Sociology is a natural science that gives meaning to social issues. The discipline exhibits the same weight, if not more, to the science of economics, political science, and medicine, among other important scholarships. Many people around the world tend to disregard sociology and its position in society. One, however, needs to understand the teachings of different religious figures like Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha to appreciate the essence of sociology. An example that is closer home to a real sociologist is that of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The fellow’s sociological teachings, such as the need to enter others’ shoes to understand them, form the basis of sociology. Dr. King Jr. defended people’s rights because he understood himself and his role as a social change agent. Matching Dr. King Jr.’s level of sociological effectiveness requires one to understand self, which only comes through effective critical reflection. The following work is, thus, a critical reflection that presents personal privileges, social location, and oppression for a sociologist learner.
Critical Self-Reflection and Its Importance for Social Workers
Critical self-reflection is an in-depth analysis and evaluation of self and the basic aspects that inform a person’s personality, beliefs, values, feelings, and operations. The idea of critical self-reflection crops from the understanding that humans are social beings that learn from their environment. The facet (critical self-reflection) also appreciates that people can only offer what they exhibit, which further exists as a result of their past or in-built values that develop through experiences.
Critical self-reflection helps an individual to clearly understand self by revealing one’s personal traits and the specific factors that inform them. Through the facet, people manage to question their actions and belief and aim at changing for the better, in case their personalities are wanting. Oliver (2018) reiterates the essence of critical self-reflection by noting that people who do not undertake such lead a fake life as actors. The scholar also notes that failing to undertake a critical self-evaluation implies hurting others at will, while one chooses to continue with a particular kind of life that hurts others. As such, critical self-reflection helps people to realize that they are part of the main.
A social worker is a sociologist who endeavors to make other people’s lives better by making personal sacrifices at times. Social workers make life better by helping people manage their difficulties and access helps that are far from them. Dispensing the social work services, therefore, requires high levels of self-understanding (Fowler, 2021). To become an effective social worker, one needs to know his likes and dislikes, prejudices, biases, and weaknesses. The social work profession involves sacrifice, which requires people to cease belonging to themselves many times. That is only possible when one appreciates him or herself beyond the standard ‘actor’ level (Oliver, 2018). As such, self-appreciation as a social worker mainly comes from the critical self-reflection exercise.
One manages to investigate his or her background and its impact on personality and personal beliefs as a social worker via the critical self-reflection exercise. A social worker who understands self manages to challenge biased thinking concerning an aspect that requires his or her attention. The social work profession is similar to the policing department, where a professional constantly makes decisions that affect others’ lives (Fowler, 2020). Therefore, lacking the capacity to make informed and unbiased decisions compromises a social work professional’s ability to offer the necessary aid. Thus, it is necessary for a professional social worker to conduct a critical self-reflection to serve the masses as required by the law and act as a change agent.
My Social Location
I am an Indian international student from a middle-class family, able-bodied male living in Australia. I possess most (if not all) of the social freedoms a person of my age can have. I am twenty-seven years of age, and I live in Sydney. I do not struggle with college fees, payments, and other necessities requiring finances. My accommodation is also appropriate for a learner, and life moves on smoothly with the normal kind of uncertainties and challenges. A majority of my other family members are in India. My preference concerning the family institution regards heterogeneous relationships as the legitimate ones. That comes mainly from my culture and experience with parents and immediate family members. Owning and running several lines of family businesses back home allows my people to enjoy a middle-level lifestyle. The homestead manages to acquire all its necessities and offer support to its children in school.
My Indian families live together in extended settings, where children interact and receive directives and counsel from a wide range of people, including parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts. Culturally, cousins exist as real siblings in the household setting and an issue affecting a member affects the entire family. Decisions touching a brood also involve significant deliberations among all the available members, with the final say resting with the eldest member of the extended family. The family order promotes order and respect among all the affiliates. Persons depicting disloyalty from the household norms easily get out of the family unit. Children, however, get special attention and treatment from the grandparents and the real parents. A grandchild depicting offensive behavior, for example, never manages to get away due to the excessive love and focus that the grandparents exhibit towards their grandchildren.
All the males in our Indian culture and family setting receive both veneration and honor from the female members. Getting a boy in our culture implies security, respect, and wealth. Therefore, as a male in India, I exhibit significant pride and control over issues, including female siblings and family members. According to our culture, persons with special needs are similar to normal people in almost all life facets. However, our family norms require that able-bodied fellows treat individuals with special needs with extra respect, honor, and love. It is believed that disrespecting someone with special needs is going against the will of God. Moreover, being twenty-seven years of age makes me an adult in my family. I can establish relationships outside the household and with the opposite gender, as well as, make several other decisions without seeking permission from the family heads.
Geopolitically, Indians exhibit significant levels of self-worth and esteem, based on the several achievements and the significant impacts that their nation makes on the world. This aspect makes many Indian foreigners, especially those from middle and upper-class families assume complaints aired by the minorities in the nations that the Indian foreigners live in. The aspect is real in Australia, and sources link the matter to Melbourne’s previous attacks on Indian students. Being an Indian international student living in Sydney exposes me to several cases where friends call me out on questioning the genuineness of some social claims in Australia. However, I view being “called out” regarding my social privilege as a learning experience and not fun, which allows me to focus and refocus my social work motive and experience.
