Historically Marginalized Groups- Diversity in Human Services. The application of scholarly research to practice in human services is integral to ensuring quality services and is called evidence-based practice. Research brings awareness of problems and challenges that might have never been considered or studied. Research can increase public knowledge and understanding of an issue. Lastly, research can challenge attitudes, perceptions, or ideas about existing practices and policies (Morton, 2014)
Your tasks are to research and report on three scholarly articles about a historically marginalized group AND an individual or social problem of your choosing. For example, you might use the search terms depression (or poverty, violence, etc.) and African Americans. The articles do not have to explicitly discuss cultural biases in diagnosis. They should, however, be peer-reviewed, scholarly sources, and not popular articles (Newsweek, Psychology Today, etc.). Refer to tips on using the library to find scholarly articles.
In a 4-5 page essay, summarize the methodology and findings/results of each study. Then, draw on your text to discuss the impact of cultural, social, and political attitudes on the diagnosis of marginalized groups and the general characterization of minority communities. Describe the potential salience of culturally contingent perceptions of psychopathology, conceptions of what it means to be mentally healthy, and culture-specific syndromes to the mental health issue(s) in the studies you have selected.
When viewing an article, look to see if the article has a Methodology section. This will have information about how the authors did their research. Information such as who participated in the study, how they asked people for information (e.g., survey, observational), and the overall design of the study (e.g., experiment or observational study).
The best place to look for a summary of the findings in an article is within the first paragraph of the Discussion section. The authors will recap the findings in this paragraph. It is not expected that you will understand the analysis that the authors may have conducted. Think about the implications of the findings to practice. How would you take the results of this study and apply it to human service practice? Could it work with all individuals or all groups within all areas? What would the limitations be to applying the results?