My wish as an Australian social work professional is to leave the nation better. Such a dream is not unique to me but to multiple other experts worldwide. Facing difficulties when growing and as an adult makes people generally wish to correct issues by making the world a better place after growing and realizing their life dreams, mostly career-wise. However, the dream often fails to materialize due to multiple factors, mostly resulting from the subconscious being. Persons growing under stable families and social settings have their dreams to affect the world and humanity positively shattered by their ignorance towards real challenges that they do not experience in life. That is why the intersectionality concept is principal to those seeking to realize their best versions of self and impact the world maximally. The philosophy appreciates the interconnected nature of the factors molding people’s personalities and choices. A chief intersectionality aspect is the positionality facet that connotes one’s adopted position due to cultural, life, or ethnic interactions. The connection between influence, privileges, and marginalization experiences informs my positionality and performance as a future social worker.
The Intersectionality Concept
The intersectionality model is a significantly new psychological idea whose main aim is to view problems and issues through a diverse lens. The theory is a 1989 conception by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw (Hampton & Reeping, 2019). The scholar (Crenshaw) describes the intersection and overlap of people’s individual characteristics, such as race, gender, class, education, sex, and others, to cause specific personalities and social problems. Accordingly, the intersectionality model has multiple applications in the social work field. The first submission involves the theory’s ability to depict the multifaceted relationship of complicated and overlying structures of repression that impact the forms through which diverse clusters experience social glitches (Hampton & Reeping, 2019). For example, Holmes (2020) maintains that understanding black women’s plights requires one to view their concerns broadly. That is because the group’s challenges result not only from being females but also from the minority race aspect and other facets, such as sexuality and disability. Looking at the group’s social concerns from multiple interrelated viewpoints makes finding holistic solutions to their plights possible. Therefore, adopting the intersectionality philosophy introduces a new approach to the social work practice capable of transforming the field.
On the other hand, the intersectionality theory is important in identifying scholars’ and specific professionals’ personal biases that can affect the quality of their output. Secules et al. (2021) reiterate that many qualitative studies’ results face application challenges due to researchers’ preferences. The same aspect plays a significant role in the social work sector, where many professionals subconsciously maintain prejudiced stands that expose some at-risk groups to further sufferings (Bernard, 2021). Applying the intersectionality philosophy on self as a future social work expert thus helps me to understand my strengths, opportunities, and weaknesses, according to Holmes (2020). Similar to the research domain, the theory’s utilization of investigating an individual’s biases works by viewing one’s character through a diverse lens (Stevenson, 2020). The social identity map is the tool used for this purpose and works by connecting particular social indicators to specific opportunities or enabling positions (Jacobson & Mustafa, 2019). Such opportunities then inform unique resultant personal emotions or feelings, which shape personalities and biases (Bernard, 2021). The social identity map unites these varied concepts in three interconnected tiers, with the first category having identities such as race, sex, sexuality, class, religion, disability, and age.
Positionality
One of psychology’s major concerns is defining people’s character and helping them establish effective connections. The objective aims to enable individuals to acquire a clear understanding of the self before interacting with the world. The self-esteem philosophy particularly wants humans to not only understand selves but also have a positive regard for their character to be able to view others similarly (Stevenson, 2020). However, many social principles fail to realize this goal due to the inability to help individuals develop an unbiased understanding of their characters. For example, racism continues in many societies to date despite being a known bothersome problem due to biases (Siliman & Kearns, 2020). Secules et al. (2021) insist that a majority of those fighting racing perpetuate it unknowingly due to detectable prejudices. The case of racism cries among black women participating in the freedom movement after their sidelining by the other women proves the danger of fighting social vices without first analyzing one’s beliefs and their underlying supporting values. Consequently, the positionality subject resolves this matter by helping humans establish a link between their life experiences, privileges, and beliefs, thus pinpointing biases for corrections.
Social Identity Map
The social identity map is a critical intersectionality theory instrument used to test people’s personalities. The concept works by isolating all the possible identities that one may have and which may influence character development. Therefore, the map acquires significant backing from the social learning theory, which insists that people’s behaviors have a connection with their lived experiences (Jacobson & Mustafa, 2019). Race, gender, socioeconomic status, ability, citizenship, age, sexuality, religion, education, marital status, political ideology, and appearance are an example of human identities with far-reaching effects (Jacobson & Mustafa, 2019). For example, being white grants some people unique opportunities and privileges not accessible to persons of color (Simon et al., 2022). Moreover, an Aboriginal citizen in Australia undergoes substantial marginalization worth affecting one’s personality, beliefs, and views concerning humanity. The social identity chart helps people undertake self-inquiry by establishing a link between every identified social marker, the subsequent privileges or life impact, and the resultant emotions or beliefs (Jacobson & Mustafa, 2019). Therefore, the map exists as an effective way of reveling people’s involuntary partialities for those intending to realize balanced dispositions.