The Intersections of My Unearned Privilege and Experiences of Oppression
Social privileges are the various abilities that individuals have access to due to aspects like social class and economic status, or generally their social position. Being a social worker, it is crucial to understand that one’s abilities in the upper class are not the same as those of a middle and low-class fellow. Belonging to the upper socioeconomic class, for example, implies having excess resources at one’s disposal. The voluminous resources further come with significant social power, and at times arrogance or blindness towards the lowers classes of individuals (Barken, 2019). For example, Natasha and Bloemraad (2018) report that persons in the upper class assume drivers are steering ‘smaller’ cars on the roads. The same lot also assumes that reported plights among minority groups are crafted stories that do not exist. Worse still, many people in the upper class tend to blame individuals in the lower socioeconomic classes for laxity, which they say is the reason for their many predicaments.
Leaving poverty is a choice while working to get to the upper class is an open opportunity for all people according to the people’s mentality. Therefore, the point that one is poor or needy makes no sense to the wealthy people, who often tend to distance themselves from the suffering lot, or people who choose to suffer. The situation is not much different for middle-class people. The second lot (middle-class individuals) exhibit substantial aggression and insecurity, according to Wessendorf (2017). The middle-class folks, however, depict mixed traits on matters of social engagements and involvements. Those in the upper extreme of the middle-class live like the upper-class folks, who lead their carefree life. However, persons in the mid and lower bands of the middle-class setting can help. That is because a majority of these people relate to poverty issues at some point in their lives.
On the other hand, the lower-class individuals tend to live together and share the little they have. However, the very poor people behave like the very wealthy, in that they disconnect from the other people and tend to hate themselves due to excessive suffering. Coming from a middle-class family in India thus affects my operations as a social worker. I can afford modest shopping, live in a quality house, and pay my accommodation and tuition fee in time due to my social location. Similarly, I am able to form friendships with individuals exhibiting affluence, get myself out of many economic situations, and acquire a well-paying job due to my training. All these amount to noteworthy privileges that are not available to everyone in Australia and India. My social location, thus, stands to push me towards the haves if I am not careful. Additionally, coming from a stable family allows me to earn academic qualifications from without India. The move somewhat implies that the degree in Australia is more powerful or exposes me to more skills than those offered in India.
Many poor people in India do not even access college and university education due to poverty, which makes completing high school a big challenge. Managing to afford both the Indian and Australian education while someone equally bright and academically gifted lacks education, in India or Australia, amounts to social oppression. Moreover, having financial ability allows me to utilize modest educational and accommodation facilities in Australia, while so many aboriginals and minorities cannot access the services. The aspect also amounts to social oppression, which requires noteworthy intervention by a social worker. The various experiences further stand to affect my operations as a social worker, either in India or Australia. Nonetheless, the point that I utilize every encounter in my life as a learning platform prepares me to emulate my two role models; Dr. King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.
How the Above Might Affects My Critical Social Work Practice
A social worker is a public servant who ought to take care of the all people’s necessities indiscriminately. However, the fact that personality and personal values develop from people’s interactions with the environment often makes many people entering the social work line remain selfish beings. Growing in a family where one experiences plenty of resources, for example, makes it hard for the individual to understand the plights of the needy. As such, coming from a middle-class Indian family, impacts me substantially. I am, for example, able to relate to the needs of the many have-nots in Australia and India because I am not from the upper class, which tends to lead a disconnected life.
I also manage to understand the issues of fellow Australian students complaining to have access to basic aspects, which I do not lack due to my social location. The ability to identify with people’s needs allows me to form a lasting friendship with my fellow students, including Australian aboriginals, and never have I been a target of the Indian branding happening in Melbourne. My purpose is to use what I have to impact others’ lives like Dr. King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi did. The ability to feel with others and share makes me happy, which allows me to view my privileges as God-sent gifts to touch the creation around the globe.
References
Barken, R. (2019). “Old age” as a social location: Theorizing institutional processes, cultural expectations, and interactional practices. Sociology Compass, 13(4), 73-126.
Fowler, M. D. (2020). The influence of the social location of nurses-as-women on the early development of nursing ethics. Nursing Ethics: Feminist Perspectives, 3-21.
Fowler, M. D. (2021). The Nightingale Still Sings: Ten Ethical Themes in Early Nursing in the United Kingdom, 1888-1989. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 26(2).
Natasha, W. & Bloemraad, I. (2018). Economic Americanness and defensive inclusion: Social location and young citizens’ conceptions of national identity. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(5), 736-753.
Oliver, M. (2018). A sociology of disability or a disablist sociology? Routledge.
Wessendorf, S. (2017). Migrant belonging, social location and the neighborhood: Recent migrants in East London and Birmingham. London School of Economics, 56(1), 131-146.