Ways of Reading Black Unemployment

Image credit: Dailycaller.com

There are many was of "reading" any social issue or problem. Three of the most obvious ways of reading an issue are: (1) that it is individual, (2) that it is environmental, and (3) that it is systemic.

When a social issue is interpreted as being an individual issue the focus is on what an individual has done to create the problem, and how that individual can correct it. This approach focuses on personal values, motivation and personal initiative to develop the skills and resources to alleviate the problem.

When a social issue is interpreted as being environmental the focus tends to be on the surrounding community and the social network that the person has access to. This interpretive approach tends to focus on who one knows, what is in one's social network, and what is happening the community that one is part of. People who are part of a supportive and well-resourced social network are said to have "social capital".

A third method of interpreting a social issue is to focus in the systemic nature of the situation. This approach focuses on larger structural and historical changes that impact both individuals and communities (environments). If a nation, as a whole, has undergone the process of de-industrialization, for example, it matters little how much motivation or experience a person has -- or how well connected they are -- in terms of their ability to hold onto an industrial job. The social system or structure has changed and the individual and his or her social environment will be swept along with that change.

Here are a few examples of how the issue of African American unemployment is framed by different sources reporting on the issue.

In this first clip, from CBS News in 2011, the problem of African American male unemployment is framed as being a problem of not having completed school. The reporter also notes that lack of money to go to college is a factor in being unemployed. At the end of the piece, however, there is an interesting twist -- the reporter says that "In this economy where jobs are scarce even having a real skill is no guarantee of having a job."

This NBC report, the same year, frames the problem as being a bit more complicated. In this report a man is interviewed who has experience but the rules of the game changed on him. Employers used to hire applicants based on their ability to do the job but now they require certification or a credential. A credential does not necessarily prove that an applicant can do the job, nor is it true that an applicant cannot do the job without one. Going to school in order to secure a credential has become a profitable business for colleges, universities, and post-secondary trade schools. At the end of the clip the reporter suggests that the willingness of blacks to work for free might give them a foothold on the job market.

This City Limits report, in 2010, points to a more complicated problem. The person who is the point of focus in this piece has both experience and credentials, still he is unable to get a job.

The following clip presents the most complicated inquiry into the issue yet. This clip was posted by "Aggressive Fruit" in 2009. It includes a wide range of interviewees who discuss racial stereotypes, social and cultural assimilation, the individual "survival instinct" that prevents people from helping others to find jobs, the impact of reduced funding for education, and the lack of a social network that would include potential employers or people who can tip one off to job openings.

This clip identifies systemic factors (an overall weak economy), environmental factors (social networking within a social and cultural environment), and individual factors (personal motivation and attitudes).

For more on this topic see "What are real measures of diversity and inclusion?" in my Current History Journal.

C. Matthew Hawkins

Are Cultural and Systemic Factors Driving Increased Diagnoses for DSM V?

Image Credit: American Psychiatric Association

The fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V) is about to be released. An article in the current issue of Slate, titled "Abnormal is the New Normal"shows the expansion of mental health categories in DSM V. If most people can now be labeled "abnormal" then what can we now say constitutes the "norm"?

Beyond the notion that we have gotten better at detecting mental illness; and somewhat connected to the notion that more of us suffer from mental illness than in the past, this article points to increased pressure at work sites, where many of us are under greater pressure to get more done with fewer co-workers (and less pay and fewer or no benefits). And because we still have a stubbornly high unemployment rate we can easily be replaced, which may add to our anxiety. 

The article also mentions that we have a culture of instant gratification and quick fixes. The expectation that all problems can quickly be resolved and that all wants and desires can instantly be met was not something that people had been led to believe two or three generations ago. 

Some analysts suggest that the mental health profession is over-diagnosing people for mental illness. The categories for mental illness, over the past 50 years, have grown rather impressively. There has also been a loosening of the definition of mental illness, so that more people fall within the existing categories for mental illness than 50 years ago. 

