SWK 508 - Disparities, Diversity, and Inclusion

(3 credits)

Prerequisites: SWK 501 & SWK 502 or Advanced Standing admission. Co-requisites: SWK 506 & SWK 507 or permission of instructor. This course focuses on complex issues related to disparities within diverse minority sub-populations, including the intersectionality of multiple factors that may include, but are not limited to, race and ethnicity, age, class, color, culture, disability and ability, physical and emotional challenges, gender, gender expression, immigration status, marital status, political ideology, religion/spirituality, sex, sexual orientation, and tribal sovereignty and status, socioeconomic status, as well as implicit and explicit biases. Students will learn the extent to which cultural values, social, economic, political, and cultural exclusion have oppressed, marginalized, alienated, or created privilege and power for select populations expressed historically through personal, institutional and societal attitudes, language and behaviors, established practices, policies, procedures, customs, and laws. Systems level issues will be covered addressing disparities resulting in oppression, poverty, marginalization, alienation, and historical trauma experienced by these diverse subpopulations. Students develop knowledge and skill values by gaining self-awareness and self-regulation that will manage the influence of personal biases and values in working with diverse clients and constituencies and how understanding disparities can enhance cultural competence in working with diverse populations, and becoming more inclusive by using strategies designed to remove structural barriers to ensure social goods are distributed equitably and protecting human rights.

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