Working With African Americans and Native Americans

Introduction

We now turn our attention to two specific minority groups: African Americans and Native Americans. While each group has different cultural values, histories, and needs, each group has experienced societal discrimination and oppression as evidenced by its struggles for human rights and equality.

African Americans and Native Americans have historically experienced slavery, lack of basic human rights and legal protection, misunderstanding, verbal and physical abuse, and even murder. While these groups now have state and federal legal protection, racism is still alive and well. Ask yourself the following questions: "If I were an African American or a Native American, how would I feel about the historical discrimination and violence inflicted upon my ethnic group? How would I feel about today's experience with discrimination? How do these facts and ideas arise in the workplace?" These questions are important, because they allow us to consider how some people of color may culturally or individually internalize cultural oppression.

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In this unit, you will study the recent research on discrimination against African Americans and Native Americans and the cultural effects of the discrimination. Furthermore, we will consider family values, group cohesiveness, spirituality, acculturation conflicts, and the psychosocial and employment or career issues for each group. Culturally sensitive interactions and problem solving cannot be effectively implemented in the workplace until a manager, an employee, or a supervisor is aware of the various challenges and issues. Possessing this knowledge provides opportunities to treat others effectively.

You are encouraged to reflect on how your current theoretical and personal approach may influence your effectiveness in communicating with these groups.

Overview

There has been increasing tension between teachers of different races regarding how children are being disciplined the in African American households in their school district. Many Caucasian teachers (80% of the teacher population) believe that the methods of discipline are inappropriate, while African American teachers (a vast minority of teachers in the district) largely believe that the methods of punishment are appropriate for their culture.

You have been asked to provide cultural sensitivity training to teachers in the school district. The goal is to increase cultural and ethnic awareness for each of the teacher groups so they can foster a better understanding of one another's point of view and deescalate the tension between the groups.

By successfully completing this assignment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assignment criteria:

Competency 1: Analyze the influence of culture on attitudes, values, perception, human behavior, and interpersonal relations.

Analyze how cultural customs can be interpreted or misinterpreted by other cultures.

Discuss common elements of cultural misunderstandings.

Competency 2: Analyze individual cultural competencies.

Identify types of information to gather from stakeholders for intervention planning.

Competency 3: Analyze culturally and developmentally appropriate intervention strategies.

Identify culturally sensitive intervention strategies.

Competency 5: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and consistent with expectations for members of the human services profession.

Communicate in a professional manner, using scholarly resources that support the analysis through clear, concise, well organized, and

grammatically correct writing that incorporates appropriate APA style and conventions.