Personality Test Update: I am a Defender (ISFJ)

It has been nearly four years since I had last taken a personality test. At the time, my results came back as an Advocate (INFJ). However, my employment history changed since that time frame -- new job, more responsibilities, and greater confidence in my skills and abilities. My specialty area narrowed from higher education to legal education. Thus, I believed this was the right time to complete another personality test.

According to the 16Personalities.com, I am a Defender (ISFJ-A).

ISFJ: Intuitive, Sensing, Feeling, and Judging-Assertive Role: Sentinel
Strategy: Confident Individualism

Defenders are true altruists, meeting kindness with kindness-in-excess and engaging the work and people they believe in with enthusiasm and generosity.

Combining the best of tradition and the desire to do good, Defenders are found in lines of work with a sense of history behind them, such as medicine, academics and charitable social work.

Few personality types are as practical and dedicated as Defenders. Known for their reliability and altruism, Defenders are good at creating and maintaining a secure and stable environment for themselves and their loved ones. Defenders’ dedication is invaluable in many areas, including their own personal growth.

Below is a breakdown of the ISTJ personality type:

• Introversion: Defenders tend to spend time alone or with small, familiar groups of friends. They expend energy in social situations, but need to recharge when by themselves.
• Sensing: Defenders tend to focus on immediate needs rather than future possibilities. They value realism and common sense, and they like ideas with practical applications.
• Feeling: Defenders make decisions based on their principles and values. They give more weight to social implications than logic, especially in cases where personal considerations or feelings are concerned. 
• Judging: Defenders prefer to make decisions early, predict outcomes, and stick to plans. Their lives are structured -- predictability is their preference over spontaneity.  
• Assertive: Assertive Defenders are generally more confidently proactive and thus are more visible. They have a greater likelihood of receiving recognition for accomplishments.

Defenders have a strong desire to serve and protect others. People with the ISFJ personality type are known to be hardworking, reliable, supportive, organized, observant, and emotionally intelligent to feelings around them. They are kind, loyal, and considerate. Furthermore, they value traditions and history highly in their decisions.

While Defenders prefer to work in solitary environments, they also appreciate working with others. They also thrive in service-oriented occupations that require caring for others and utilizes their exceptional skills in problem-solving tasks. While they prefer to avoid the limelight, they want to be appreciated for their contributions. Lastly, they get satisfaction from closure and enjoy completing tasks.

By their very nature, Defenders are humble, persistent, and dedicated workers. They are also not afraid of mundane and necessary tasks, especially if it means those small tasks can help lead them to a greater goal. As for weaknesses, people with the ISFJ personality type tend to dislike change, prefer to work with people over numbers, have trouble with conflict, may neglect their own needs (e.g., shy away from expressing their own emotions), and may take criticism too seriously.

These results underscore the progress I have made in my own personal and career development in the last five years. I was a young idealist in graduate school, but I was not sure on what I wanted to do with my life. Since then, I gained skills and experience at several mission-driven nonprofits. I am more self-aware of my own work style. After reflecting on my career history to date, I listed these strengths:

• I am selfless, resourceful, empathetic, and imaginative. 
• I flourish in positive work environments that provide stability.
• I prefer organizations whose missions align with my values.
• I enjoy providing practical solutions to problems.  
• I consider myself a detailed-oriented person who takes it upon herself to make sure the job gets done well. 
• I like feeling appreciated for the work that I put into improving processes within the organization.

What is your personality type? Share in the comments section.

2018: A Year of Commemorating Civil Rights

Happy New Year! 2018 was an incredibly busy year for me. It marked a major comeback for me in education. I am looking forward to spending more time building up this blog. I have exciting things planned for 2019. Expect more updates and posts on this blog. Before we start the new year, I want to reflect on an incredible year. 2018 was also a year to commemorate important events in civil rights history in America. More importantly, they were related to my research interests. Check them out below!

1. 50th Anniversary of the Kerner Commission Report: Formally known as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, the Kerner Commission, named after its chair, Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. of Illinois, was an 11-member Presidential Commission established by President Lyndon B. Johnson in Executive Order 11365 to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and to provide recommendations for the future. This report was significant because Detroit was one of the cities that influenced the establishment of this government study.
   
   
   
   
2. 50th Anniversary of the Fair Housing Act: Known as the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination by direct providers of housing whose discriminatory practices make housing unavailable to persons because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability.
   
   
3. 50th anniversary of the Poor People's Campaign: The Poor People's March on Washington was a 1968 effort to gain economic justice for poor people in the United States. It was organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and carried out under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy in the wake of King's assassination.
   
   

In 2018, my alma mater, Northwestern University, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Bursar's Office Takeover. I visited the campus last summer to learn more about the legacy and impact of the student sit-in on the university. In 1968, more than 100 Northwestern students peacefully occupied the Bursar’s Office to protest the black student experience. It led to increasing black student enrollment and financial aid, to revised housing policies, to the expansion of “studies of black history and black culture,” among others. I would argue that this event inspired me to learn more about civil rights and social justice in college and beyond.

To learn more about the history of the black student experience at Northwestern University, please check out this recent book release, Voices and Visions: The Evolution of the Black Experience at Northwestern University (2018).

This volume shares the experiences of African American students, faculty, staff, administrators and alumni who studied, worked, struggled and triumphed at Northwestern University from the late 19th century to the present. Through over fifty first person accounts, the stories of individuals and groups critical to the progression of the Black experience at Northwestern are used to reveal that evolution."

Obama Should Have Done More for Black Americans

In November 2008, I watched the television screen as Barack Obama was elected as the first black president of the United States. His charismatic message of hope and change resonated with many Americans. I thought that maybe the most pressing problems facing black Americans will finally be addressed. The Great Recession of 2007-2008 had virtually wiped out the savings of most black households. No one in Detroit knew for sure if the American automotive industry (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler) would survive.