In this vein, there is also an aspect of what is happening that may be sensitive for social service providers to talk about: having more diagnosiible  "mental illnesses" brings more clients to the "helping professions" and more customers to the pharmaceutical companies -- it is good business to medicalize, and pathologize behavior that was once considered within the realm of the "normal". The article points out the requirement to have a diagnosed illness before treatment can be covered by insurance companies. A person must also have a diagnosible "problem" before they can qualify for disability benefits from the government. 

All of these macro and systemic factors may be driving the sharp increase in the statistics on mental illness over the past half century. What do you think?

Three Big Themes for Studying Urban Environments

Image Credit: Philadelphia Foundation

In my Squidoo webpage on Human Behavior in the Urban Environment I have identified a series of questions under the sub-heading “What Type of Intervention in Urban Environments?” These questions identify some of the major themes for thinking and writing about the city. It could be useful to simplify these themes by clustering them together, creating three mega-categories: (1) Professionals and Institutions; (2) Deviancy, Tolerance and Social Integration; and (3) Demographics, Resources and Public Space.

Each cluster suggests a series of interrelated questions one can use as a guide, or to generate ideas, when writing about the urban environment.

Professionals and Institutions: What are some of the underlying ideas and assumptions behind different anti-poverty initiatives? What are some of the roles of professionals and non-professionals in community intervention and problem-solving? How do these roles come into conflict with each other? How might communities and social institutions be made more humane and responsive to human needs? What are some of images, in the public mind, concerning the intimacy or impersonality of social life in the city?

Deviancy, Tolerance and Social Integration: How are populations stigmatized in the social environment? What are the limits of tolerance for social deviancy, and how is tolerance and intolerance expressed? How do communities place formal or informal sanctions against deviant behavior? How do deviant populations cope with community sanctions? What are some of the images of the urban environment, in the public mind, concerning social deviance?

Demographics, Resources and Public Space: What are some of the tensions that arise concerning diversity and assimilation in urban environments? How might population diversity be correlated to increases or decreases in property value? How is public space used and contested by different demographic groups (this can be cultural, generational, racial/ethnic, gendered, etc.)? How does the diversity of a population affect, and how is it affected by, scarcity or abundance of social resources?

These clusters of themes, and associated questions, should help you to think about how you can observe and write about urban environments. You may think of your own clusters of themes that work better for you than the ones I have here. Give it a try and see what you come up with.

Social Workers as Change Agents

As social workers, we often define ourselves as being "agents of change", yet this role often comes with a level of frustration. As we try to function as change agents in society we invariably encounter resistance. If people, or social service agencies, or larger social systems wanted to change they would have done so long before we arrived on the scene. So the nature of our job is to try to get people to make changes that at least a part of them resists. No wonder so many social workers get burnt out.

Presumably "the light bulb" is either the client or the social system that affects the client. If the light bulb is the client, then the above statement could be empowering, even though the social worker in this is image is looking rather peeved. If social workers acknowledge that they can't change the client against his or her will, then this would be a basic acknowledgment of the right of the client to self-determination.

But why the petulant look on the social worker's face?

On the other hand, maybe the child in the image is not the social worker. Maybe the child is the social worker's perception of the client. In that case, the image suggests a paternalistic attitude on the part of the social worker. The social worker thinks the client is an obstinate child, who doesn't know what is good for him or her. This paternalistic attitude toward the client may contribute to clients' reluctance to trust social workers.

But maybe the image is of a whole social system that needs to be changed. Some social workers focus mostly on trying to change larger social systems and the agencies that deliver social services. They do this in an attempt to make those social systems, or those agencies, more responsive to the needs of the client. If "the light bulb" is the social agency or system, and it resists changing in order to meet client needs, this can also be a source of frustration for the social worker.

In any case, to say "the light bulb has to want to change," suggests that if the light bulb doesn't want to change then the social worker can wash his or her hands of the whole thing. There is nothing more to be done. Blame the client or blame the system; but the social worker is absolved from any responsibility for the intractable problems the client faces. The social worker cannot be effective until the client, or the system, wants the worker to be effective.

Can this be right?

