SOCW6210 Response

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Respond to at least two colleagues in one of the following ways:

Critique your colleague’s explanation of how poverty impacts individuals in young and middle adulthood.

State whether you agree or disagree with your colleague’s position on whether poverty is the result of cultural or individual characteristics. Provide support for your position.

Reply to a colleague who selected a theory of poverty that differs from the one you selected by critiquing his or her evaluation of the theory.

Be sure to support your responses with specific references to the resources. If you are using additional articles, be sure to provide full APA-formatted citations for your references.

Reference

Zastrow, C. H., & Kirst-Ashman, K. K. (2016). Understanding human behavior and the social environment (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Add one other peer reviewed reference.

Response #1 to Mike

An explanation of how poverty impacts the experience of individuals in young and middle adulthood.

Poverty impacts the experience of young adulthood in varies ways. Young adulthood is supposed to be the stage when young adults “start careers, get married, start to raise children, and begin to contribute to their communities” (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016, pg. 470). Poverty effects all these faucets in a young adults’ life. According to Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman (2016) “divorce occurs more frequently at the lower socioeconomic levels” (pg. 579). According to Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman (2016), divorced men have shorter life expectancies than do single men, whose life expectancy is closest to the rate of married men (pg. 553).

Career obtainment correlates with having an education. People that are poverty stricken and/or have been raised in poverty are less likely to have obtained an education that will produce a career. Raising children while in poverty can be stressful for parents and children. According to Nikulina &Widom (2014) children that are abused and live in poverty are susceptible to poor physical (hypertension, high blood pressure, C-reactive protein, pulmonary issues, etc…) and mental (schizophrenia, bipolar, major-depression) health in their young and middle adult years (pg. 42).

A statement as to whether you think poverty is the result of cultural or individual. characteristics; provide support for your position.

I think poverty is a result of cultural (more so) and individual characteristics. According to Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman (2016), “the culture of poverty arises after extended periods of economic deprivation in highly stratified capitalistic societies” (pg. 568). Two of the worlds most dominate capitalistic countries are the United States and Germany. Capitalism, unlike socialism, is concerned with individual achievements in how the maldistribution contributes to an individual’s social class status. According to Belcher & Deforge (2012), “This maldistribution can lead to inequality in main domains of life such as income, health, housing, nutrition, and employment” (pg. 930).

I think poverty becomes an individual characteristic when one chooses to defraud the system. If a person is capable of working, but chooses to work a limited number of hours to maintain benefits, this is an individual characteristic of poverty. Some people become dependent on the government to support them. I think the problem the government faces are if they increase benefits, people might become even more dependent, and if they decrease benefits more people are likely to fall into poverty.

An answer to the following questions about the theory of poverty you selected:

What aspects of this theory would be most suitable for your practice? Why?

Advocating for change in policies that continue to marginalize those effected would be suitable for practice. Although I do not plan on working in this aspect of social work, I feel that having a wealth of knowledge regarding the policies that marginalize this groups, and the other “inferior” social constructs that intersect with poverty and/or homelessness is important.

What aspects of this theory do you find problematic in terms of your knowledge of social work practice? Explain.

There are a few areas that might be problematic regarding my knowledge in knowing how to advocate for this population. If advocating for changes in policies to eliminate poverty were easy than humanity would surely collapse in a blink eye. It is one thing to understand why a change in policy should occur, it is another in trying to get the stakeholders involved to change that policy. Religion plays an important role in the formation of a lot of policies. Trying to convince the legislation that enacted the policy, that you are against, to change the policy is a tall order. As of now, this would be problematic for me regarding my knowledge of social work practice.

