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executives encounter daily in their settings.
These changes affect the social work policy
agenda at organizational, community, county,
state, and national levels. They challenge social
work educators to effectively recruit, retain, and
graduate a diverse student body, and to deliver a
robust curriculum that embeds the implications
of cultural diversity in all aspects of social work
practice. Finally, these demographic changes
challenge social work researchers to examine
questions of relevance to culturally diverse
populations and engage in culturally competent
research practices. The social work profession,
with contributions of pioneers such as
Richmond (1922), Reynolds (1935), and Bartlett
(1970), traditionally has emphasized the
importance of the person-in-environment (PIE)
model to address social functioning, in which
individuals experience relationships influenced
by interrelated factors of environmental,
physical, and emotional challenges; Karls and
O’Keefe (2008) have advanced the PIE concept
to address functionality. Social workers using
this ecological perspective for assessment
recognize the need to attend to important
cultural factors that have meaning for clients.
Diversity, more than race and ethnicity,
includes the sociocultural experiences of people
inclusive of, but not limited to, national origin,
color, social class, religious and spiritual beliefs,
immigration status, sexual orientation, gender
identity or expression, age, marital status, and
physical or mental disabilities. The social work
and human services literature includes content
areas that address culturally appropriate and
culturally competent interventions. These
include addressing racial identity formation for
people of color as well as for white people; the
interrelationship among class, race, ethnicity,
and gender; working with low-income families;
working with older adults; the importance of
religion and spirituality in the lives of clients;
the development of gender identity and sexual
orientation; immigration, acculturation, and
assimilation stressors; biculturalism; working
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