Assignment 1: Journal Entry: Adultism: Personal Experience and Professional Role

Consider these scenarios:

You are a social worker and just started working at a local mental health agency. Your client is several years older and he or she asks you how old you are.

In a meeting with a much younger client, the teenage girl looks at you and blurts out, “You are too old to understand anything about what I am dealing with.”

How might you react and respond in those two scenarios?

Judgments about someone’s capabilities due to how old they look are made every day. Both young and older people are disrespected due to bias around their perceived lack of abilities. Additionally, these prejudices are often internalized, impacting the way these individuals feel about themselves. This internalized oppression diminishes their sense of self-confidence and self-esteem and often equates to unnecessary self-defined limits. Youth are constantly in a position in which their actions are controlled and their voices are stifled. Similarly, the elderly are ignored, hidden away, and, at worst, abused. They are often targeted for maltreatment and marketing scams due to their perceived vulnerabilities. You will be asked to consider your own experiences with either of these issues and how as a social worker you might mitigate the marginalization of these groups.

Consider your own experiences with ageism and adultism. Did any topic or subtopic related to ageism or adultism you encountered this week surprise you?

Respond in your journal, explaining a specific example of ageism or adultism that might have occurred in your life or in the life of someone you know. 

Describe how the experience affected you or the person you know. 

Then explain how you as a social worker might support younger clients facing adultism or elderly clients facing ageism as they work toward the goals they have set for themselves.  Must be at least 2 or more pages.

Assignment 2: Societal Expectations of Gender

As people grow, they are indelibly influenced by those around them. Regardless of what research may suggest about gender and gender roles, many tend to think the same way their family, neighbors, or religious community think. Generally, this pattern of thinking follows societal views and expectations. When people violate these expectations, it can affect their development and their behavior. Often, their self-esteem is impacted by the way others’ perceive them. For this Discussion, listen to the story of “Oliver’s Pink Bicycle.” Then, reflect upon your childhood. What do you remember about thinking, or behaving, in a way that was inconsistent with societal expectations? Consider how others in your environment viewed this and what they might have said about it.

Submit  a 2- paper in which you reflect on your childhood and identify a time when you behaved in a way that was inconsistent with society’s views or expectations of gender. 

How was gender identification explicitly, or implicitly, stated? 

Comment on the verbal and nonverbal messages received about supporting or defying societal gender norms. 

Finally, explain the consequences of those messages about gender roles and gender expectations.

References (use at least 2)

Bos, H. M. W., Sanfort, T. G. M., de Bruyn, E. H., & Hakvoort, E. M. (2008). Same-sex attraction, social relationships, psychsocial functioning, and school performance in early adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 59–68.