Mike

Belcher, J. R., & Deforge, B. R. (2012). Social stigma and homelessness: The limits of social change. Journal Of Human Behavior In The Social Environment, 22(8), 929-946. doi:10.1080/10911359.2012.707941

Nikulina, V., & Widom, C. S. (2014). Do race, neglect, and childhood poverty predict physical health in adulthood? A multilevel prospective analysis. Child Abuse & Neglect, 38(3), 414-424. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.09.007

Zastrow, C. H., & Kirst-Ashman, K. K. (2016). Understanding human behavior and the social environment (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Response #2 to Yana

An explanation of how poverty impacts the experience of individuals in young and middle adulthood

Poverty is an ongoing issue that has been occurring for many years. According to Iceland (2013), “poverty will always be with us” (p. 13). America has seen its ups and downs with economic growth and it seems that we can’t keep a healthy economic flow without recessions causing “high inflation and unemployment” (Iceland, 2013 p. 13). The definition of poverty is “people who have an income below a certain level” are categorized as living in poverty (Iceland, 2013 p. 24). According to Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman (2016), young and middle-aged adults are more likely encountering poverty due to our societies lack of jobs that pay wages at a standard to keep many people from making an amount that is below the poverty line. Many jobs are “outsourced to areas where extremely poor people are willing to accept work at almost any wage” (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016 p. 563). When families who are poor and unable to afford to care for their basic needs, this affects their children, because for a child to not get their nutrition met, it can affect their brain growth (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). The brain then is not growing at the rate it should and can cause damage that is irreversible, therefore, the child can then “be permanently retarded,” causing a higher chance of not being able to attain a job or income that is sufficient to maintain above the poverty line (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). There are factors that can increase the likelihood of a young or middle-aged person to have a higher chance of being poor based on whether they do not have a higher level of education, location, unemployment, environmental factors, generational life circumstances, and individual characteristics (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016).

A statement as to whether you think poverty is the result of cultural or individual. characteristics; provide support for your position

I believe that poverty is the result of both cultural and individual characteristics. According to Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman (2016), when an individual “who grows up in this culture has a strong feeling of fatalism, helplessness, dependence, and inferiority” (p. 568). These individuals struggle to get out of this culture but are unable to because of social isolation (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). Without contact of groups who are outside of their culture, they struggle to get out of the cycle of poverty (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). For example, foster children are in the system due to family dysfunction, they are more likely to fall into the same cycle. Our society also has an effect on the poverty of young and middle-aged adults. According to Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman (2016), poverty is partly due to because of dysfunctions in our economy. “Our country has the resources to eliminate poverty-but not the will” (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016 p. 570). Our society can find the funds for the cost of a war, but we are disinclined to find funds to improve individual, family, group, and community living conditions to keep them from falling into poverty (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). Conflict theorists believe that the poor will eventually accept their position in life and the different stigmas and stereotypes that are towards this population (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016).

What aspects of this theory would be most suitable for your practice? Why?

In our society, we can see a struggle for those who are unable to free themselves from poverty. We have created a world where there are stigmas against people who are poor and unable to get their basic needs met. We have welfare programs that are supposed to assist those who need assistance due to not being able to be self-sufficient on their own but eventually leading to that with the right programs, resources, and services (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). The poor need to realize that they are capable and as a society, we need to support this group even more. We marginalize these people because we see them as less important, but we need to realize that they are just as important and may need more assistance that can help them to “move up the socioeconomic ladder and programs that encourage the poor to redefine their social environment” (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016 p. 572).

What aspects of this theory do you find problematic in terms of your knowledge of social work practice? Explain.

What can be problematic is the fact that many of the middle and upper class may not support this theory and even those who are in legislation may not put the effort into getting rid of poverty. The welfare programs have helped many who have had a crisis, but we are not seeing a decrease in poverty (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2016). I have stated how our society has been struggling with poverty and it is an endless war that can be fixed. Today, we see an increase in technology and less value in human labor. Social work practice values the individual and we are for social justice but also economic justice, because it affects many of the populations we work with.

References

Iceland, J. (2013). Poverty in America : A Handbook. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Zastrow, C. H., & Kirst-Ashman, K. K. (2016). Understanding human behavior and the social environment (10th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning

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