Looking back eight years later, I had a lot of high expectations in Obama. However, I should have known that Obama could not reverse three centuries of racial discrimination in just eight years. Yet, I cannot help that a lot of the optimism and admiration that black Americans entrusted in Obama went unfulfilled. While my family dismissed my pessimism, I cringed when Obama preferred incremental policies that did not address the root of the problems that still plague black Americans: higher unemployment rate regardless of educational attainment than whites, stubbornly high poverty rate, a mass incarceration crisis, under-resourced public schools, and a widening racial wealth gap.

William A. Darity, Jr. explained so eloquently in his must-read The Atlantic op-ed: "Leaders who look like you do not necessarily act in ways that benefit you." Obama did more for immigrants and the LGBT community than blacks who desperately looked up to him as a savior to their plight in the inner city. His successor, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, focused her campaign on three issues--women's rights (e.g., equal pay for equal work, family paid leave, and reproductive rights), amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and support for LGBT rights (including same-sex marriage)--that had little to do with combatting institutional and structural racism.

Many of Obama's executive orders did not help working-class Americans suffering from wage stagnation and free trade policies. Sure, the cost of gasoline is lower now but the cost of housing and health care premiums continues to increase exponentially. In addition, Obama was no friend to organized labor, having never met with the union leaders during his entire presidency. The Democratic national leadership failed to understand that a campaign focused primarily on political correctness and identity liberalism (race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality) runs the risk of ignoring the widening income inequality between the rich and the poor. America was turning into a serfdom society with a shrinking middle class and expanding working poor.

Nonetheless, I was delighted that Obama broke the color barrier in the U.S. presidency. This symbolic moment inspired so many black Americans to not lose hope on their native land. But I wished that Obama had done more to reduce the poverty rate in black communities, especially in Chicago. His leadership failed to provide blacks in the Midwestern cities with decent-paying jobs. Let us hope that President-elect Donald Trump delivers on his proposed pledge, the New Deal for Black America.

Origin of Affirmative Action

In a 4-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld affirmative action in college admissions. The court approved the University of Texas' use of a student's race as one of several factors in admissions for a portion of each entering class. This decision follows the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger case.

For several decades, affirmative action has been mislabeled as "quotas", "preferences" or "handouts that give out unfair advantage" by opponents who advocate for more colorblind approaches, such as class rank or socioeconomic status. However, recent government reports from the Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Department of Education revealed that we are far from a colorblind society. In reality, women and racial/ethnic minorities--especially African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans--continue to face insidious discriminatory barriers in educational, employment and economic opportunities. Breaking down these racial and gender barriers remains an ongoing national priority.

What is affirmative action? Why is affirmative action important? Here are six interesting facts that everyone should know about its origin.

1. The term, "affirmative action", is rooted in U.S. employment law. To take an "affirmative action" was to act affirmatively, i.e. not allowing events to run their course but rather having the government or employers take an active role in treating employees fairly.

2. One of the earliest sightings of the term "affirmative action" is the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (better known as the Wagner Act). Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, this legislation established the National Labor Relations Board and collective bargaining, as well as decreeing that employers engaged in practicing discriminatory labor laws would be required “...to take such affirmative action including reinstatement of employees with or without backpay...”. Many private sector employers opposed this legislation. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Wagner Act in 1937.

3. President John F. Kennedy would become the first president to connect the term “affirmative action” with its contemporary connotation of a policy seeking to ensure racial equality. On May, 6, 1961, in Executive Order 10925, Kennedy called on government contractors to "...take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."
   President Lyndon B. Johnson's Commencement Speech at Howard University in Washington, DC, June 4, 1965

4. The phrase “affirmative action” entered the public discussion after President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11246 on September 28, 1965. This order demanded that federal contractors and subcontractors "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin." In 1966, Johnson then established the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) in the U.S. Department of Labor to ensure that contractors followed Executive Order 11246.

5. The Harvard Plan is considered one of the earliest and most effective affirmative action plans in the country. Walter J. Leonard, the architect of the Harvard Plan, worked out a formula in which race was considered, among other factors, in the admission process. It resulted in growing numbers of minority students and women at the law school and broadened the diversity of the university’s faculty and staff members. The Harvard Plan became a blueprint for colleges and universities trying to reflect the country’s growing diversity.

6. While the U.S. Supreme declared quotas violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, race-based affirmative action was declared constitutional in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978). Race could be used as a factor in applications to promote diversity in education. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of race as one of several factors in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007), and Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (2016).

Several research studies have shown that minority students are more likely to excel and graduate within six years at elite colleges and universities. Affirmative action does not harm minority students--racial isolation does. Justice Kennedy's pivotal vote in Fisher II assures colleges and universities will continue to have the right to shape their student bodies in a way that better reflects the diversity of American society.

For Black Graduate Students, Does Pursuing an Advanced Degree Matter After Ferguson? (Vitae)

Unlike their white and Asian peers, black graduate students must grapple with how does their intellectual work matter when society views blacks, particularly black men, with contempt. Several black PhD students struggle with balancing their intellectual pursuits and urge to engage in activism -- service that could enhance their research and personal development as emerging minority scholars in academe. These concerns -- what does it mean to be black on campus and in America? should students ignore or fight against systemic racism? -- adds stress, anxiety, and fear.

Watching and reading about the killing of Michael Brown—followed by the indelible scenes of tear-gas canisters and armored tanks—she looked down at her research on theoretical cosmology and thought to herself: “I can’t do this.”

“Who cares about cosmic inflation during the first seconds of the universe’s existence when black people are getting shot left and right by police officers and vigilantes?” she remembers thinking. “I felt guilty. I wanted to go to Ferguson. I wanted to be a body in the streets and a barrier between the police and my people.”

