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Introduction to Human Behavior in the Macro Social Environment

I. What is the Macro Social Environment?

A. Macro social environment: Configuration of communities, organizations, and groups within the social environment that are products of social, economic, and political forces and social institutions

1. Community: A number of people who have something in common that connects them in some way and that distinguishes them from others

2. Organizations: Social entities that are goal directed, are designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity systems, and are linked to the external environment

3. Social services: The work that social work practitioners and other helping professionals perform in organizations

4. Social agency/social services agency: An organization providing social services that typically employs a range of helping professionals including social workers in addition to office staff, paraprofessionals, and sometimes volunteers

5. Group: A collection of people, brought together by mutual interests, who are capable of consistent and uniform action

6. Social forces: Values and beliefs held by people in the social environment that are strong enough to influence people’s activities including how government is structured or restricted

7. Economic forces: Resources that are available, how they are distributed, and how they are spent

8. Political forces: The current governmental structures, laws to which people are subject, and the overall distribution of power among the population

9. Social institution: An established and valued practice or means of operation in a society resulting in the development of a formalized system to carry out its purpose

II. The Macro Social Environment and Generalist Social Work Practice

A. Generalist practice: The application of an extensive and diverse knowledge base, professional values, and a wide range of skills by using a seven-step planned change process to target any size system for change within the context of three dimensions

1. Requires the assumption of a wide range of professional roles

2. Application of critical thinking skills to the planned change process

3. Emphasizes client empowerment

III. Work Within an Organizational Structure

IV. Using a Seven-Step Planned Change Process

A. Step 1: Engagement

B. Step 2: Assessment

C. Step 3: Planning

D. Step 4: Intervention

E. Step 5: Evaluation

F. Step 6: Termination

G. Step 7: Follow-up

V. Targeting Any Size System

A. Ecosystems theory and the macro social environment

1. Social systems theory: A way of thinking or a theory about theories

2. Ecosystems theory: Systems theory used to describe and analyze people and other living systems and their transactions

B. Ecosystems theory: Basic terms in systems theories

1. System: A set of elements that are orderly, interrelated, and a functional whole

2. Boundaries: Borders or margins that separate one entity

3. Subsystem: Secondary or subordinate system

4. Homeostasis: Tendency for a system to maintain a relatively stable, constant state of balance

5. Roles: Socially expected behavior patterns determined by an individual’s status and expectations in a particular group or society

6. Relationships: Dynamic interpersonal connections between two or more persons or systems that involve how they think about, feel about, and behave toward each other

7. Input: The energy, information, or communication flow received from other systems

8. Output: What happens to input after its gone through and been processed by some system

9. Negative and positive feedback: A special form of input where a system receives information about that system’s own performance

10. Interface: The point of contact where two systems come into contact with each other, interact, or communicate

11. Differentiation: A system’s tendency to move from a simple to a more complex existence

12. Entropy: The natural tendency of a system to progress toward disorganization, depletion, and death

13. Negative entropy: The process of a system toward growth and development

14. Equifinality: The fact that there are many different means to achieve the same end

C. Ecosystems theory: Basic terms in the ecological perspective

1. The social environment: The conditions, circumstances, and human interactions that encompass human beings

a. Macro social environment extends beyond the individual’s interaction with immediate friends, relatives, and other individuals

b. Transactions refer to the communications and interactions of people with others in their environments

2. Energy: The natural power of active involvement between people and their environment

3. Adaptation: The capacity to adjust to surrounding environmental conditions

4. Person-in-Environment Fit: The extent to which an individual’s or a collective group’s needs, rights, goals, and capacities match or fit the environment’s abilities to meet that person’s or group’s physical, social, and cultural needs

5. Stress, Stressors, and Coping

a. Stressor: Demand, situation, or circumstance that results in physiological and/or emotional tension

b. Stress: The resulting physiological and/or emotional tension produced by a stressor that affects a person’s internal balance

c. Coping: A form of adaptation where efforts to regulate immobilizing, negative feelings and problem-solving strategies are applied to handle the demands posed by the life stressor

6. Relatedness: The condition of being attached to others in friendships, social networks, kinship, and other positive relationships in the social environments

7. Interdependence: The mutual reliance of each person upon each other person

D. Highlight 1.1: Summary of Some of the Major Concepts in Systems Theory and the Ecological Perspectives

E. Highlight 1.2: Personal Characteristics

1. Competence: The assumption that people are naturally motivated to affect their environment in order to survive

2. Self-esteem: The extent to which one feels competent, respected, and worthy

3. Self-direction: The ability to take control over one’s life and make decisions that are responsible and still respect other people’s rights

F. People’s involvement with multiple systems in the social environment

1. Target of change: The system that social workers need to change or influence in order to accomplish goals

2. Micro system: An individual

3. Mezzo system: Any small group

4. Macro system: Any system larger than a small group

5. Client system: Any individual, family, group, organization, or community who will ultimately benefit from social work intervention

6. Macro client systems: Communities, organizations, and larger groups of clientele with similar issues and problems

G. Highlight 1.3: The History of Generalist Practice With and Within Communities

1. Community organization

a. Social action: Coordinated effort to advocate for change in a social institution to benefit a specific population, solve a social problem, correct unfairness, or enhance people’s well-being

b. Social planning: A technical process of problem-solving with regard to substantive social problems

c. Locality development: Broad participation of a wide spectrum of people at the community level to pursue community change

