Assignment Content.
Part of becoming a multiculturally-competent counselor requires you to explore your own culture and how it was derived. This assignment will help you examine different aspects of your personal cultural background to help bring awareness of how you developed your current cultural viewpoints.
Create a genogram that identifies the racial or ethnic characteristics and changing worldviews of your family over three to four generations, to be used in future assignments throughout this course. This tool differs from a standard genogram because the focus is on how and when prejudice or bias may be learned.
Use the following instructions to construct your genogram:
– Begin by constructing a genogram of your family, with the bottom node representing you. Go as far back as you can remember and include anyone whose racial or ethnic views you remember.
– Males are represented by squares, and females are represented by circles. A horizontal line connecting the two indicates a family. Children are placed below the horizontal family line from the oldest to the youngest, left to right.
– Using the following color guide, fill in the squares or circles based on the race or ethnicity of the individual. Represent individuals of multiple races or ethnicities by dividing the circle or square into as many designations as needed.
– Green: Caucasian
– Purple: Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish Origin
– Blue: American Indian or Alaska Native
– Orange: Black or African American
– Brown: Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
– Light Blue: Asian Indian
– Pink: Asian*
– Lavender: Specify Other Race or Ethnicity
> Write each person’s culturally significant data beside his or her square or circle. Culturally significant data, in this context, means events or views the person held regarding culture or ethnicity. Consider, for example, if your aunt married someone who practiced a different religion, or your mother was proud of being part American Indian.
> Include information regarding at least three characteristics or core values of family members, religion or faith, birthplace, nationality, and an urban or rural location.
Write a 350- to 700-word analysis of your genogram. Include the following:
– Analyze your family history to determine how you developed your own racial and cultural identity.
– Describe the effects of your cultural upbringing on your worldview.
– Explain how learning about your cultural upbringing can affect your effectiveness as a multicultural counselor.
– Describe how you will consider cultural and contextual differences between you and your clients to be an effective multicultural counselor.