SJS: The Next Step to Reinvest in Social Work

This is a very well-written piece from Social Justice Solutions. I agree that the social work profession needs a serious reinvestment (and revamping) to better serve the needs of graduates who endure low pay and high student loan debt. Furthermore, the profession needs to better serve the needs of the disadvantaged both at the local and policy level.

The trouble is that it’s difficult to be a social worker. On the job we face high volume case loads, long hours, and crisis after crisis that leaves providers emotionally and physically exhausted. Unfortunately, these aren’t the only obstacles we face. Social workers are mental health practioners who are required to have a Masters level education and usually obtain licensure in their respective states. They work towards continuing education hours and often attend conferences and trainings for specializations. Despite this specialized skillset, social workers continue to make the list of the lowest paid professionals whether it is on Forbes, career-advice, or the Bureau of labor statistics. In addition, social workers graduate with an average of over $35,000 in student loan debt. The combination of low pay and high loan amount means that social workers are having trouble keeping their heads above water. While a few loan forgiveness programs exist, few offer real availability for jobs without relocating, or have starting salaries well below the average. Some areas are also excluded from any forgiveness or reimbursement programs that are available, despite high needs, or at risk populations.

Support the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act by contacting your legislators today!

AlterNet: Are Corporations Trying to Distract Us with Social Issues While They Take Control of Our Economy?

This AlterNet article is so timely (thank you!) that I wish people would wake up and realize that conservatives are taking advantage of controversial social issues such as gay marriage and reproductive rights to promote a conservative economic agenda that would widen the gap between the rich and the poor.

Politicians in the “liberal Kansas” school are increasingly outspoken on issues like reproductive choice and gay marriage, while at the same time continuing to promote their corporate economic agenda. Many, if not most, of them are so-called "centrist" Democrats from the Bill Clinton wing of the party. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat turned Republican, is also a prominent member of the “personally liberal, economically conservative” clique.

They’re not alone. I’ve known more than a few corporate leaders and Wall Street executives, and most of them were quite liberal on social issues too. It makes sense, when you think about it. When your goal is money, you’re not likely to care what people do with their bodies – as long you get their wallets.

...

Democrats campaigned on populist themes in 2012 campaign. But as soon as the election was over the party’s leaders returned to what Frank described in 2004 as “endless concessions on economic issues, on welfare, NAFTA, Social Security, labor law, privatization, deregulation, and the rest of it.”

Since his re-election, Barack Obama has proposed to cut Social Security, echoed the deficit hysteria of the right, continued to negotiate NAFTA-like trade deals in secret (hidden from Congress and the public but available to 600 “corporate advisors”), and continued to privatize the military/national security state. (He has also pursued the most aggressive anti-whistleblower presidential campaign in American history.)

Paul Krugman Op-Ed: War on the Unemployed

Paul Krugman wrote an excellent editorial in the New York Times about the conservative attack on the unemployed. When I read his opinion, I wondered what happened to the importance of human conscience and dignity. Why must the poor be punished for being unemployed and underemployed in American society? Jobs do not appear out of thin air. The Great Recession is an example of that. Businesses should not receive kickbacks and tax breaks at the expenses of the poor, schools, seniors, and families. The very founding of this nation was not based on money, greed, and fear. Our founding fathers created a democratic nation based on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Somehow, our elected officials have lost track of the meaning of these important words...

Is life too easy for the unemployed? You may not think so, and I certainly don’t think so. But that, remarkably, is what many and perhaps most Republicans believe. And they’re acting on that belief: there’s a nationwide movement under way to punish the unemployed, based on the proposition that we can cure unemployment by making the jobless even more miserable.

Reflections on Second Semester in Higher Education Master's Program

I am officially on summer break from graduate school. I earned a 4.0 GPA for the winter semester (woo-hoo!). This was a very stressful semester (one of my classes alone assigned nearly 300 pages of reading per week!), but I am thrilled with the progress I have made in the higher education master's program. I also enrolled in a second doctoral course about the sociology of race, ethnicity and immigration. Despite my initial concerns in the first month, I was encouraged to write critical analyses of social theories and apply them to historical and contemporary issues. This course also demonstrated that I have the preparation to apply to doctoral programs in the future. I have learned so much about myself and have a finer grasp of my academic and professional interests. I know that I want to eventually pursue a career in higher education administration and policy. I also like studying social problems and proposing socially-just policy recommendations. Currently, my academic interests are access and equity, diversity in higher education, social justice education, student retention, and community engagement. I am leaning towards pursuing a career in academic and educational affairs (the curricular component in higher education). Meanwhile, I have (less than) four months of freedom to catch up on book reviews, reflect on my own personal development, and pursue my hobbies in this gorgeous warm weather. It is my time to  relax at my own pace. I will resume graduate school in September 2013.

Social Work Problem #4: The Profession Suffers from an Identity Crisis

“The field, for those who know it and know it well, has this long and powerful historic image of  social justice, organizational leadership, and policy influence. But for the vast public, social work  gets muddied together with personal care, care-giving, and various non-professional human services roles. In the broader public, social work does not have the identity and status necessary to motivate many of the best and the brightest to join our profession," - Edward F. Lawlor


“We should take great pride in the work we do on the micro side — such as mental health, where we have our largest numbers of social workers. But we should also take pride in the macro practice that affects policy and organizations." - Wynne Sandra Korr

These quotes are from Social Impact, a publication based at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. The article highlights several common challenges facing the social work profession--recruitment, pay, status, funding, social influence, and brand ("who is a social worker?"). More importantly, the public image of social work is critical because it affects how elected officials, employers, clients, and the general public views its overall value to society. Unfortunately, national social work organizations continue to struggle with developing a unifying professional identity that encompasses both micro and macro content. In this post, I will discuss the fourth and final major problem: the social work profession suffers from an identity crisis.

