This assignment relates to Competency 2 (Signature Assessment). This ethnographic family
study paper constitutes a “case study” on your own family of origin in terms of culture and
difference in relation to each ethnic group that constitutes your culture of origin. Students are to
research their cultural background(s) in scholarly journals, books, or approved websites and to
include in-text citations in the paper (and on reference page). While answering the questions
about your individual family, also give information about the culture group in general. You must
incorporate at least two (2) scholarly, peer-reviewed articles (only one of which may be webbased) which depict your family of origin’s identity. Students are also encouraged to interview family members informally and, if possible, to review any family-related artifacts available, such
as photos, immigration documents, birth/marriage/death certificates, interviews with family
elders, etc.
Content must include:
• Culture, national origin/ancestry, race/ethnicity
• If relevant, immigration or migration patterns
• As appropriate–related adaptation, assimilation, and acculturation issues
• If other than Native American, under what conditions did your family enter the United States
(immigrants, political refugees, slaves, etc.
• What were/are the group’s experiences with oppression? What were/are the markers of
oppression?
• Issues that divide members within the same group
• What is the significance that race, skin color, and hair play within the group?
• What role does religion play within your family/your group?
• How are gender roles defined within the group? How is sexual orientation regarded?
• How does your group define family?
• How is social class defined within the family/group?
• What occupational roles are valued and devalued by the family/group?
• What are any family-specific or culture-specific rituals, such as regarding food, marriage, death,
and birth?
• Discuss any factors that led your family to having particular resilience or coping skills • What are any family-specific or culture-specific attitudes toward physical illness, mental illness,
and death, including attitudes about help-seeking?
• What are the ways in which pride/shame issues of the group are manifested in your family
system? (pride/shame issues are “aspects of a culture that are sanctioned as distinctively
negative or positive.” For example, for Jews, a pride/shame issue is “educational achievement.”)
• What impact will these pride/shame issues have on your work with clients from both similar and
dissimilar cultural backgrounds?
• If more than one group comprises your culture of origin, how are the differences negotiated in
your family? What are the intergenerational consequences? How has this impacted you
personally and as a social worker?
Include a discussion of how your own cultural identity might influence your work as a generalist
social worker in practicing with diverse groups that may be different from your own cultural
background. If you were adopted and know of your bio family’s background, please follow above
guidelines; if you do not have this information, please see the professor to discuss how to
approach this assignment.
Paper should conclude with the following attachments: (a) a Genogram of at least three
generations of your family of origin, if you are able to gather this information; (b) and a
References list in APA format. Maximum length: 10 pages.
This assignment will lay the groundwork for the Cultural Genogram Assessment and Presentation assignment.
• Culture, Italian, national origin Italy /ancestry, race white /ethnicity
• united
• If relevant, immigration or migration patterns to united stated
• As appropriate–related adaptation, assimilation, and acculturation issues my grandfather
worked as stone cutter to working in machinery
• If other than Native American, under what conditions did your family enter the United States
(immigrants, political refugees, slaves, etc.
• Through Elis island
• What were/are the group’s experiences with oppression? What were/are the markers of
oppression?
• Escape world war 1
• Issues that divide members within the same group
• A fight broke out in the family over money
• What is the significance that race, skin color, and hair play within the group?
• Caucasian. And black
• What role does religion play within your family/your group?
• my people were originally Jewish.
• How are gender roles defined within the group?
• The women would stay home and take care of the children and the men would go work.
• How is sexual orientation regarded?
• There has been some hederal sexual and gay people in the family How does your group define family?
• A man and a women being married to each other.
• How is social class defined within the family/group?
• by education, income, and occupation
• What occupational roles are valued and devalued by the family/group?
• Doctors and accountants
• What are any family-specific or culture-specific rituals, such as regarding food, marriage, death,
and birth?
•
• My family is composed of many different cultures such as Romans, Greeks, Jews, Family
meals are very important, thus everyone is expected to dine together. … When death occurs, the
family wants to be there with relatives celebrate the passing of a family member ..