If the only time the social worker can be effective is when the light bulb wants to change, what do we need a social worker for in the first place? If the social worker accepts credit for clients, systems, and agencies that already want to change then what is the value-added from having a social worker?

Doesn't value come from scarcity -- the kind of scarcity that occurs when one is able to confront, and overcome, some type of difficulty that would discourage most people before the task was completed? Isn't it  the difficulty of the task that makes the social worker's intervention valuable?

So, why is the "light bulb", whether it is a social system, a social service agency, a group, a family, or an individual, reluctant to change, when they know that change would probably be beneficial in the long run?

Maybe anthropologists can help us out on this.

Mary Catherine Bateson, in Peripheral Visions, writes about the narratives we create about our lives. We simultaneously create narratives of continuity and discontinuity; it all depends on the lens we use as we reflect on the course of our lives. We can note the series of events in our lives, many of which were unexpected, that seem to have led us to where we are today -- as if this were our destiny. On the other hand, we can point to the many fits and starts, dead-ends and new beginnings we have had, which suggest that our lives are compilations of random events which appear to be going nowhere.

One the one hand, our lives seem to unfold in ways we never would have anticipated when we were children, teenagers, or young adults. Yet other elements of our lives seem stubbornly familiar and unchanging.

The interesting thing about narratives of discontinuity is that they often engender a sense of fragmentation, which can be unsettling, disorienting and frightening. They can make us feel as though our lives are no longer under our control, if they ever were. We can feel adrift; at the mercy of the winds, the river current, or blind fate.

Why are people resistant to change? Bateson suggests that people fear the loss of the sense of security and groundedness. When social workers ask people to change, we are also asking them to give something up -- something that may be very important to them, even if it is only a memory, or a way of understanding reality. We are asking them to let go of something that is familiar in order to embrace something that has not yet proven itself. Even under the most dysfunctional circumstances, few people are willing to take the risk of change without serious reservations.

We often fear the unknown and the unfamiliar, despite it's potential to give us a new start. We may fear the outcome if we stand still and just allow things to continue to happen to us, but at least we can feel as though we did not bring disaster on ourselves -- something outside of us did it, even though it occurred as a result of our own inaction. If we take the risk of inaction, the risk is based on what other people and things might do to us. If we take the risk of change, the risk is something we incur of our own choosing.

It takes a leap of faith to initiate change. But, as Bateson points out in Peripheral Visions, when we ask people -- or systems -- to change, we should realize that we are asking them to take a big risk. We should not take the suggestion of risk lightly. We should ask ourselves, what I am asking this individual, or this system, to give up that might provide a sense of familiarity and continuity? Why might it be frightening for this individual, or people in this system, to initiate change?

If we want to be effective social workers we have to understand that this means we must be agents of change; and as agents of change we will automatically engender opposition, and we should not be surprised, or petulant, when we find that the light bulb does not want to change, and tries to hold onto the status quo in subtle or not-so-subtle ways.

It is the nature of our job to encounter resistance to change; therefore, we should not be cavalier in the changes we propose, and we should not take suggestions of change lightly. We must begin by spending time trying to understand what our clients and their systems value about the status quo, and what they fear about the discontinuities we are suggesting to them. We must try to fully understand how they perceive what we are proposing as being disruptive of their lives. I would even go so far as to suggest that we must be empathetic toward their fear of disruption. If we can't develop that empathy, we have no business trying to encourage them to change.

Our job engenders resistance. If it were any other way, we wouldn't be needed in the first place.

The Logic Behind Community Organizing...

What is the logic behind community organizing, in relation to other human service initiatives?

I think this photograph sums the logic up best:

Image Credit: The Other 98% (on Facebook)

The first response, "If you give me a fish," signifies the charitable impulse. The social worker responds to the immediate needs of the client, to resolve the immediate crisis, but does not have the time, resources, or -- perhaps -- the inclination to do more for the client. Perhaps resolving the immediate crisis will be enough, it may provide the client with the breathing room needed to recover, so that the client can then take things into his or her own hands. But the problem may actually be deeper, in which case....

