Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

African Americans have been a part of the nation's history for nearly four hundred years. Although their history includes the forced imposition of chattel slavery, the strict enforcement of legal segregation, and a tenuous acceptance as equal citizens, African Americans have been, and continue to be, major contributors, creators, investors, and builders of America. In this article we summarize briefly the history of African Americans, we examine racial disparities in key indicators of social, mental, and physical well-being, and we highlight persistent strengths that can be built upon and areas that provide hope for the future. The challenge for social work is to simultaneously celebrate the historical successes and ongoing contributions of African Americans to this country while also recognizing the vestiges of structural racism and fighting for greater civil rights and social and economic justice.

African Americans number about 35 million or 12% of the U.S. population. Their life expectancy is lower than that of White Americans, and despite the educational gains made since mid-1980s, the unemployment gap between African Americans and Whites has increased. Similarly, although the number of African Americans working in white-collar occupations has increased, the disparity in wage earnings between African American and White workers continues. Regardless of social class African Americans are made to be cognizant of their race at all times. Today they are still at risk for social issues such as substance abuse, teen pregnancy, incarceration, poverty, high rates of female headed households, infant mortality that is twice as high as Whites, residential segregation, racism, and discrimination. As daunting as these problems are, the strengths of the African American community have allowed it to thrive even amid arduous circumstances.

Afrocentric social work is a concept and praxis approach applicable in environmental and global settings where people of African descent are located. Using concept analysis as a methodology, this article explores Afrocentric social work theory and its applicability in the social sciences. Concept analysis is an examination of a thought or theory with the intent to create a more concise operational definition. Afrocentric social work not only is applicable to racial and social justice issues, it also is applicable to intellectual and philosophical discourses of social work, which has largely ignored Afrocentric social work as a viable theory and philosophical canon. The Walker and Avant method of concept analysis is employed in this article to provide a systemic discourse to define the attributes of Afrocentric social work, as well as its structural elements that scholars and practitioners utilize as a theory and praxis application.

Minority and immigrant elders constitute a greater proportion of the population than ever before and are the fastest growing segment of the older population. Within these racial and ethnic groups there is considerable variation with regard to age, gender, country of origin, language, religion, education, income, duration of U.S. residency, immigration status, living arrangements, social capital, and access to resources. The authors summarize research on older adults regarding racial and ethnic disparities, barriers to health and social service utilization, and dynamics of family caregiving. Implications are offered for social-work practice, policy, and research.

Alaska Natives represent less than 1% of the U.S. population but reside in more than 229 Native villages and account for 40% of federally recognized tribes. Most Alaska Native communities shared common Euro-American contact experiences: exposure to western religions, education, and disease. Historical trauma contributes to many of the social welfare problems Natives experience today: low educational attainment, unemployment, inadequate health care, substance abuse, and violence. Service delivery mechanisms, lack of cultural appropriateness, and isolation compound these pressing issues. Locally delivered social welfare services that take into account traditional Native worldviews, values, languages, and intergenerational relationships are effective in addressing many of these issues.

This entry defines the term Arab American, followed by a discussion of the two waves of immigration: before 1924 and post-1965. A demographic overview is presented next, drawing from data available through analysis of the ancestry question on the long form of the United States Census. Previously invisible in the scholarly and practice literatures, key concerns related to stereotypes emanating through recent world events, assumptions about gender relations, and struggles concerning family relations are highlighted. Finally, practice implications are considered, with an emphasis on cultural sensitivity and social justice.

The term Arab American is relatively new, signifying a pan-ethnic term meant to capture a diverse group of people who differ with respect to national origins, religion, and historical experiences of migration to the United States. Arab American refers to those individuals whose ancestors arrived from Arab-speaking countries, including 22 nations in North Africa and West Asia. Religious faiths include both Christian and Muslim; Lebanon is the number one country of origin for Arab immigrants to the United States, followed by Syria and Egypt. Defined objectively, any individual with ancestral ties to an Arabic-speaking country may be considered an Arab American. This characterization, however, rests upon a language-based definition, obscuring the cultural and structural variations that differentiate those who fall within this pan-ethnic category (Ajrouch & Jamal, 2007).

This entry briefly profiles the dynamic fusion, fluidity, and future of South Asians in America. While Diaspora India is emblematic of immigrant culture as a whole, South Asian duality still remains uniquely enigmatic. People from South Asia represent a confluence of diversity and complexity that calls for understanding and acceptance as a model to deconstruct a tolerant and successful pluralist society.

