ETHNIC GROUPS AND DISCRIMINATION

Ethnic Groups and Discrimination

Ethnic Groups and Discrimination

The primary concern of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being, with particular attention to the needs of people who are vulnerable. Social workers are expected to prevent and eliminate exploitation and discrimination against any person, group, or class on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender and disability, to name a few. Social work is about assisting, supporting and enabling certain people of society who may suffer from the negative effects of social inequalities. Social workers strive in their profession to promote and exercise anti discriminatory and anti oppressive practice. This assignment shall discuss the discrimination experienced by ethnic minorities in society and in relation to service provision. It shall also discuss the significance of this with reference to social work values and ethics for social work practice.

Thompson (2003) defines discrimination as 'simply a matter of identifying differences, and can be positive or negative. However, negative discrimination involves not only identifying differences but also making a negative attribution, attaching a negative or detrimental label or connotation to the person, group or entity concerned'. (p10)Negative discrimination is to treat someone differently or unfavourably due to prejudice, based on negative and pre-judged opinions of a person or group. All acts of negative discrimination are unlawful and undesirable, which leads to unfair treatment and marginalisation of individuals.

This kind of behaviour is cruel and hurtful and deprives people of their basic human rights, dignity and respect. Terms of discrimination have been categorised under four headings and can occur directly, indirectly, by means victimisation or harassment. Direct discrimination tends to be obvious and occurs when a person is treated less favourably than others based on grounds of race, gender, disability or sexual orientation etc. Indirect discrimination is sometimes more difficult to prove, this ...