Culture is one of those words that is difficult to explain and differs according to its use and context, even within academic disciplines. Culture, according to one source, is defined as “the collective programming of the human mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from those of another. Culture in this sense is a system of collectively held values” (Hofstede, 1991). Culture also includes “ a learned set of shared interpretations about beliefs, values, norms and social practices which affect behaviors of a relatively large group of people” (Lustig & Koester). For the purposes of this text, culture refers to the set of beliefs, customs and rituals shared by a group of individuals. This may refer to a group of people who identify with a certain place (such as indiginous groups) or with a particular religion (such as people who identify as Jewish). As an intern, you may meet people from a variety of cultures–some you may share yourself, some you may be familiar with, and some that are new. This can create challenges for you on a daily basis.

Understanding what culture means is not easy when a society is composed of several racial and ethnic groups with a long history of subjugation and marginalization. Since the 1790 census, the United State’s racial and ethnic diversity has grown exponentially. The latest U.S. Census (2020) shows the following racial and ethnic makeup:

• 57.8% White
• 16.3% Hispanic or Latino (of any race)
• 12.6% Black or African American
• 6.2% are other races
• 4.8% Asian
• 2.9% two or more races
• 0.9% American Indian and Alaska Native
• 0.2% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander

As you can see from this data, almost half of the population is “non-White,” yet this population is over represented in all social deficits, such as poverty, incarceration, homicide, and low medical care measures. The graphic in figure 4.1 shows how the demographic of the US have changed over the past twenty years.

Figure 4.1 This chart demonstrates the growing diversity of the US population

Cultural identity in the United States is inextricably linked to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Throughout the nation’s history, cultural identity has been a divisive force that prevented access to resources, rights, and benefits to those who did not conform with the predominant racial majority. This historical dynamic has shaped the identity of the nation.

4.2.1 Using an Equity Lens

As an intern, you will be encouraged to use an equity lens when working with clients. An equity lens involves creating the conditions that will enable the underserved and marginalized populations to advance toward a more economically and socially equitable level as that enjoyed by the dominant classes (Equity Lens, 2019).

Recent changes in the United States’ diverse population and its representation in public and private institutions show more people of color holding positions of power than in previous generations. But that does not mean that people of color in the United States have reached parity, that is, the same level that the dominant classes enjoy with regards to socio-economic status. Disparities continue across the nation. These disparities adversely affect the marginalized, those who have systematically encountered greater socioeconomic barriers to employment, housing, and health care simply because, of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, physical disability, sexual orientation, or other characteristics historically associated with discriminatory or exclusionary practices.

The United States has become more segregated, both economically and racially in recent decades. In 1970, 15% of families in the country lived in neighborhoods where residents were either quite rich or quite poor, yet 40 years later, that figure had more than doubled, with a third of households living in economically segregated communities . Economic inequality in the United States has returned to levels not seen for more than 90 years in part because of continued “white flight,” or purposeful relocation of White Americans from racially diverse urban areas to predominantly white suburbs. U.S. schools are becoming more segregated at the same time the country’s population is becoming more diverse (journal Sociological Science).

The concept of the equity lens has been applied in the educational field but also has other applications for the inclusion of oppressed populations, in other words the least served and underrepresented segments of society. Using an equity lens, you can focus on understanding what equity work is required to address individual and group needs and how you can best serve those most impacted by inequity and historical neglect.

4.2.2 Looking at the Micro, Mezzo, and Macro levels

The previous section showed how equity is addressed by removing barriers to opportunities. The following section looks at individuals in their own setting. We humans are by nature social and need considerable interaction with our caregivers and our social environment to fully develop physically and mentally. To study the development of an individual based on the genetic inheritance (nature) and the external or environmental factors contributing or hindering the individual’s growth and development potential (nurturing), the bioecological model of human development has been used to look at this interaction. This model was first proposed by Russian-American developmental psychologist Uri Bronfrenbrenner as an extension of his theoretical model of human development, called ecological systems theory. You can use this model to analyze the issues faced by your clients–how are these problems created or sustained at the different levels, as well as how can you create solutions at the different levels?

Bronfrenbrenner’s model uses a set of concentric circles to describe the interaction between the individual (e.g., child) and their environment as represented by various systems within larger systems that shape the development of the individual over time (figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2 Bronfrenbrenner’s ecological systems model shows the interaction between the micro, mezzo, and macro levels.

The bioecological model consists of the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. In social work, only the microsystem, mesosystem (or mezzosystem in social work and human services), and macrosystem are used for the major areas of human interactions

When analyzing human poverty, sociologists look at individuals in their social setting of family and friends, or the microsystem. The poverty that the family experiences is the result of inability to access the services and resources offered by the community. When looking at a population from a meso-level research perspective, social scientists study groups, including teams, units, and organizations working on behalf of a population. Macro-level research delves deeper into the broader, more influential spheres of society, such as the political-administrative environment, which may include national government institutions or systems, regulating bodies, and even cultures. In essence, the individual belongs in the microsystem; the organizations, city services, and support are in the mesosystem; and the largest system which makes all the inner systems function properly is the macro system—the largest most powerful institutions, cultural and societal beliefs, gender norms, and religious influence.

4.2.3 Using the SHARP Framework

The SHARP framework is a structured analysis used by human services and social workers to examine and identify the sources of oppression and societal structures that continue to negatively affect the lives and the quality of life of their clients (Shaia, n.d.). This model can help you look at what sources may be contributing to the issues addressed by your agency. SHARP stands for the following functions:

• S: Structural oppression
• H: Historical context
• A: Analysis of role
• R: Reciprocity and mutuality
• P: Power

The graphic in figure 4.3 shows the framework’s application to poverty and oppression and the resulting consequences.