Since the 1970s, a neoliberal political ideology emerged in the United States that promoted individualism, deregulation and privatization through free markets. Instead of building a meaningful safety net for the poor through progressive social policies, this political ideology proclaimed that the poor should take "personal responsibility" for their own circumstances. As a result, the administration of welfare shifted from a federal role to a state role through reform programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The neoliberal movement would have a devastating impact on social workers' ability to help poor families and to advocate for themselves.

Social work is at a crossroads. The general public typically perceives social workers as therapists, caseworkers, "child snatchers," and caregivers. They are unaware that social workers are also administrators, program managers, community organizers, and policy analysts. The average person would be surprised to learn that early social workers were involved in labor unions and social policy development. In social service agencies, social workers are underpaid, under-appreciated, and over-worked because society places little value in the work that they do with marginalized populations---a vulnerable group that needs access to steady employment, parenting workshops, post-secondary education, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, and domestic violence programs. Furthermore, social workers have become so obsessed with Freudian psychoanalytic theory and other evidence-based practices that the profession has lost touch with the widening economic and social disparities between the (very) rich and the poor. Few social workers address income inequality in professional practice.

The current structure of social work competes with other mental health fields, such as counseling, marriage and family therapy, and psychiatry. This is very disturbing because social work was founded to enhance the well-being of the poor and disadvantaged. Through field-specific interventions, social workers can propose policies and services that will aid in reducing poverty and improving the quality of life for all citizens. For instance, I would love to see social workers organize and conduct research around increasing the federal minimum wage. Wages and public assistance has not kept up with the rising cost of food, housing and transportation. This would help thousands of families work their way out of concentrated poverty, yet social workers are absent from this discussion. Instead, social work has become a profession that engages in social control. The profession adopted (and continues to use) therapy as the dominant treatment in addressing behavioral and social problems among clients (who are disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities). The consequence is most social workers do not challenge the social systems that perpetuate poverty and inequality in the U.S.

Bottom line: I believe social workers should include both micro (human behavior) and macro (social change) perspectives in professional practice. That is what make the field so unique from the other helping professions: its orientation around social justice. However, social work is unbalanced due to its overemphasis on clinical/health training. Social work thus suffers an identity crisis because it is attempting to be another field (clinical or health-focused) that was not originally part of its mission. As a result, the general public has no clear understanding of what social workers do.

How can social work become a more balanced field? Federal and state governments need to allocate better funding and resources that will improve the delivery of social services. The enactment of progressive social policies will ensure that low- and middle-income families have the means to achieve upward social mobility. Social workers can advocate for these groups through information and referral, lobbying, scholarship, and evaluation. Altogether, these efforts will enhance the visibility and status of social work as a profession fully committed to its mission--to promote social justice and social change with and on behalf of clients.

Read the rest of the posts in this series:

• Social Work Problem #1: Lack of Professional Support for Macro-Practice Social Workers
• Social Work Problem #2: Too Much Focus on Professionalization, Not Enough Focus on Social Justice
• Social Work Problem #3: The Curriculum Discourages the Recruitment of Men and Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Social Work Problem #3: The Curriculum Discourages the Recruitment of Men and Racial/Ethnic Minorities

The third major problem with the social work profession is that the curriculum discourages the recruitment of men and racial/ethnic minorities. Social work, like most helping professions, is less ethnically and racially diverse than the U.S. population. According to the NASW Center for Workforce Studies, the majority of licensed social workers are Non-Hispanic White women (86%) whose client population fall within the broad category of disenfranchised populations, including a disproportionate number of people of color (i.e., Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander American, and American Indian/Alaskan Native). The remainder of the social work workforce is Black/African American (8%), Hispanic/Latino (3%), or "Other" (3%). The majority of male social workers are increasingly near retirement age and represent less than one in ten social workers. Fewer younger men perceive social work as a viable career option. The steady decline of men in the profession since the 1970s may inadvertently affect access to decision makers (e.g., elected officials) and reinforce outdated beliefs that social services is a natural field for women.

The growing homogeneity of the social work workforce presents three problems. First, the NASW Code of Ethics insists that social workers "obtain education about and seek to understand the nature of social diversity and oppression with respect to race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, political belief, religion, and mental or physical disability." Social workers are trained in cultural competence, yet the profession as a whole doesn't reflect what it preaches. Second, professions that are perceived as pink-collar occupations (predominately female) in American society are typically stressful, marginalized, and underpaid. These careers are also seen as less demanding and prestigious by the general public. Third, a combination of social and political factors (judicial and legislative limitations to affirmative action, changing immigration patterns, welfare reform, restrictions on federal financial aid, etc.) can hinder access to higher education for disadvantaged groups. This can result in social work enrollments that remain radically different from the actual racial-ethnic distribution of society (Schilling et al., 2008). Given these realities, social work educators and practitioners must develop strategies to attract more men and students of color into the profession.

The lack of diversity in the profession is a major concern for the future of social work. In order to fully address this problem, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), which handles accreditation and curricular guidelines for BSW and MSW programs, and the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB), which handles the design and distribution of social work exams for state licensure, should consider these three recommendations.  

