Multicultural Aspects of Disability

1
Multicultural Aspects of Disability

• November 14, 1998
• RR, Ch. 12 MR, Ch. 8

2
Discussion of the Statistics

• US Population (Table Breakdown, p.1-2 handout)
• Iowa City Population (p. 3-4, handout)
• State of Iowa (p. 4-5, handout)

3
A history of oppression

• African Americans
• Indentured servitude and slavery
• American Indians
• Pushed off of their land and placed on
  reservations
• Mexicans
• Mexican American War, where they lost California,
  New Mexico, Nevada, and parts of CO, AZ, and UT

4
cont..

• Asian Americans
• Exploited for cheap labor, then expulsed
  secondary to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
• Minority susceptibility to discrimination
• High rates of immigration and reproduction
• Low level s of education
• High rates of urbanization
• Un- and under-employment
• High rates of poverty and disability

5
Bottom Line...

• Much of the isolation and segregation that
  dominated then still exists today. A history
  that cannot be denied or ignored is what shapes
  our present challenges

6
What is Multiculturalism?

• Sue, et. Al (1998) defines ten characteristics of
  multiculturalism
• 1. Multiculturalism values cultural pluralism and
  acknowledges our nation as a cultural mosaic
  rather than a melting pot.
• 2. Multiculturalism is about social justice,
  cultural democracy, and equity.
• 3. Multiculturalism is about helping all of us
  acquire the attitudes, knowledge, and skills
  needed to function effectively in a pluralism
  democratic society and interact with peoples from
  diversity background.

7

• 4. Multiculturalism reflected in more than just
  race, class, gender, and ethnicity. It also
  includes diversity in religion, national origin,
  sexual orientation, ability, and disability, age
  geographic origin.
• 5. Multiculturalism is about celebrating the
  realistic contributions and achievements of our
  and other cultures. It also involves our
  willingness to explore both the positive and
  negative aspects of out groups and other groups
  behavior over time.
• 6. Multiculturalism is essential component of
  analytical thinking. It challenges us to study
  multiple perspectives, to develop multiple
  perspectives, and teach our children how to
  integrate broad and conflicting bodies of
  information to arrive at sound judgements.
• 7. Multiculturalism respects and values other
  perspectives, but it is not value neutral. It
  recognizes treating everyone the same may deny
  equal access and opportunities, and that
  differential treatment is not necessarily
  preferential.

8

• 8. Multiculturalism means change at the
  individual, organizational, and societal levels.
  It is an on-going and long-term process that
  requires commitment and hard work.
• 9. Multiculturalism may mean owning up to painful
  realities about oneself, our group, and our group
  society.
• 10. Multiculturalism is about achieving positive
  individual, community, and societal outcomes
  because it values inclusion, cooperation, and
  movement toward mutually shared goals.

9
Sensitivity

• Sensitivity to the unique needs, based on
  cultural differences, of consumers is a requisite
  for serving consumers from diverse backgrounds
  and cultures. Cultural awareness and sensitivity
  among counselors also includes respect for the
  differing values, classes, language factors, and
  unique experiences that consumers bring to the
  counseling relationship.

10
Multicultural Counseling Competence Is..

• Being to provide a working definition of
  multiculturalism (Ten characteristics from Sue
  at. el, 1998)
• Being able to clearly define ones meaning terms
  related to multiculturalism such as culture,
  race, ethnicity, diversity, minority, majority.
• Being able to define multicultural counseling and
  therapy and translate it into practice.

11
Cultural Competency

• Be cognizant of your own biases.
• Be prepared to use different approaches
• Realize expectations lead to stereotyping

12
Acculturation

• Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which
  result when groups of individuals having
  different cultures come into continuous first
  hand contact with subsequent changes in the
  original cultural patterns of either or both
  groups.

13
Assimilation

• Assimilation is the social, economic, and
  political integration of an immigrant or ethnic
  minority into mainstream society. These include
  primary (family friends) and secondary (school,
  social agencies) relations

14
Culture

• Physical culture
• Roads, buildings, and tools
• Subjective culture
• social norms, roles, beliefs, and values

15
Ethnicity

• characterizes groups in terms of nationality,
  culture, or language

16
Pluralism

• Pluralism is the cultural, social , and
  structural ways in which ethnic groups are
  maintained as distinct groups within a single
  political state.
• Living side-by-side, willing to affirm ones
  dignity, benefit from one another, and
  acknowledge each other's contributions.

17
Race

• Race generally defines physical characteristics
  that are common to a geographically isolated
  population.
• Information for R.C. African Americans are more
  prone to high blood pressure, Hispanics are more
  prone to diabetes

18
Effective Multicultural Counseling (Sue Sue,
1990)

• Movement from being culturally unaware to being
  aware and sensitive of his/her own cultural
  heritage and to valuing and respecting
  differences
• Counselor awareness of his/her own values an
  biases and how those biases may affect culturally
  diverse persons with disabilities

19
cont..

• Developing and increasing the comfort level with
  difference that exist between themselves and
  persons being served in terms of race and beliefs
• Sensitivity to circumstances that may dictate the
  referral of a culturally diverse individual with
  a disability to a member of his/her own race/
  culture
• Acknowledgment and awareness of his/her own
  beliefs, attitudes, and feelings

20
Multicultural Considerations

• Majority of rehabilitation counselors are from
  white middle class and are culturally biased in
  their responses to ethnic minority clients (Casas
  Vasquez, 1989 Richardson Molinaro, 1996).

21
Importance of Within-Group Differences
Individual Focus

• To be culturally sensitive rehabilitation
  counselor does not need to identify the
  individual with characteristics of single
  cultural group.
• Example

22
Specific Cultures

• African Americans
• Hispanic Americans
• Asian Americans
• Native Americans

23
Guest Speaker Orville Townsend

• Rehabilitation Counselors Specific of
  Multiculturalism Considerations