Race Religion Social

PART 1: IDENTIFY OWN PERSPECTIVES You are required to undertake a structured process to reflect on your own perspectives on diversity and biases. Sometimes, reflection will involve confronting feelings and reactions that are hidden from view (Weigand, 2007).

for me each one from A to N are a 1

1: Questions Read the following statements and rate your level of discomfort and/or feelings of fear to provide a reflection tool to identify your own perspectives on diversity and biases - Number 1 being the lowest level on discomfort and/or fear and number 5 being the highest level of discomfort.

a) A young mother wearing a short skirt and showing many tattoos on her body

b) A homosexual couple holding hands at a family event

c) A person with an intellectual disability tells you of a wonderful product and insists that you buy the product they are selling

d) A person with an overseas accent phones you and insists you buy the product they are selling

e) A fellow worker who pins up religious materials on the staff/community notice board

f) A family attend a community event with no shoes one, are untidy and unclean

g) A small boy wearing a wrap skirt and wears his hair in a bun on top of his head.

h) A small girl or boy with piercing in her ears and nose

i) A parent tells you a joke based on a stereotype

j) A visiting sales person refers to you as “sweetie” at the end of every sentence

k) You are surprised when a female electrician arrives to fix the stove

l) You feel uneasy when a female voice announces they are the pilot captain on your flight

m) A volunteer at the service responds to dislikes or disagreements with the comment

n) An Aboriginal family arrives one hour after the early childhood session has started 

Now you have completed the above ratings, choose three (3) of the situations that you rated as the highest level of discomfort and/or feeling of fear. Answer the following questions for each of the situations. 

1. What are some of the challenges you face in practicing reflection about this situation? 

2. What is confronting or challenging or confusing you about the situation?

3. What has influenced your view of the situation? E.g. significant events in own family background or history that has influenced current values, beliefs and attitudes.

4. What do you need to do to develop better understanding to enable you to work with the families who are in this situation?

PART 2: REFLECT ON OWN COMMUNITIES

You are required to reflect on your own community, or service if you are working. Provide an example of diversity for each of the following dot points i.e. Family culture: some families eat at the table together and some families eat in front of the TV.

A young mother wearing a short skirt and showing many tattoos on her body: Well it is her perspectives whether she wears short skirts or show tattoos on her body. But at the same time, it is not a pleasant scene for eyes. Old people feel uncomfortable when they see something like this. Apart from this, it is embarrassing for the children also, because their friends might say something funny or bad about their mother. In fact, in the worst case scenario, that mother might hear teasing from local boys, which is very embarrassing. Once, I saw a young married woman wearing exposing dress and people were looking at her strangely (Tucker, 2013). 

B:-

Homosexual couples holding hands at a family event: Homosexuality is not a disease; it is everybody's personal preferences. But in our society, it is still a taboo and people do not talk about it that much. If a homosexual couple holds hands in front of their family members, then it is quite uncomfortable for the family because people would ask them many questions, and they surely do not know how to answer those questions. I have many homosexual friends but when my parents saw some of my homosexual couples, I feel a little strange in front of them.

C:-

A person with an intellectual disability tells of a wonderful product in order to sell it: In this case, I surely would feel sympathetic for that person, and if that product would be so wonderful then I would think about buying it. But I wouldn’t buy that product just because he is intellectually disabled.

D:-

A person with an overseas accent phones and insists on buying the product they are selling: Well, accents are quite charming to hear, but I wouldn’t buy a product based on someone’s overseas accent. It is their job to say good things in a good way about the products they are selling. But at the same time, it depends on us whether we buy the products or not.

E:-

 Fellow worker pins up religious materials on the community notice board: This is a very uncomfortable situation (Tucker, 2013). Everyone loves their religions, but that doesn't mean we can brag about our religions. People should love their religions silently and respect other religions too. An office is a place of work; people are divided there according to their work positions, not because of their religions. So if an employee pins up religious materials on the staff board, then he is wrong and more than that it is uncomfortable for other employees.

F:-

A family attends a community event with no shoes: First of all, it is true that we shouldn’t judge people based on their clothes or shoes. But it is quite strange to see a family attending a community event without shoes. It is possible for one person to forget his/her shoes, but a whole family forgot to wear shoes; that is impossible and strange.