1. Decrease the number of hours students must complete in field instruction. Social work is the only profession that requires students to achieve a high numerical minimum (at least 900 hours) in the field before graduation. I believe this hurts recruitment because other more prestigious professions don't require such rigorous standards. Social work should return to its previous minimum of 500 hours so that more prospective students become interested in the field.  
2. Permit social work programs to offer part-time or extended degree options to accommodate working professionals. Most MSW programs require students to enroll full-time. This leaves little flexibility for students to choose a program that is the best fit for their circumstances. A part-time option could be attractive to prospective and current students who are raising families or need to rely on employer-sponsored health insurance.  
3. Request ASWB to redesign the Master's exam to cover both clinical and macro content. The current Master's exam format is clincally-oriented. This is a disservice to macro-practice social workers who want to apply for state licensure. A redesign of the Master's exam could eventually encourage CSWE to emphasize more macro content in advanced coursework and force more state boards of social work to offer a macro practice license.

By increasing the number of licensed macro-practice social workers, these recommendations could eventually increase the number of macro-practice field placements in social work schools. This would then raise the visibility and status (both its importance and value) of macro practice within social work schools, prospective students, and the general public.

Bottom line: Since 1980, social work has become a predominately white female profession whose client population is predominately disadvantaged people of color.  These demographics show that social work is not meeting its social justice mission in recruitment and outreach. Accrediting bodies, such as CSWE and ASWB, must undergo curricular and administrative changes that will enhance this outreach and recruitment. This will help social work schools expand their macro-practice content and recruit more men and racial and ethnic minorities into the profession.

Source: Schilling, R.F., Morrish, J.N. & Liu, G (2008). Demographic trends in social work over a quarter-century in an increasingly female profession. Social Work, 53 (2) 103-114.

The NASW Center for Workforce Studies and Social Work Practice contains the latest demographic data on social workers by gender, race, and ethnicity.

Read the rest of the posts in this series:

• Social Work Problem #1: Lack of Professional Support for Macro-Practice Social Workers
• Social Work Problem #2: Too Much Focus on Professionalization, Not Enough Focus on Social Justice
• Social Work Problem #4: The Profession Suffers from an Identity Crisis

Social Work Problem #2: Too Much Focus on Professionalization, Not Enough Focus on Social Justice

The second major problem is too much focus on professionalization and not enough on social justice. The origins of the social work profession in the United States focused on casework (Mary Richmond's Charity Organization Society) and cause (Jane Addams' settlement house movement). What distinguished social work from the social sciences (sociology, psychology, etc.) was its strong focus on social justice, particularly around advocacy and social policy-making for disadvantaged populations. Early social workers, who gathered data to better understand the needs of individuals, families and local communities, contributed to the development of progressive state and federal legislation (juvenile justice system, social security, civil rights, War on Poverty programs, etc.).

Today, most American social workers have abandoned this social justice orientation for professionalization by concentrating in clinical practice. These clinical social workers are case managers, mental health specialists, and psychotherapists. Instead of advocating for more progressive economic and social policies, social workers have become an extension of the state--front-line workers who promote psychoanalytic social control interventions. This transition began in 1915 when Abraham Flexner, who was then the nation's leading authority on professional education, proclaimed that social work was not a profession because it lacked a written body of specialized knowledge and educational standards. Furthermore, he insisted that social workers were generalists without "decision-making authority." In the post-WWII period, casework (therapy and similar services to individuals and families) thus emerged as the dominant form of professional practice.

Most social work conversations today focus on licensure, title protection, and private practice rather than the continuous erosion of progressive social policy since the civil rights movement. Licensing requirements in most states only recognize clinical content and supervision, forcing many social work schools to provide content knowledge for that purpose at the detriment of macro social work courses. The Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) continues this trend by testing graduating students on their knowledge about clinical practice (Master's exam). What is more insulting is that 40% of the revised Advanced Generalist exam tests macro-practice social workers on knowledge about clinical practice (only 18% of the exam actually focus on macro practice questions). Macro practice has become so neglected and marginalized that the social work profession has lost sight of its true purpose--to improve the social conditions of disadvantaged communities through organizing, planning, and policy practice.

Therefore, it is not a coincidence that social workers are rarely called upon by the news media to discuss contemporary issues in social welfare policy. Instead, people who have little to no experience with the social services (e.g., journalists, economists, elected officials, lawyers, and even business folk) are considered the experts on the needs of the poor. Social workers have also abandoned policy practice to public policy schools, whose curriculum overwhelmingly favors quantitative approaches to policy-making. The problem with quantitative approaches is that data sets fail to capture the depth and insight of those impacted by government policies. Social workers are then expected to passively implement policies and services that often do more harm than good to the truly disadvantaged.
 
Bottom line: This shift from social justice to professionalization is often criticized by macro-practice social workers who feel their needs are underserved and ignored by social work schools, the state boards of social workers, and national associations (e.g., Council on Social Work Education,  National Association for Social Workers). We need more social workers (both clinical and macro practice) who have the knowledge and skills to address social and legal challenges in the 21st century. Families and communities need advocates who will represent their interests against powerful profit-driven special interests groups. Therefore, the social work profession should focus less on clinical practice and return to its social justice roots in organizing, planning, and policy practice.
 

Social Work Problem #1: Lack of Professional Support for Macro-Practice Social Workers

This month will focus on four major flaws that undermine the profession's ability to meet its mission. While I feel blessed to be an alumna of a top-ranked program that supports macro social work practice and research (Michigan), many students attending under-resourced and clinical-only MSW programs (the majority of MSW programs) lack access to macro content in the curriculum. This is detrimental to the students' learning as well as the social work profession's mission. It is critical that social workers recognize these setbacks and find ways that improve the profession's capacity to help everyone and not just a select few.

The first major problem is the lack of professional support for macro-practice social workers. When I browsed the titles for the upcoming social work conference in Michigan, a majority (~80%) of the sessions focused on mental health, pain management, health care, and psychotherapy. Since my MSW concentration was management and community practice (in educational settings), it was both frustrating and disappointing to see how social workers continue to ignore topics focusing on community organization, management, and policy practice. When social workers ignore its legacy of social activism in the early- and mid-twentieth century, the profession is not meeting its social justice mission.

