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Issue in Counseling: Culture & Race

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The concepts and definitions of "culture," "sub-culture," and "race" are, at a minimum, complex and controversial. Discuss the various definitions and controversies related to them in relation to counseling. Provide your own definition(s) and rationale for those definitions.

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Solution Summary

The solution is a comprehensive guide and discussion of issues that affect counseling and delivery of health/human services to specific cultural and sub-cultural/minority groups. Culture is defined and explained and so are the concepts of race, ethnicity, sub as well as counter-culture. This is done to clarify why this affects the delivery and quality of counseling and human services as well as the various controversies that are related to them. Useful online resources are also listed for the purpose of expansion.

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Dear Student,
Hello. The terms you have indicated are used in sociology and anthropology. They are indeed complex and controversial in that they are terms operating 'under erasure'. What this means is that what they symbolize or denote is constantly widening, evolving and changing. Let's start with culture.

What is Culture? Culture is the sum total of practices, traditions, mores, beliefs, philosophies, values, shared history that a group of people have. They share in this via language. Culture happens through language and in a group that shares in it all its members are affected by and are also actively affecting the development, direction, changes and evolution of the culture they share in. All members you see are social agents. The culture that the group share in becomes a unique 'bond' between all of them, something that contributes to their shared identity as members. Now why is culture controversial? As I have said before, there are varied debates on what culture really means, what it is made up of. In a multicultural society for example, what kind of culture does 'everybody' share in? Take America for instance. It is a very complex society made up of a number of ...

Solution provided by:
Xenia Rochelle Jones, MA, PhD (IP)
Education
  • MPhil/PhD (IP), Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  • MA, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  • Certificate, Geva Ulpan (via Universita Tel Aviv)
  • BA, University of the Philippines
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