Week 5: Diversity and Social Justice
Laws limiting reproductive rights for women, traffic stops resulting in the killings of unarmed Black men, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation: What do these all have in common? They are forms of discrimination or oppression enacted against specific groups. Reasonable people may be able to come together and acknowledge that discrimination is wrong—illegal, unfair, cruel—and that such actions rob entire groups of their human rights. But these same people may disagree on what the root problem is and how to go about addressing it.
Social workers, who carry mandates of human dignity and anti-racism, are constantly looking at issues through a social justice lens in order to advocate for change. In this Discussion, you begin to use this lens to look at current events.
To prepare:
- Review the Learning Resources on culture and diversity, as well as stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, and oppression.
- Search for an online newspaper article that provides a current example of discrimination or oppression.
- Tip: To use the Walden Library to find newspaper articles, access the database Gale in Context: Opposing ViewpointsLinks to an external site.. Enter a keyword in the search box such as discrimination. The database generates keyword ideas for you as you type.
- When you get a list of results, you can “limit to news” for news sources only.
Post a response to the following:
- Briefly describe the chosen newspaper article.
- Explain how the situation is an example of discrimination and/or oppression.
- Draw from the assigned resources when explaining the specific type of discrimination represented.
- Provide the link to the newspaper article.
Tutorial for Diversity and Social Justice