What is macro social work? Macro social work focuses on changing larger social systems (i.e., communities, organizations, and society). It involves three broadly defined areas: community organization, management, and policy practice. Spectrum of practice includes outreach and recruitment, planning and program development, project management, community organizing, political and social advocacy, program evaluation, dialogue facilitation, grant-writing and fundraising, and internal organizational change. Social work graduates plan, implement, manage, and evaluate social welfare policies and programs in public and non-profit settings.

Since I began this blog, I have posted a lot about macro social work to inform readers and visitors that there is more to the social work profession than mental health, child welfare, and case management. One of the things I find most frustrating of all is the lack of continuing education courses (CEUs) addressing topics in community practice for licensed social workers. Licensed macro-practice social workers must often waste their time and money on CEUs that have nothing to do with his or her current employment. Macro-practice social workers also have to be entrepreneurial (networking among non-social workers, using alternative job titles such as outreach coordinator or policy analyst, and justifying how an MSW is valuable in a non-clinical setting) during their job search since most non-profit and public sector employers have no clue about our versatile (administrative, people-oriented, and social justice values) skills. This is due to neglect and marginalization of macro social work in the profession.

Schools of social work are required to teach clinical (working with individuals, families and small groups) and macro content in the foundation curriculum. Yet, students who want to concentrate in macro social work find themselves in the minority because clinical practice is the dominant (and in some cases the only) concentration. The fact that most students enter social work with clinical training in mind is also disappointing due to the poor visibility and absence of macro practice. It can also be difficult for social work students to find macro field placements due to the lack of qualified licensed macro-practice social workers. Some MSW students also pursue a second graduate degree (law, public policy, public health, education, etc.) to remain competitive in the eyes of employers. Finally, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) primarily offers content and support to clinical social workers. Macro-practice social workers should ignore NASW and register with the Association for Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA) and other professional associations related to their practice area (since my background is higher education, I have membership with ACPA--College Student Educators International because I want to pursue a career in academic and educational affairs). 

Bottom line: The social work profession cannot continue to act like it advocates for the disadvantaged when it does not offer professional support for macro-practice social workers. State boards of social work should recognize macro practice as a licensure option so that more social work students can receive field placements with macro-practice professionals. The social work profession needs macro-practice social workers, who work with communities and organizations to organize people, gather data, and present policies that improve society.

Read the rest of the posts in this series:

• Social Work Problem #2: Too Much Focus on Professionalization, Not Enough Focus on Social Justice
• Social Work Problem #3: The Curriculum Discourages the Recruitment of Men and Racial/Ethnic Minorities
• Social Work Problem #4: The Profession Suffers from an Identity Crisis

Reflections on Obama's Second Inauguration and Martin Luther King Day

The Presidential Inauguration was held in Washington, DC on Monday, January 21, 2013. The official theme for the 2013 inauguration was “Faith in America’s Future,” commemorating the United States’ perseverance and unity and marking the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

This Monday also marked the second time a presidential inauguration coincided with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The first time this happened was in 1997 at Bill Clinton's second inaugural ceremony. One of the two bibles U.S. President Obama used for the second inauguration belonged to Dr. King, and the second was a bible owned by the 16th U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln. I provide links to the video and transcript of the second inaugural address.

The year 2013 is significant for two reasons. First, the struggle for freedom and equality was made possible by the support of national figures, such as Lincoln and King. From the end of slavery to the dawn of the civil rights movement, African Americans and other allies risked their lives through nonviolent action and the courts to ensure that all Americans had access to voting rights, civil rights, and equal opportunity. African Americans (e.g., Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, Ella Baker, Whitney M. Young, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, etc.), as well as local people at the ground level (remember the college students in the Greensboro sit-ins?) pursued a path of self-determination with the goal of being recognized as equal citizens of this great nation.  

Second, we must remember that Lincoln and King were not always beloved by everyone. Both received assassination threats because their views challenged societal norms on racism. Lincoln was seen as a pariah for his decision to end slavery, and King was seen as a radical for his opposition to the Vietnam War. Both became saint-like heroes after their assassinations. We must remember that they made decisions during times where society as a whole did not support citizenship and equality for African Americans.

King always perceived himself first as a minster of the gospel. If you have listened to his last public speech, "I've Been to the The Mountaintop," King says these famous words: I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

That last line is from the opening of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. In the Bible, the people of Israel had to wander in the wilderness for forty years after Moses freed them from bondage in Egypt. His successor, Joshua, would eventually lead the people to the Promised Land. I believe that both Lincoln and King knew that they would not live to see the outcomes of their goals, but they had faith in the Lord that their efforts would not fail in vain. When I watched the 2008 and 2012 elections, I cried and shouted for joy because it was ordinary individuals (famous and non-famous) who risked their lives and paved the way for Barack Obama to become the first African-American president of the United States.
 
While we are living through tough economic times, 2013 marks a new beginning of hope and social progress. King's dream never ended in 1968; it continues to live on as long as Americans come together to make this great nation a place that embodies democracy, equality, and social justice for all.

