You are on page 1of 9

Ethnographic Paper

Sarah Dubicki Ethnographic Paper 3510 Human Behaviors in the Social Environment Due 10/22/12

Ethnographic Paper

Introduction: Family is a concept that differs from person to person. It is for that reason that family is very difficult to define in a way that is acceptable to everyone. A commonly used definition is the idea that there is a heterosexual couple who have children, and are faithful and have clearly defined gender roles. Unfortunately that definition does not apply to most people in America today. The definition of family changes depending on whom you ask. The best definition I found in my research goes as follows: Family is characterized by a confluence of images, rites, and rituals that generate a sense of belonging, identity, loyalty, and shared past and future. Transactional definitions of family privilege intersubjectivity and call attention to the shared systems of meaning in the family, the common beliefs, the views of family history, and approaches to the social world in general (Edwards & Graham, 2009) I like the idea of family being connected by shared experiences. I personally do not believe that just because someone is related by blood that that makes you family. My definition of family is a group of people who support each other wholeheartedly, are compassionate, understanding, and love you for who you are. I know that we cant all be understanding all the time, but a family should at least try their hardest.

My Family:

Ethnographic Paper From the outside, my family looks like a typical American family. My

parents are still married, have never been married before. I am the oldest of four, and all of us kids are involved in extracurricular activities. My brother plays soccer and baseball and littlest sister is in multiple choirs and dance. We are close to my extended family on both sides. We make time for family in the holidays and always take the time to appreciate the fact that we are together. However, I would say that is where the idea of us as a normal family view ends. Our grandparents on my dads side do not speak to us anymore. Our family has grown to include the girls who were in girl scouts with us, family friends, etc. I think that family is what you make it. This relates to the theory of social constructionism, which states, we construct our reality based on our experiences (Rogers, 2010, p. 93). The way I define my family is directly related to my experiences growing up. I know that even my immediate family would define family differently. I think the differences would be slight, however, but each one of our experiences have affected us differently and changed our reality in our own way.

Family Organization: My families organization is much like many other families. My dad works as a pharmacist in the E.R., my mom is a stay at home mom, and I think that resulted in clearly defined gender roles as we were growing up. However, my mother has done her best to dispel that vision in us, and has raised us not to believe it is a mans place to work and the womans place to raise the

Ethnographic Paper children. When raising us, I can see examples of operant conditioning in their style of parenting. Operant conditioning, according to our book is the consequences of behavior that result in behavior change (Rogers, 2010). This

involves reinforcement and punishment. My parents were not of the mind that we should not be punished. They utilized timeouts, and taking things away until we earned them back. We understood that our behavior always had consequences. Ive babysat for families that did not punish their children, and those children had little or no concept of right and wrong. I also see examples of the social learning theory in how we were raised. One of the ideas of the social learning theory was that people learn what to do and what not to do by watching other people around them. This is the concept of modeling. I can name multiple examples where I have done something wrong, and my siblings have learned from my mistakes. I think that the youngest two siblings have a clearly defined sense of right and wrong and I know that that is because they have seen the things that have gotten me and my sister in trouble. I can also see where the concept of self-efficacy applies to my family. I think that having seen our mistakes, my siblings can better judge if they will be successful in their endeavors and what it takes to do so. One of the results from self-efficacy is that those who have high self-efficacy will do very well in school and activities. My youngest sister has the ability to juggle fantastic grades, as well as being involved in two choirs, two dance classes, and girl scouts. She manages her time very well, much better than I did at her age. She has seen what does and what does not work and has learned to adapt and be successful.

Ethnographic Paper

Beliefs in the Family: Beliefs in my immediate family are varied. In some families, beliefs are shared or at least common. But I think that the beliefs of my parents are very different than my sisters and mine because of how they were raised. My father was raised in a strict Catholic home and his beliefs reflect that. My mother was raised in a United Methodist home and has had problems in the past with how her beliefs differ on matters like how to raise us. My siblings and I have been raised to make our own decisions. We have been allowed to ask questions, and my parents have never pushed their personal beliefs on us. I also think the time that we live in has greatly impacted our beliefs. My 18 year old sisters and my opinion on the issues today such as abortion, or gay marriage is very different than the opinions of my parents. I genuinely believe though, that is because we have been raised to believe what we will, and not what our parents believe.

