Same-Race Practice: Do We Expect Too Much or Too Little?

Abstract

To add to same-race practice knowledge, this article explores practitioners' perceptions, expectations, and service recommendations for troubled youths age 12 and age 16 along racial, gender, and age dimensions. A random sample of African American members of the National Association of Social Workers rated case analogues-in which client characteristics varied by experimental design. The more positively social workers perceived the youths, the higher the social workers' expectations of outcomes after intervention. Social workers' expectations for better outcomes were more forceful than their perceptions of those outcomes. Male social workers' expectations for African American male youths emphasize withingroup male hopefulness. Additionally, African American social workers recommend intervention more strongly for Caucasian youths than for African American youths. Practice implications of these findings are discussed. On any given day, three million children or more, in communities throughout this nation, experience situations and conditions that place them in or near crisis. Under this tremendous burden, social workers and child welfare practitioners have the responsibility of responding to children and their families by using a wide array of service interventions in ways that ameliorate distress. African American clients often struggle against a number of hostile consequences, intended and unintended, resulting from this country's social definitions of race, age, and gender. Surprisingly, race- and gender-related perceptions and expectations remain a pivotal practice concern for workers [Jones et al.1995; Davis & Gelsomino 1994; Davis & Proctor 1989; Devore & Schlessinger 1996]. When these consequences converge in practice settings, they often tend to produce fractionated, hostile client-worker relationships that hinder helping. Particularly during initial case planning activities and first-time appointments, a client's or worker's race, age, and gender may interact and negatively influence the help [Dana 1993; Davis & Gelsomino 1994; Fletcher 1995; Green 1995; Kavanagh & Kennedy 1992; Lehman & Salovey 1990; Ingram 1986]. To teach social workers how to deliver help in a culturally competent fashion to non-Caucasian clients, generalist practice knowledge emphasizes content deemed relevant to Caucasians during cross-race helping [Lum 1996]. Much less practice knowledge emphasizes content relevant to non-Caucasian social workers during same-race helping, particularly for African Americans. When working with African American adolescents 12 and 16 years old, it is useful to identify and understand the early behavioral and situational indicators of their need for intervention. Additionally, it is important to examine how the convergence of client and worker characteristics of race, age, and gender may influence pre-intake processes. A random sample of members of the National Association of Social Workers rated case analogues in which client characteristics varied by experimental design. This article analyzes only the ratings of African American social workers. This analogue study examined the influence of adolescents' race, age, and gender on the social workers' initial perceptions of the adolescents, the social workers' expectations of change for the adolescents after intervention, and how strongly the social workers would recommend an array of mental health interventions for the adolescents. Same-Race Practice Dana [1993], Everett et al. [1991], and Green [1995] emphasize the power and importance of a within-group group or emic perspective when delivering culturally competent services with diverse client groups. An emic perspective includes a structural understanding of social systems [Gould 1991] as well as highly specific cultural knowledge, self-awareness, and interpretations pertaining to the nature of human and transhuman existence encompassing a group's worldview [Dana 1993; Green 1995]. …