Reflecting on my Higher Education Goals

In case this is your first time visiting my blog, I am currently pursuing a master's degree in higher education.  Previously, I recently completed my master's degree in social work (emphasis on macro practice, i.e. working with communities and organizations to effect social change). Although my original career interest was community interest, I began to explore diversity issues in higher education during my social work field placement. I had a strong desire to return to my educational roots (my undergraduate degree is in K-12 education policy) and decided to switch my career interest to higher education administration. I finished my first term in the higher education master's program with a 3.85 GPA (hoo-ray!). I am proud of this accomplishment because it made me realize that education could become my niche. My research and policy interests so far focus on these six areas:

• Access and equity
• Civic engagement
• Institutional diversity
• Social capital and social mobility
• Social justice pedagogy
• Student retention and success

Once I graduate, I want to work in student affairs as an academic advisor, project coordinator, or program manager at a four-year institution. Later, I will become an education policy expert on issues affecting access and equity among socially disadvantaged and underrepresented students. I may even pursue a PhD in Education and/or Sociology along the way to explore these areas in greater depth. If there are social work students who are strongly considering a career in student affairs, I will also try to obtain my full license in macro social work practice so that I can become a mentor to these students. I know the social work profession needs more licensed macro social workers who can train the next generation of social reformers!

To end on a good note, I am proud of myself and look forward to a good year in 2013. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Teach for America: A Glorified Temp Agency (NYTimes)

Some readers are already aware that I am anti-Teach for America (TFA). For liberal arts graduates, TFA sounds good on paper: the brightest college graduates from the best colleges serve a two-year commitment to teach disadvantaged students in the nation's most struggling school districts). However, TFA actually weakens pubilc-sector unions and public education in general. In college, I saw TFA heavily recruit my classmates and promote the (false) advantages of charter schools. But my problem with current urban education policy began before I started college.

Here is my story: In 2000, the Michigan state legislature (at the time, John Engler was governor) voted to dissolve the union that represented school administrators (assistant principals and principals) in Detroit Public Schools. Essentially, DPS school administrators became at-will employees who lost 10 percent of their salary (under DPS superintendent Kenneth Burnley) and paid a higher percentage towards their health premiums. The passage of this law had negative consequences for my mother, who began her career as a teacher and became a school administrator through promotions. By losing the right to form a union, my mother and her colleagues lost their voice--they lost the power to protect themselves in the workplace. I was just a high school student, but I witnessed first-hand how a union-busting law could potentially hurt middle-class families. (You can read more about the Detroit case in Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector: The Experience of Eight States by Joyce M. Najita, James L. Stern.)

The New York Times opinion by Julian Heilig, associate professor of educational policy and planning and African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin, eloquently states how I feel about TFA.

Teach for America is essentially a glorified temp agency. According to my calculations, more than 80 percent of the recruits leave for graduate school or another career before their fourth year, taking with them all the training and recruitment dollars taxpayers and universities have invested in them — as much as $70,000 a year. As I discuss in a 2010 National Education Policy Center research brief, the debate about whether these teachers produce gains or losses in their students' test scores rages on in academia. The high turnover among these temporary teachers undermines students' achievement at the schools where they are placed — a concern that civil rights and parent groups have raised repeatedly as Teach for America lobbies to have its teachers hired in the districts the critics' children attend, even when there are no shortages.

Sadly, Teach for America is a revolving door of inexperienced teachers for the students who most need a highly qualified one. As applications to the program at Harvard and other highly selective institutions of higher education are burgeoning, now is the time for the organization to start require corps members to make at least a five- to seven-year commitment and to become certified. Then Teach for America (and the districts that hire the group) would know which individuals are serious about making a difference in the classroom and which see a teaching stint with Teach for America as simply a résumé builder.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Social Work

Last year, I earned my Master of Social Work (MSW) at the University of Michigan. Immediately following graduation, I became a Limited License Master Social Worker (LLMSW) in the state of Michigan. I have six years to complete two requirements in order to become a Licensed Master Social Worker (Macro Specialty): 1) pass the Advanced Generalist ASWB exam, and 2) receive a minimum of 4000 hours of supervision by a LMSW. After I finish my second master's degree in higher education, I hope to become fully licensed by 2015.

In this post, I will reflect on what I have learned as the strengths and weaknesses of social work in the past year.

Strengths

1. The altruistic nature of the social work profession is both powerful and life-changing.
2. Social work is a profession focused on empathy and empowerment of the individual.
3. Social workers are committed to a social justice and social change framework.
4. Social workers serve in a variety of roles: educator, enabler, advocate and activist.
5. Social work utilizes various social science disciplines to improve human well-being and achieve social reform: sociology, psychology, political science, anthropology, economics, and education.
6. Social workers have the ability to plan and implement interventions with and/or on behalf of a range of individuals, groups, and communities based on evidence-based practices.
7. The history of social work is full of significant accomplishments, such as historical figures (Janes Addams and Francis Perkins), civil rights-era figures (Dorothy Height and Whitney Young), and contemporary figures (Barbara Lee and Barbara Mikulski).

Weaknesses

1. Social work services are voluntary and poorly advertised to the general public.
2. The media depicts the social work profession in a misleading way (e.g., “social workers only work in the interests of the child welfare agencies”; “anyone can be a social worker”; “social workers only work with the poor”).
3. Social workers don’t receive the same level of respect as journalists and social scientists in addressing issues of poverty and discrimination in the news media.
4. The extent of bureaucratization in the social work profession is problematic; social workers may end up harming rather than helping clients due to changes in government funding and rules.
5. Since social work agencies are, on average, inadequately funded, many social workers are also poorly paid.
6. People are unaware of macro social work practice (working with organizations to promote socially-just policies and services at the community, national and international levels).
7. People assume social workers only work in mental health settings; social workers can also be found in community development, crisis intervention, criminal justice, health care, higher education, international human rights, human services organizations, and public policy.

Do you agree or disagree? What would you like to add to this list?

UPDATE (August 2013): Don't forget to visit my more detailed posts on the problems affecting the social work profession:

• Social Work Problem #1: Lack of Professional Support for Macro-Practice Social Workers
• Social Work Problem #2: Too Much Focus on Professionalization, Not Enough Focus on Social Justice
• Social Work Problem #3: The Curriculum Discourages the Recruitment of Men and Racial/Ethnic Minorities
• Social Work Problem #4: The Profession Suffers from an Identity Crisis

SWT: ‘Case’ and ‘Cause’ in Social Work Education — A Balancing Act

In case you missed the March/April 2012 issue, Social Work Today magazine published a story about the challenges of teaching both micro and macro approaches in social work education.