The second response, "If you teach me to fish," signifies intervention that teaches the client how to avoid future crises, or to respond to crises on his or her own, once they arise. This mode of social work practice is based on the assumption that if the client's behavior (or culture) can be changed their circumstances will improve. But what if the problem is bigger than the behavior, knowledge-base, or culture of a group or individual?

The third response, "If you teach me to organize," signifies intervention based on the assessment that the problem is structural and systemic at its core. Often problems, while having cultural or behavioral components to them, become intractable because of the disparity of social, political, and economic power -- and the way the "rules of the game" have been drawn up to protect the powerful. This requires development of skills that will shift the distribution of power (or access to information in order to make the system work for the vulnerable). Frequently this entails establishing cultural capital by linking with the interests and activities of others.

It is always helpful to be able to identify the underlying assumptions behind any particular mode of intervention. Michael Jacoby Brown contrasts and compares different methods of social intervention in the following video:

In this video Brown discusses the underlying assumptions behind the basic methods of social intervention. These methods are service, advocacy, mobilization, and activism; then he distinguishes between those modes of intervention and community organizing. This helps to draw out the fundamental methods and principles of community organizing and what its objectives entail.

How does organizing, as a form of intervention, distinguish itself from the other modes of intervention?

What are the attributes and parts of this thing we call "organizing"?

What are the assumptions that underlie the selection of community organizing as one's mode of intervention?

What assumptions underlie the selection of each of the other modes of intervention?

What is essential, in order for community organizing, or an organization, to be effective?

Person-in-Social Environment: A Core Social Work Concept

One of the things a successful student discovers when they study any academic discipline is that it is important to master the basics and the core concepts of that discipline before moving on to more complex matters. There is a reciprocal relationship between the two; mastering the basics makes more complex concepts even more comprehensible, and complex and specialized concepts provide one's understanding of basic and core concepts with greater depth, nuance and meaning.

There are a number of core concepts that beginning social workers should grasp: social workers are agents of change, not only in regard to client populations, but also in regard to agencies that serve those clients and overall public policy; social workers must learn to respect the self-determination of the client; and social workers must develop cultural competency, which enables them to see themselves, and their clients, as enculturated beings.

Perhaps one of the most essential concepts that social work students must grasp is the notion of client as a "person-in-a-social-environment."

The client is simultaneously a member of multiple social networks that help to form and shape that client's identity. The client is also a participant in, and impacted by, political systems, economic systems, and cultural systems that constitute the social ecology in which the client "swims". The client does not exist in an air-tight bubble; rather, the client lives within a societal context.

If a social worker is to be effective in his or her practice the social worker must be able to analyze the client's relationship to that larger societal context.

Most social workers don't have difficulty recognizing that if they have a client who has difficulty holding down a job the social worker should be particularly attentive when the client provides hints of potentially underlying reasons for their spotty work history, especially if this entails substance abuse or uncontrollable bursts of anger.

In a situation such as this one, most social workers can readily understand that in order to improve the likelihood that their client will be able to hold down a job it will be necessary to work on breaking the client's physiological or psychological addiction, or to work with the client on anger management.

But it is also important for the social worker to look at the situation from another angle: in a social environment where many jobs have been phased out and unemployment, or underemployment is stubbornly high, or even rising, it should not be surprising that these conditions tend to exacerbate any preexisting tendency toward substance abuse or uncontrollable outbursts of anger. Sheer frustration over being caught in the trap of unemployment, or underemployment, can bring behavioral problems to the fore, or even make those problems worse.

The client's behavior may make it more difficult for the client to find a steady job, but the lack of available steady jobs may make it more likely that the client will develop behavioral problems. The social worker must be knowledgeable enough about the social context of the client's situation in order to be an effective helping professional.

The same is true when one is problem-solving and searching for solutions. The presenting problem, which brings the client to the social worker in the first place, may be triggered by an outburst of anger, or a bout of substance abuse that the client was unable to conceal -- or it may be the client's persistent concern about long-term unemployment or underemployment.

In order to effect a solution, the social worker must be able to identify both formal and informal social networks that have weight in the client's life -- or that could potentially play a positive role toward mitigating the problem.