VI. A Wide Range of Professional Roles

A. Advocate: One who steps forward on the behalf of the client system in order to promote fair and equitable treatment or gain needed resources

B. Mediator: One who resolves arguments or disagreements among micro, mezzo, or macro systems by assuming a neutral role

C. Integrator/Coordinator: One who oversees the process of assembling different elements to form a cohesive whole, product, or process and subsequently watches over its functioning to make sure it’s effective

D. General Manager: One who assumes some level of administrative responsibility for a social services agency or other organizational system

E. Educator: One who gives information and teaches skills to other systems

F. Analyst/Evaluator: One who determines the effectiveness of a program or agency for an organization or community

G. Broker: One who links any size system with community resources and services

H. Facilitator: One who guides a group experience

I. Initiator: One who calls attention to an issue or problem

J. Negotiator: One who acts to settle disputes and/or resolve disagreements, acting on the behalf of one of the parties involved

K. Mobilizer: One who identifies and convenes community people and resources and makes them responsive to unmet community needs

VII. Application of Critical Thinking Skills

A. Critical thinking: The careful scrutiny of what is stated as true or what appears to be true and the resulting expression of an opinion or conclusion based on that scrutiny, and the creative formulation of an opinion or conclusion when presented with a question, problem, or issue

B. Triple A approach

1. Ask questions

2. Assess the established facts and issues involved

3. Assert a concluding opinion

C. Traps to avoid by using critical thinking

1. Outward appearance of science

2. Absence of skeptical peer review

3. Reliance on personal experience and testimonials

4. Wishful thinking

5. The “ancient wisdom” fallacy

6. The popularity fallacy

VIII. Focus on Empowerment and the Strengths Perspective

A. Empowerment: The process of increasing personal, interpersonal, or political power so that individuals can take action to improve their life situations

B. Strengths perspective: Orientation that focuses on client resources, capabilities, knowledge, abilities, motivations, experience, intelligence, and other positive qualities that can be put to use to solve problems and pursue positive changes

C. Principles of the strengths perspective

1. Every individual, group, family, and community has strengths

2. Trauma and abuse, illness and struggle may be injurious, but they may also be sources of challenge and opportunity

3. Assume that you do not know the upper limits of the capacity to grow and change and take individual, group, and community aspirations seriously

4. We best serve clients by collaborating with them

5. Every environment is full of resources

6. Caring, caretaking, and context are key

D. Highlight 1.4: What Are Your Strengths?

E. Resiliency: Using strengths to combat difficulty

1. Resiliency: The ability of an individual, family, group, community, or organization to recover from adversity and resume functioning, even when suffering serious trouble, confusion, or hardship

2. Two dimensions: Risk and protection

IX. Other Important Principles Characterizing Social Work in the Macro Social Environment

A. Human diversity

1. Human Diversity: The range of differences between people in terms of race, ethnicity, age, geography, religion, values, culture, orientations, physical and mental health, and other distinguishing characteristics

2. Highlight 1.5: Sexual Orientation and the Expression of Gender

a. Gay: Refers to a male having a sexual orientation toward the same gender

b. Lesbian: Refers to a female having a sexual orientation toward the same gender

c. Bisexual: Refers to people sexually oriented toward either gender

d. Ten percent society: Gay and lesbian organization that maintains that gays and lesbians make up 10 percent of the population

e. Gender identity: One’s perception of oneself as being either female or male

f. Pseudohermaphrodite or intersex: People born with physical contradictions, such as some mixture of male and female predisposition and configuration of reproductive structures

g. Hermaphrodite: A person born with fully formed ovaries and fully formed testes

h. Transgenderism: An expression of gender that involves people whose appearance and/or behaviors do not conform to traditional gender roles

i. LGBT: Term used to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender group of people

j. Homophobia: The irrational hatred, fear, or dislike of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people

1) Overt victimization

2) Covert victimization

B. Culture

1. Culture: A way of life including widespread values, beliefs, and behavior

2. Organizational culture: The set of key values, beliefs, understandings, and norms that members of an organization share

C. Cultural competence

1. Cultural Competence: Set of knowledge and skills that a social worker must develop in order to be effective with multicultural clients

2. Four competencies in the area of cultural competence (Sue)

a. Competency one: Becoming aware of one’s own assumptions, values, and biases about human behavior

b. Competency two: Understanding the worldview of culturally diverse clients (worldview concerns one’s perceptions of oneself in relation to other people, objects, institutions, and nature, and relates to one’s view of the world and one’s role and place in it)

c. Competency three: Developing appropriate intervention strategies and techniques

d. Competency four: Understanding organizational and institutional forces that enhance or negate cultural competence

D. Oppression: The act of placing extreme limitations and constraints on some person, group, or larger system

E. Populations-at-Risk: Groups of people who share some identifiable characteristic that places them at greater risk of social and economic deprivation and oppression than the general mainstream of society

F. Promotion of Social and Economic Justice

1. Social justice: The idea that in a perfect world all citizens would have identical rights, protection, opportunities, obligations, and social benefits

2. Economic justice: The distribution of resources in a fair and equitable manner

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