Values in the Family: Values are something that many people confuse with beliefs. I can honestly say that I used to do the same thing. A definition of values that I thought was very helpful is: Values are how we wish things were. Not only that, but they have four defining characteristics. They come from things we have experienced as we grew, they are things that make us want to take action, they are criteria by which our goals are chosen and they are based around important rather than trivial concerns (Day, 2009, p.4). Unlike beliefs, values

Ethnographic Paper are something that my family does share. Our values are often related if not the

same. My siblings and I have been raised to value hard work, honesty, and that if you want something you need to work as hard as you can to make it happen. My mother has taught us to value multitasking, and to never leave a job unfinished. Values are something that changes during your lifetime (unlike beliefs, which generally stay consistent throughout your life). Like the fact that I value getting a job done is not something Id have valued as a child. Something else that my family values is the idea that if one of us need help in any situation, we will be there for each other. All we need to do is ask for help and we will drop everything for our family. A great example of this is when my brothers hamster escaped from his cage before bed. There were no questions asked, my entire family dropped everything and we emptied my brothers room until we found him and then put it all back. It ended up being a late night and there were no complaints from any one of us. Although it can be hard, if you ask for help you will receive that help.

Illness and Death: My family has some slightly dysfunctional views on illness and especially death. My family on my moms side is prone to high blood pressure, heart attacks, and the family on my dads side as well as my moms is prone to diabetes. Then you have me. I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis when I was three. All that has resulted in an interesting mix of feelings towards illness. Something that I find relevant to my family is the concept of a self-fulfilling

Ethnographic Paper

prophecy in the medical model. The idea is that when a person is diagnosed with an illness, they will almost lay down and accept the diagnosis and wont bother trying to do things to help themselves because they feel a sense of hopelessness (Rogers, 2010). I have seen this in my nanas situation after she broke her hip. She was told that the likelihood of her getting full use of her leg again was unlikely, but she could still work hard and have extensive therapy and would then be able to regain much of the use in her leg. Instead she accepted the idea that she wouldnt walk and since then has not followed through with therapy and is now completely wheelchair bound. I would say about half of my family deals with illness in this way. They get a diagnosis and they assume there is nothing they can do to change it. The other half sees it as a challenge and a challenge they will beat. My aunt was diagnosed with MS and instead of crying about it, she has changed her diet and become much healthier in the process. She takes an active role in taking care of herself and has made her life much more comfortable When it comes to death, my family doesnt quite deal in a functional way. When my uncle committed suicide a few years ago, we spoke of it, but only in a limited way. Many issues were not addressed in my family, and my littlest siblings struggled with understanding. It was the first death in the family they experienced, and since it wasnt dealt with, in a way, as other people in our family pass away, I worry that they will not deal in a healthy way.

Culture:

Ethnographic Paper Culturally my family is not a family that has a identity based on our ethnicity. When I asked my parents what we were they didnt know. They always told me that we were a mix of many different groups. I think that that has allowed me to be more open with other cultures. I think that it might benefit my career as a social worker because I can be open-minded with other cultures because I do not have as many judgments based on my own ethnicity.

Conclusion: Family is different for everyone. People place different importance on family, and that is based on their experiences growing up and how they were raised to view family. I put family first, because that was what I was raised to do. That doesnt mean that everyone does. However, even if a person does not place importance on family in their life that does not mean that their family and how they were raised has not affected them as a person. Their family has influenced their beliefs and values in some way, even if they only believe or value something because they disagree with their family. Our families have a big influence on who we are as people, and I believe I was lucky because I was born into a great support system, and the people we have gathered into our family truly help better our lives.

Ethnographic Paper

Citation

1. Edwards, A., & Graham, E. (2009). The relationship between individuals definitions of family and implicit personal theories of communication. Journal of Family Communication, 2. Rogers, T. (2010). Human Behavior in the Social Environment. (2nd ed.). Routledge. 3. Day , P. J. (2009). A new history of social welfare. (6th ed., p. 4). Pearson

You might also like