Sometimes being engaged in productive labor, or volunteer work, can give a client a sense of self-esteem, and help the client to form an identity that will enable them to exert more control over their behavior. Likewise, having friends who serve as sounding boards, a listening ear, or who can offer advice, may provide  outlets to reduce or control problematic behavior.

The same can be said for group recreational activities or faith-based communities. The challenge for the social worker will be to identify social networks that are significant and have meaning in the client's life; social networks that provide a useful counter-balance against negative influences, and that may be enlisted as resources to address problematic behavior directly, or conditions -- such as unemployment -- that might exacerbate those problems.

Social work is a profession that draws its knowledge base from both sociological and psychological literature. At the core of social work values, knowledge and skills, therefore, is the ability to understand one's client as a social being, and to be able to see one's client as one who impacts, and is impacted by social conditions. The social worker should be able to see the client as a person who exists within a social context.

C. Matthew Hawkins

A Key Function of Entry-Level Social Work Counseling

Image Credit: Donna Garcia Associates, Inc.

One of the questions that frequently comes up in class is this: "On the one hand, social workers are expected to respect the self-determination of the client, but on the other hand, what clients want for themselves may not be things that are in their best interest -- such as a tendency to satisfy short-term gratification at the expense of long-term growth and stability, or the inability to remove oneself from psychologically abusive relationships."

One of the most essential functions that social workers have, in their professional practice, is the function of being a good listener. Being a good listener does not just involve an activity of the ear, it also involves the activity of the mind. The social worker should not just be passive listener, but an active one; a listener who asks open-ended questions, and picks up on phrases, non-verbal facial expressions and gestures, and other clues that help to emphasize what is most important about what the client has said, and help to reveal what is often left unspoken.

There are several reasons why it is essential that the social worker learn to be a good listener. For one thing, we live in an age where everyone wants to be heard, and few people want to listen. Few of us get the chance to sound out the situations we are struggling with before we are interrupted by the person we are talking to as they smother us with their "advice."

Even if the advice is sound, and, perhaps, "research-based", we won't really know whether or not the advice is appropriate if we haven't taken the time to thoroughly hear the client out so that we can grasp the essence of the situation, and the contextual issues that are related to it -- making the situation, and its solutions, unique to the client.

But even more to the point, part of the process of honoring the right of the client to self-determination is to create space, and create an environment, in which clients can discover constructive conclusions for themselves. It is important to give the client a chance to do the very thing that they frequently do not have the opportunity to do -- which is to transform vague thoughts and feelings into specific and concrete words, and to turn fragments of assorted impressions into recognizable patterns and identifiable relationships.

Part of our role, in consulting with a client, is not to give the client the answer, but to listen, ask probing follow-up questions, and create an opportunity for them to make discoveries -- to have epiphanies -- and, from there, to work out solutions for themselves. You want them to discover patterns and solutions that cannot just be handed to them.

"But", some students may object, "what if you work for a government agency where you are not paid to have the client sound out their situation, and you don't have the time to work with them toward an epiphany? What then?"

Basically, you're screwed in that situation.

But seriously, even when there are legal or administrative mandates for what must come out of the session, an effective practitioner will take the time to give something in order to get something from the client. The practitioner cannot expect the client to listen to, or respect what the practitioner is saying, if the practitioner does not first demonstrate the willingness to listen to, and respect what the client is saying.

The interaction has to go both ways.

In order for the governmental or institutional mandate to be understood, the representative of that government or institution -- which would be you, the social worker -- must engage the client and establish trust. The representative of that government or institution must demonstrate the capacity to understand the client, his or her perspective on things, and his or her situation.

So whether your interaction with the client is the result of the client coming to you voluntarily or involuntarily, active listening is an indispensable part of your role as a social worker, in order to be an effective practitioner.

The social worker has to hear the client out; understand how the client sees the world and why the client's perspective makes sense to the client -- and the social worker must probe for insights into the client's formal and informal social networks and overall situation -- in order for the social worker to effective as a "helping professional."

C. Matthew Hawkins