Figure 4.3 A visual representation of the SHARP framework can help you understand the importance of context

4.2.4 Understanding Intersectionality

Articulated by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991), the concept of intersectionality identifies a mode of analysis integral to women, gender, sexuality studies. An understanding of intersectionality is also critical for those working in human services, and those interested in social justice. Within intersectional frameworks, race, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, and other aspects of identity are considered mutually constitutive; that is, people experience these multiple aspects of identity simultaneously and the meanings of different aspects of identity are shaped by one another. In other words, notions of gender and the way a person’s gender is interpreted by others are always impacted by notions of race and the way that person’s race is interpreted. For example, a person is never received as just a woman, but how that person is racialized impacts how the person is received as a woman. So, notions of blackness, brownness, and whiteness always influence gendered experience, and there is no experience of gender that is outside of an experience of race. In addition to race, gendered experience is also shaped by age, sexuality, class, and ability; likewise, the experience of race is impacted by gender, age, class, sexuality, and ability.

Understanding intersectionality requires a particular way of thinking. It is different from how many people imagine identities operate. An intersectional analysis of identity is distinct from single-determinant identity models and additive models of identity. A single determinant model of identity presumes that one aspect of identity, say, gender, dictates one’s access to or disenfranchisement from power. An example of this idea is the concept of “global sisterhood,” or the idea that all women across the globe share some basic common political interests, concerns, and needs (Morgan 1996). If women in different locations did share common interests, it would make sense for them to unite on the basis of gender to fight for social changes on a global scale. Unfortunately, if the analysis of social problems stops at gender, what is missed is an attention to how various cultural contexts shaped by race, religion, and access to resources may actually place some women’s needs at cross-purposes to other women’s needs. Therefore, this approach obscures the fact that women in different social and geographic locations face different problems. Although many white, middle-class women activists of the mid-20th century US fought for freedom to work and legal parity with men, this was not the major problem for women of color or working-class white women who had already been actively participating in the US labor market as domestic workers, factory workers, and slave laborers since early US colonial settlement. Campaigns for women’s equal legal rights and access to the labor market at the international level are shaped by the experience and concerns of white American women, while women of the global south, in particular, may have more pressing concerns: access to clean water, access to adequate health care, and safety from the physical and psychological harms of living in tyrannical, war-torn, or economically impoverished nations.

In contrast to the single-determinant identity model, the additive model of identity simply adds together privileged and disadvantaged identities for a slightly more complex picture. For instance, a Black man may experience some advantages based on his gender, but has limited access to power based on his race. An Asian man may experience some privileges based on his gender, but face oppression due to using a wheelchair, or experiencing an unseen disability.

The additive model does not take into account how our shared cultural ideas of gender are racialized and our ideas of race are gendered and that these ideas structure access to resources and power—material, political, interpersonal. Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (2005) has developed a strong intersectional framework through her discussion of race, gender, and sexuality in her historical analysis of representations of Black sexuality in the US. Hill Collins shows how contemporary white American culture exoticizes Black men and women and she points to a history of enslavement and treatment as chattel as the origin and motivator for the use of these images. In order to justify slavery, African-Americans were thought of and treated as less than human. Sexual reproduction was often forced among slaves for the financial benefit of plantation owners, but owners reframed this coercion and rape as evidence of the “natural” and uncontrollable sexuality of people from the African continent. Images of Black men and women were not completely the same, as Black men were constructed as hypersexual “bucks” with little interest in continued relationships whereas Black women were framed as hypersexual “Jezebels” that became the “matriarchs” of their families. Again, it is important to note how the context, where enslaved families were often forcefully dismantled, is often left unacknowledged and contemporary racialized constructions are assumed and framed as individual choices or traits. It is shockingly easy to see how these images are still present in contemporary media, culture, and politics, for instance, in discussions of American welfare programs. This analysis reveals how race, gender, and sexuality intersect. We cannot simply pull these identities apart because they are interconnected and mutually reinforcing.

Although the framework of intersectionality has contributed important insights to feminist analyses, there are problems. Intersectionality refers to the mutually co-constitutive nature of multiple aspects of identity, yet in practice this term is typically used to signify the specific difference of “women of color,” which effectively produces women of color (and in particular, Black women) as Other and again centers white women (Puar 2012). In addition, the framework of intersectionality was created in the context of the United States; therefore, the use of the framework reproduces the United States as the dominant site of feminist inquiry and women’s studies’ Euro-American bias (Puar 2012). Another failing of intersectionality is its premise of fixed categories of identity, where descriptors like race, gender, class, and sexuality are assumed to be stable. A truly intersectional approach would include the more nuanced issues faced by people who identify as non-binary, trans, multi-racial, or other more fluid categories.

An intersectional perspective examines how identities are related to each other in our own experiences and how the social structures of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and ability intersect for everyone. As opposed to single-determinant and additive models of identity, an intersectional approach develops a more sophisticated understanding of the world and how individuals in differently situated social groups experience differential access to both material and symbolic resources.

An understanding of intersectionality is important for interns because it helps you understand that, even if your clients are experiencing a common problem (like poverty), this doesn’t mean that they are all experiencing this issue the same. Likewise, your own experience as an intern will be influenced by the identities that you recognize. Some classmates will experience their fieldwork differently because of their own intersecting identities. You may have experienced the same issue your clients are dealing with (such as poverty, illness, or unplanned pregnancy), but that does not mean that your experiences are the same. It pays to be cautious about making assumptions about others’ experiences, and to be aware of how our own identities are influencing our own view of the world.