimination
The world population is made of people of different races who interact in so many ways.
People may have different skin color but this does not mean there are superior persons than
others. Skin color is merely physical appearance which adds no extra value to some people than
others. However, some ignorant people tend to favor or ignore other people due to the fact that
they are of certain race. The behavior of valuing one race than the other is referred to as racism
or racial discrimination (Baer, 2004). This may occur when white men are perceived superior
than black men or vice versa.
Racism used to be an obvious thing in the past. However, due to civilization among
members of the society, people consider it inhuman practice. Nonetheless, there are those few
individuals who discriminate other people from other races. Due to fear of shame, current racial
discrimination is usually done in an unnoticeable way. This means someone may be experiencing
racial segregation though it is being done in a non-public manner. Those individuals who
practice racism in such passive methods are referred to as subtle racists (Nittle & Nittle, 2016). A
good example of subtle racism is ignoring members of a certain race in a way that cannot be
noticed. For instance, a black American may enter into a store but then white employees in that
store may act as if there is no customer. In other words, they are reluctant to serve such a black
customer. The same may as well happen when a white customer enters a store that is under the
Social and Cultural Diversity
management of black people. Racism is a rude way of relating with other people and it should be
discouraged by all means.
It is important to note that people may belong to the same ethnic group but they differ a
lot when it comes to the way they perceive and value things. It is arguable that some individuals
in a certain ethnic group are subtle racists while others are really good people who fight against
racism. There are various reasons why differences in perceptions and values occur to people
despite the fact that they are in the same ethnic group. For instance, the difference in exposure
among people may be one reason why people differ in the perception. An individual who at one
time in life got a chance to mix with people from other cultures may be in a position of
perceiving things differently from his or her ethnic members. Moreover, the difference in our
economic status may be another reason why poor and rich perceive and value things differently
though they belong to the same group. Obviously, such differences in perception affect how we
handle cultural diversity and racism in various ways.
Part 3: The ACA and NAADAC codes of ethics
It should be noted that both ACA and NAADAC have code of ethics that help guide all
members to ensure that they do exactly what is expected of them. Codes of ethics are used as
directives and they enable us to know our professional obligations as therapists. In fact,
principles outlined in the ACA and NAADAC codes of ethics help me as a counselor to serve
my clients well. I am in a position of taking the best course of action under the guidance of such
principles. For instance, in ACA’s code of ethics, I learn that it is important to build and sustain
good relationships with my clients as I try to value and respect clients’ culture as well
(https://counseling.northwestern.edu/blog/ACA-Code-of-Ethics, 2016). NAADAC’s code of
Social and Cultural Diversity
ethics on the other hand have taught me to emphasis on clients’ welfare by supporting actions
that will help my clients to realize better lives (http://www.naadac.org/code-of-ethics, 2016).
Therapists consider cultural sensitivity as one of major elements that need to be
considered when dealing with clients. As a professional counselor, I recognize that cultural
background is one component that affects the manner in which clients should be defined.
Therefore, when planning how to treat a person, it will be crucial to take into to account their
cultural background as this has impact on how such people behave. Additionally, cultural
sensitivity does not only affect treatment planning but communication styles as well. People
from different cultures will communicate differently. In this case, a therapist is entitled to know
someone’s culture so as to decide the style to use when addressing such clients. Also, cultural
diversity affects the way people perceive confidentiality of their information.
To build rapport with his or her clients, a therapist first needs to understand the social and
cultural background of patients. It is quite sure that people have different likes and dislikes based
on backgrounds. Due to this reason, a therapist will use clients’ cultural information to strategize
how to create a good relationship with them. Truly, cultural bias is the main reason for
differential treatment methods applied by therapists. As noted, lack of flexibility is one of the
sources of cultural bias with many therapists. As a result, a therapist may not work with clientcentered goal. Instead, one will expect his or her clients to follow his or her goals hence resulting
to cultural biases.
A professional counselor needs to be well informed as far as social and cultural diversity
is concerned. One can rely on code of ethics of some recognized associations like ACA and
NAADAC to get useful information on how to deal with cultural diversity. Having such
Social and Cultural Diversity
information, it will be easy for someone to interact and cope with other people who have
different cultural background. Being a therapist, I plan to use my knowledge to resolve conflicts
in the society and more so those relating to cultural diversity.
Conclusion
Precisely, as therapists we need to understand that people are from different cultural
background and thus we expect variations in the way people behave or perceive things. It is
important to learn and accept uniqueness of our clients as this will enable us to comfortably
interact with them. This is so because understanding people’s cultural background helps to
minimize incidences of cultural biases. On the other hand, it is important for everyone to fight
against any form of discrimination be it racism or ethnicity. Members of the society need to be
enlightened that skin color should not be a reason why some members should be segregated
bearing in mind that color of our skin does not make us superior than other people.
Social and Cultural Diversity
References
American Counseling Association Code of Ethics. (2016). Counseling.northwestern.edu.
Retrieved 14 July 2016, from https://counseling.northwestern.edu/blog/ACA-Code-ofEthics/
Baer, J. (2004). Cultural diversity. Lonon: British Council.
Code of Ethics. (2016). Naadac.org. Retrieved 14 July 2016, from http://www.naadac.org/codeof-ethics
Nittle, N. & Nittle, N. (2016). Examples of Subtle Racism and the Problems It Poses. About.com
News & Issues. Retrieved 14 July 2016, from
http://racerelations.about.com/od/understandingrac1/a/subtleracismexamples.htm
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