Social Work Reflection

Reflection is a vital part of social work education or practice. Reflection allows for serious thought and consideration regarding past experiences. Those thoughts and considerations can then be used to better yourself in multiple different ways. Over the past semester, I have reflected on my personal social identities and socialization experiences regarding gay men who reside in America. I have also reflected on different aspects of diversity through participation in weekly discussion posts. These discussion posts have also allowed me to explore different ways of thinking with the added bonus of allotting time to work on writing skills. This reflection time has led me to a place where I could decide what my social action plan will be for

These groups have social identities they characterize themselves with. I chose to further study gay men living in America. Gay men in the US have been an unprotected social group that being afraid of discrimination and violence preferred to live in the shadow. Over the last decade, the lives of gay men have changed drastically but the identity, gay, is still considered to be an oppressed identity. This is because of the way individuals have been socialized in America. Socialization is the practice of learning the norms in one's culture in order to conform to society (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2012). Personally, my family socialized me with the mindset that we would love someone no less if they happened to be a person who is gay. On the other hand, society has socialized me to believe that people who are gay are less than others and should be oppressed. People, who are straight, are oppressing people who are gay by slamming shut doors of opportunity (Adams, Blumenfeld, Castaneda, Hackman, Peters, & Zuniga,

A social action plan consists of first identifying an issue then using your knowledge and power to potentially fix or better the issue for ones who are suffering (Adams et al., 2013). This past semester, during this class, and during my volunteer practicum at Nathaniel Bowditch School has made me realize how many children suffer from ageism. According to John Bell, adultism is simply when adults think they are better than children (Adams et al., 2013). I see this happen all too often. Ageism is something we can all relate to, considering all adults have been young at one point. Children are not taken seriously due to adults believing everything they say is coming from their imagination. Individuals need to realize that children are essentially sponges; they soak up everything individuals around them say. It is essential for children to be taken more seriously. They need to know; regardless of age everyone has something to offer. Every individual comes with value and worth. It may take a bit more work to investigate something to see if a child is speaking the truth but that extra effort will be worth it if a child's life is on the line. I plan on making my change through first educating myself then bringing my education to not only my own workplace but on a large spectrum workplaces all over who are working with