Cultural Tensions In Social Work Essay

Many social work scholars and researchers have reported cultural tensions with their profession. It was curious as to how do the social workers interact with their own cultures in a cross-cultural practice environment from the experience of 30 culturally diverse frontline social workers. The study is interested in what kinds of cultural tensions do the social workers encounter in their daily work, as well as how do they experience them.

The profession of social work has four distinctive cultural tensions related to culture in the social work literature. Social work is a western construct as it was created with western beliefs and values in an Anglo-American culture. Due to this, most social work literature, theories, and skills were developed

Firstly, cultural tensions in social work practice are multifaceted; social workers are always at the center of these tensions; social workers are positioned to be agents of cultural acculturation, so they must be critical to their own socio-organizational position. The second is that visible minority social workers encounter a very different type of cultural tension. They tend to walk an extra fine line between their personal and professional life domains due to their various cultural backgrounds. Lastly, cultural tensions require a high level of sensitivity of social workers to reflect on their own cultural

Based on the data of the interviews from the participants that have various cultural backgrounds, there is a need to reform on the social work profession. Due to the social work career having mostly western views on what is acceptable and what is not, there is no surprise that there are conflicts of cultural tension between the social workers and their clients. I believe that the authors acknowledged the cultural variables in a meaningful way because it was not centered on just race and ethnicity. It was mentioned for a brief paragraph but it did not revolve around it. The study explored the cultural tensions within people of the same cultures and race and it would seem that there would not be any cultural tensions since they could identify with each other, but there are. It was a nice spin to explore that some social workers feel rejected by their own people since they have to adhere to the values and beliefs of the social work profession, that has western values. Thus, leaving the social worker to feel conflicted a good majority of the