The diverse group of people referred to as Caribbean Americans come from the Circum-Caribbean region, which includes the island nations of the Caribbean Sea and the nations of Central America from Belize to Panama—35 nations in all. The heterogeneity of the Caribbean population is due to the colonization and geopolitical division of the region among English, Dutch, Spanish, and French colonizers, which resulted in many different cultures, ethnic groups, languages, educational systems, religious beliefs, and practices. However, the majority of the Caribbean populations share an African ancestry.

Cultural competence emerged as a concept in the 1980s, took form as a set of organizational, educational, advocacy, policy, and practice constructs in the 1990s, and has since matured into a broad rubric that addresses social justice and service delivery quality, equity, access, and efficacy for people and groups of diverse backgrounds. Cultural competence has become an essential element of social work at every level of the field, from direct practice to social policy. The evolution of cultural competence and its role in social work is examined and summarized in this entry.

For social workers, developing cultural competence is a necessary hallmark for interacting with our increasingly diverse and complex world. Developing cultural competence, however, requires continuously raising one’s level of critical consciousness. Critical consciousness and related concepts such as reflexivity, critical self-reflection, and critical self-awareness are widely recognized as a fundamental building block of human service practice, including social work practice. However, the dynamics involved in raising our own levels of critical consciousness are lengthy and messy because we often encounter cognitive and affective roadblocks. Thus, there is no single pedagogical strategy that could help all social work students effectively engage with this process. In this article the concept of critical consciousness postulated by Pitner and Sakamoto is applied specifically to the social work classroom setting. Their Critical Consciousness Conceptual Model (CCCM), which describes the process of developing critical consciousness by engaging one’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral domains, is presented. How this model can be incorporated as a pedagogical tool to help social work students develop and further strengthen their own levels of critical consciousness in the classroom setting is discussed, as are various pedagogical methods, including classroom debate, identity paper assignment, “creating a world map” exercise, and mindfulness-based pedagogy. Finally, implications for social work education are explored.

This article proposes social equity as a paradigm to guide social work practice and education. “Cultural equity” encompasses the multiplicity of personal, social, and institutional locations that frame identities in therapeutic practice as well as the classroom by locating these complexities within a societal matrix that shapes relationships of power, privilege, and oppression. Foregoing cultural competency for a cultural equity framework requires both analysis and interruption of the “otherizing” process inherited through multicultural discourses and the legacies of colonization. Through the use of education for critical consciousness, accountability through transparency, community-learning circles, progressive coalition-building, and usage of action strategies, transformative potential is revealed across multiple sites, both local as well as global. Multiple illustrations for the coherent application of cultural equity in social work practice and education are offered.

The arts and cultural institutions can be powerful resources for promoting the development of individuals and communities. Social work agencies and cultural institutions share similar goals at the individual and community levels, such as personal improvement, the creation of social bonds, expression of communal meaning, and economic growth. Studies on the use of arts in social work practice suggest that they can be powerful tools for intervention. These collaborations were essential to practice in the social settlements and in economic policies of the New Deal. Social work practice into the future can build upon this historical engagement.

This entry defines cultural competence and culturally competent practice and focuses on cultural awareness, knowledge acquisition, skill development, and inductive learning as key components. It traces the historical development of cultural competence in the disciplines of psychology and social work, pointing out how cultural competence has become a professional standard. Cultural competence has also been recognized on the federal and state health and human services levels. Cultural competence is viewed on the practitioner, agency, and community levels as well as the micro, meso, and macro dimensions. Among the implications for practice are the issues of cultural competence and cultural competencies, the ethics of cultural competence, social context, and biculturation and multiculturalization.

The notion of culture, while vast, is often conceptualized through an examination of gender, race, and ethnicity; class and economics; religion; sexual orientation; and even age. Culture can be temporal when, for example, gender norms or ethnic patterns evolve with each new generation. Likewise, the formation of a person’s identity (or identities) is largely influenced by culture. The ways in which an individual exhibits meaning and expression through culture can become the building blocks for identity and behavior. Social work assessments and related interventions rest on a fundamental understanding of a client’s history, environment, and current conditions. This entry provides an examination of how particular sociocultural influences and identity development shape behavior and how social work practitioners, whether at the micro, mezzo, or macro level, use this understanding to effect change in individuals or environments.