Privileges
Understanding the intersectionality and positionality concepts is significantly impossible without demystifying the issue of privileges. Simon et al. (2022) defines such as distinct right, benefit, or invulnerability, granted or obtainable only to a certain party or cluster. They give work by conceding favors, benefits, and advantages to dominant groups’ associates at the target groups’ expense. Persons in the so-called overriding groups are regularly oblivious that they belong to some controlling class due to the perceived honor of viewing themselves as genuine benefactors rather than casts (Young, 2020). Thus, privileges are typically imperceptible to individuals enjoying them (Roth, 2021). The dominant groups’ members often trust what they are experiencing is earned and that everybody can access the same favors by working hard to realize them. Conversely, Young (2020) maintains that civil liberties are unearned but approved by persons in the leading assemblies, whether they need them or not. The privileges operate on multiple levels: personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural (Tarshis & Baird, 2021). Therefore, Australian citizens with the association in the white, male, heterosexual, non-disabled, Christian, college-educated, middle-class, married, middle-aged, English-speaking social groups have enjoyable privileges over those without the groups.
My Positionality
Table 1: My Positionality Social Identity Map
Being a middle-aged white female with a university degree makes me a privileged citizen, based on Table 1 above. I am a white-skinned cisgender lady of European origin, middle-class, middle-aged, parent, and wedded. I endured the civil conflicts in my country and brawled on a national foundation. Growing up in a multiethnic environment made me completely jumbled regarding the beginning of the war and the supposed role of citizens’ nationality and religion in the issue. I was young then and desired to study, travel and realize socioeconomic independence, which was impossible in an unstable environment. The culture then considered the home and the kitchen the rightful places for women, the father, brothers, and husband being her controllers. The environment weakened the other women and me in society. Migrating to Australia changed my environment significantly and exposed me to new privileges. The new identity granted me strength, hope, and a sense of belonging. Equally, the Australian system offered me security and a more favourable quality of life.
I started educating myself and knowing the world better through the works of other scholars with whom I shared an outlook. I comprehended that I am a woman who detests being part of a stereotype. Accordingly, education aids me in viewing the world through my lens, accessing a job and succeeding in attaining one of my life objectives at that moment. Equally, being learned makes me happy and nurtures the satisfaction feeling. My privileges include being a woman in a social setting that supports women’s employment and education. My identities were interconnected, influenced each other, and overlapped throughout my career advancement and higher education. Having this consciousness permitted me to empower myself and develop an optimistic inspiration for other facets of life. I endeavour to promote awareness concerning females’ education, the need to improve one’s quality of life, and the importance of being a family player.
Privileges’ Impact
Experiencing privileges due to my identities, shown in Table 1, exposes me to substantial biases that can affect my service provision as a future social worker. Examples of identities worth paying attention include race, gender, socioeconomic status, ability, and sexuality, as discussed below.
Race and Ethnicity
The race is a communal concept that classifies persons into collections based on corporeal appearance, lineage, ethos, and history. Ideas of racial variance are human formations, not biological groupings, and have both social and political backing over history (Secules et al., 2021). Ethnicity is an equally a product of social creation that categorizes people into lesser social clusters based on features such as a communal intelligence of group association, values, language, behavioural patterns, political interests, past, and inherited geographical base. Accordingly, being a white citizen in Australia, which is mainly Caucasian-dominated, somehow makes me assume the plights of the other races. I thus need to use the present personality review exercise to improve myself to deliver more effective services.
Gender
Gender is another socially built scheme of classifying people that assigns masculinity and femininity abilities to individuals. Gender identity connotes a person’s inner sense of self as an explicit gender. Moreover, gender expression is the presentation of a person as gendered via cultural identifiers, such as behaviour and clothing. Australia exhibits numerous genderqueer citizens currently suffering due to challenging access to social care services. Being cisgender gives me the general feeling that having a sense of personal identity that coincides with that awarded at birth makes one normal. The matter exposes me to the risk of viewing transgender persons, including gay, lesbian, and bisexual, as non-existent groups whose plights never exist.
Sexuality
I need to pay more attention to my regard to specific groups under the sexuality category to improve my service delivery ability. Being heterosexual and a member of the generally accepted sexual group can make me blind to the plights of asexual, bisexual, gay, and all the other social classes not subscribing to my belief. Applying empathy techniques will help me view life from these other groups’ perspectives, thus gaining the necessary skills to arbitrate the sets’ matters.
Admittedly, intersectionality is a vital theory in social work science due to its multiple applications. The model helps social work professionals to view challenges facing humanity from multiple viewpoints, thus devising better solutions. Equally, positionality helps social work professionals to demystify personal biases to be able to serve the community more effectively. Applying the theory to myself reveals several areas requiring improvements for effective service delivery.
References
Bernard, C. (2021). Intersectionality for social workers: A practical introduction to theory and practice. Taylor & Francis Group.
Hampton, C., & Reeping, D. (2019). Positionality: The stories of self that impact others. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 36(7), 388-400. Web.
Holmes, A. G. D. (2020). Researcher positionality–a consideration of its influence and place in qualitative research–a new researcher guide. Shanlax International Journal of Education, 8(4), 1-10. Web.
Jacobson, D., & Mustafa, N. (2019). Social identity map: A reflexivity tool for practicing explicit positionality in critical qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 160-94. Web.
Roth, S. (2021). Intersectionality and coalitions in social movement research—a survey and outlook. Sociology Compass, 15(7), e12885. Web.
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Tarshis, S., & Baird, S. L. (2021). Applying intersectionality in clinical supervision: A scoping review. The Clinical Supervisor, 40(2), 218-240. Web.
Young, C. (2020). Interlocking systems of oppression and privilege impact African Australian health and well‐being in greater Melbourne: A qualitative intersectional analysis. Journal of Social Issues, 76(4), 880-898. Web.