Theme Of Oppression In Social Work

In this course we have looked at many different things that pertain to how social workers do their jobs and how they affect society. However there are a few main themes that we appear to have come across. Those themes are: oppression, the government and the individual. All of these topics are looked at in different ways and all carry a different meaning to society as a whole based on how we learnt them.
For starters oppression is a topic that gets covered a lot in social work practices, be it through direct mention or through being an undertone to the topic being discussed. I think the best time that it was brought up was in lecture with the guest speakers Marlene Dei-Amoah and Jean Samuel. What they said made a lot of sense to me. They described anti-oppressive techniques that social

workers should use when dealing with clients, but did it in such a way that taught us why that was important and related it to our own personal lives. They used different methods that engaged the class in the topics they were discussing.

When they were talking about marginalized groups, they had us participate in the discussion through having us list the ‘isms’ that create said marginalized groups. What we learned then was that the marginalized groups that fall victim to these ‘isms’ are forced to the outside of society, when the inside is where those who live by the so called social norms are (Lecture on oppression). It is the people on this inside of this circle that hold all the power (Lecture on oppression). What they did next I thought was brilliant. They put up a slide that listed the different ways that we could all socially identify ourselves one way or the other with, and had us classify where we felt we belonged in these different categories. The categories included: race, gender, class, age, sexual orientation, religion and our abilities/disabilities. Then we needed to think about how our answers for each of these sections affected us; were they advantages or disadvantages? I think that was a really important step in covering this topic because it made us reflect on ourselves, and therefore made us think about how marginalized groups are oppressed in everyday life. All the different

things that were covered on oppression in this lecture, and in some readings, gave the take away message of reflection. People, especially in Canada, tend to think oppression is something other people have to deal with but because of this class we can now see that that is not necessarily the case. We have to look at ourselves and see how we may be oppressed and/or oppressing others without even realizing it.
Secondly, the government was a major theme that I took away from this class. The government is an important asset to social workers in the sense that a lot of the issues social workers deal with are also dealt with by the government. Things such as social policy and social programs like social welfare (lecture on canadian perspective of social work). However there is a downside to the government working on similar things to social workers: they often do not succeed at doing what they need to do to create positive social change. That is the take away that I get from what we have learned in this class. I came to that conclusion by way of the readings as well as the lectures. The reading that really stuck out for me was “Policy: What Is It and Who Makes It?” That article really highlighted for me the fact that the government has a lot of control over social policies but also that they are not always making social policies based on what the public might want, it is often what the rich and powerful members of society want that get heard the most (policy: what is it and who makes it?). That is problematic in the sense that the rich and powerful often do not understand the plight of a working class individual, or the social problems surrounding poverty and how to fix them. This is also mentioned in lecture by way of the discussion we had about how the public can push for certain things to get done by the government if it is believed that they are not doing an adequate job, but it is ultimately up to the government to create the legislation to deal with said issue (lecture on social work policy). However as mentioned in the reading “Policy: What Is It and Who Makes It?” we know that they do not always make their decisions based on what the public wants.
Lastly, it is important to mention the individual. What I have learned about the individual is that everyone is truly unique, both through their personalities as well as through their stories and situations. This is conveyed through the direct practice that social workers use. The way that social workers go about using direct practice is through listening, validating feelings, interviewing or dialoguing, paraphrasing, clarifying, giving information, interpreting and building consensus with the client (lecture on working with individuals and families). All of these different steps have to be individually altered to work with each specific client (lecture by violetta). This also means that you cannot have a bias against anyone you are working with, this included the group that they associate with (lecture on oppression). You have to be able to have critical self reflection, which means you have to be aware of how your “feelings and beliefs are shaped by media, family influence and social structures” (lecture on individuals) and be aware of this when talking to your client so you are not insensitive. This whole concept has taught me to be self aware. This concept is one that can be reflected into all different types of work and areas of life, not just social work. It is an important message for everyone to learn.
All of these different themes or ideas were central to this course, but also can be carried over into life. They all make you look at yourself and the world around you differently and more introspectively.