I never read this book, Unfaithful Angels. However, I agree with Specht that contemporary social work has become too engrossed with clinical training methods and neglected its macro practice roots (social reform and political action). I believe social workers don't truthfully follow the NASW Code of Ethics because we're not visibly involved in political matters that resonates with millions of ordinary people in America (e.g., Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Student Debt).

In the preface of Harry Specht and Mark Courtney’s book Unfaithful Angels, Specht laments what he sees as social work’s drift away from social justice: “When I first came to know social workers half a century ago, they had a mission that was, to me, appealing and significant: to help poor people, to improve community life, and to solve difficult social problems. But times have changed. Today, a significant proportion of social workers are practicing psychotherapy, and doing so privately, with a primarily middle-class, professional, Caucasian clientele” (p. ix-x).

As long as states only mandate licensure for clinical training, many prospective social work students will not pursue the macro social work concentration route. For instance, while Michigan is progressive in providing licensure options for macro practice, a majority of social workers in the state still focus on clinical training. The dominance of clinical work programs across the country will continue to erode the perception and significance of macro social work in real-world settings.

Despite the historical debate about social work’s role as a case or cause profession, it is clear that the majority of students entering educational programs today want to pursue careers as clinicians. The popularity of clinical work may have more to do with practical matters than any conscious decision to reject social activism. For example, some students believe they will not be able to pass state licensing exams unless they take classes focused on service to individuals and families. Another concern is the earning potential to be had in a clinical career vs. one focused on macro-level service.

The predominance of clinical work also is reflected in the method concentrations offered by master’s programs nationwide.

How do you feel about this dichotomy between micro and macro in social work education? Should all master's social work programs offer a generalist program, or there needs to be greater awareness of macro social work among the general public? Personally, once state boards recognize the legitimacy of macro practice in the licensure process, this will encourage students to concentrate in management, communities, and social policies.

LA Times: Retooling Teach for America

The Los Angeles Times has an opinion piece that resonated with me on why I think the current format of Teach of America is bad for both college graduates and the most disadvantaged children in America's schools. It demonstrates further proof that Teach for America needs major reform, possibly lengthening it (in my opinion) to a minimum of three years because it takes time and practice to become an effective teacher. TFA also hurts teacher recruitment and retention for those school districts who desperately need professionals who are highly committed to the teaching profession.

Being a great teacher has to be one of the hardest jobs in the world. I knew I had found my passion the first time I stood at the front of a classroom at Jordan High School in South Los Angeles during my TFA summer training five years ago. But it took me several years of teaching psychology, government and world history to feel truly competent. Those first couple of years in the classroom are a huge learning curve for any teacher, and it seems arrogant to think that just because the TFA kids went to good schools and got good grades, they'll instantly be able to teach. It's no wonder the longtime teachers at some schools resent these upstarts. The two-year commitment means that many of the program's participants leave just as they're getting to the point at which their students will really benefit.

End of an Era? Hull House Closes Its Doors

In January 2012, one of the nation’s oldest and most famous settlement houses, Hull House in Chicago, announced that it is closing its doors this spring and filing for bankruptcy. The decision to close came after the agency's management and board of trustees worked for two years to reduce operating costs and improve services, officials said.

Jane Addams Hull House Association has provided child care, domestic violence counseling, job and literacy training, services for senior citizens and housing assistance for 60,000 people annually in the Chicago area at nearly four dozen sites. The organization cited the current economic climate for increasing demand for services while compromising fundraising.

Chicagoans are shocked that a 123-year-old institution providing crucial human services will disappear. For those around the country who work at settlement houses—these days, often called community or neighborhood centers—it feels as if there has been a death in the family. Hull House’s co-founder Jane Addams, who later became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, is widely thought of as the mother of the early American settlement house movement. Legions of social workers consider Hull House the birthplace of their profession.

The reason Hull House is disappearing is straightforward: it was overly reliant on government funding in a time of public-sector cutbacks for social services, and particularly for child welfare. At one point, the agency was receiving 85 percent of its revenues from various levels of government. When the federal government, the State of Illinois, Cook County and the City of Chicago began cutting support a decade ago, the agency’s board and staff worked hard to raise more private dollars, but the increased gifts were never enough. Between 2001 and 2011, Hull House’s total revenues dropped from $40 million to $23 million.Other settlement houses struggled with the same problem but managed not to close their doors.

The Hull House agency isn't affiliated with the University of Illinois at Chicago's Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, which will remain open. The Hull House site on Chicago's West Side is a National Historic Landmark. Nevertheless, I found the closure of the Hull House Association a sad legacy and memory for Jane Addams. I also wonder does this closure mean the settlement house model, the precursor to community practice and macro social work, is irrelevant today?

In graduate school, I concentrated in macro social work. Only 20% of my peers majored in the same area; most concentrated in clinical practice where there would treat individuals and families in case management, psychotherapy, and private practice. I wanted to help change society by learning methods that promote social justice and empowerment in communities. As an MSW alumna, I am disappointed knowing that people still struggle to pay their bills and funding for public assistance services continue to decline. Meanwhile, people seem disenchanted with elected officials. What is the future of community practice? Will Addams' legacy continue to matter in the 21st Century?

[UPDATE 04/2012]: Check out this reflection piece, "Lessons from Hull House." from the New Social Worker magazine. "So, perhaps the greatest lesson from the closure of Hull House is that the field of social work needs to recommit itself to macro policy work."