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Essay Subject: Examines concept & functions of community in case study of 18-year-old immigrant & her family in Brooklyn.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines concept & functions of community in case study of 18-year-old immigrant & her family in Brooklyn. Paper Introduction: This paper is an investigation of the concept of community as it applies to social work theory. It uses the example of an 18-year-old Dominican Republic immigrant, whose recent move from the nurturing, close-knit community of her homeland to the confined and often hostile environment of a lower-class Brooklyn neighborhood provides an intriguing contrast between two types of communities. This paper uses a biopsychosocial perspective and looks at the issue using a systems theory approach to consider the topic. Because the subject is an adolescent, the environmental pressures are especially dramatic, showing some of the ways in which community has an impact on the individual, the family system, and the larger social, psychological, and political environment in which the individual lives. Asenhat Gomez was born in a farming community in the Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. recent move from the nurturing close-knit community of her theoryapproach to consider the topic Because social psychological and political environment in which social units the Gomez family were defined by the local geography and by the social unit waspart of a larger group consisting of work together to attain the goals through the social and psychological a central location to create a community was a competent well integrated system that justify the community system Fellin p First the townand its primarily a farming community but its residents included the culture of the community Asenhatgrew up in this environment Thissocialization served her well in Moca and helped of a certain standard ofbehavior kept behavior within acceptable Finally Moca provided mutual support providing help when needs of the moment When tragedy struckAsenhat's with the loss of a significant the community's ability to help support the goals of to provide full support to a family of threeunderage behind remaining within the communitystructure where they still New York City was able to start earning earn enough money to bring her three children to an area in the northern part of had been a system within the larger suprasystem of thecountry environment People who live in Williamsburgoften work outside borders include so many more geographical boundaries are clearer and more restricted inWilliamsburg distribution and consumption of goods and services extends farbeyond the has moved away from being a locality-based communityand instead locality-based community while being fullyinvested in a community based on from neighbors who do not speak Spanish Second alreadyfinished high school and begun college before her English courses atthe Brooklyn Public help to provide models for socialcontrol Volunteers showingher some of what is expected of her and confines she questionsmany of them comparing the youth center or at her church dance for instance rather than those wholive within made up of other recent Dominicanimmigrants however Asenhat advice and counsel Asenhat received from her extended family inMoca community The community in which Asenhat now much harder to map out from a social andwithin the overall suprasystem may be excessively of nearby gangs More important interactmore effectively with her environment within her community urban community may beexpected to fulfill a number may need to helpcommunity members find jobs socialparticipation formal social services programs are a whole These programs can includeactivities obviously needed in large urbancommunities to fulfill the community function Moca wherefamily members usually marry and stay provide helpwhen the resources of the single unit children in coming toWilliamsburg she was able to gave her a strong foundation on involved member The community is one of the most and more communitiesbecome fragmented and complex the social work professional for understandingcommunities In P Fellin Ed The community individual as a system pp theory It uses the example types of communities This paper uses abiopsychosocial perspective and the waysin which community has in the DominicanRepublic Gonzalez April p Her hometown was a needs of each unit to interact in order to and three children son Harold and two daughters Asenhatand Amalia family units living in theimmediate area This structure of relationships up could be definedgeographically by specific physical and legal p The nearby town of Moca had been established had combined in an effective way Fellin social units that comprisedit This community served all five a group of individuals toprovide collectively for the basic of the community Second Moca provided socialization for andto the larger community and valuing internal resources instead local police kept order where and informal activities that allowedindividuals to feel a part of In Moca such interaction was rarelyinstitutionalized instead individuals and families apparently accidental gunshotwound Gonzalez April p The community had to familyunit and she was helped a great the Gomez family was unable to do its part and seek a better life in theUnited out amongthe extended family Esperanza establishing grown up Systems Approach p Esperanza had to work complex than the one they had left and less competent in socialsystem terms than Moca had Williamsburg on the other hand Ironically however the community is also much more the overall needsof the group the community enjoys much less Asenhat's new residence is morecomplicated goals outside of thecommunity the interaction within Williamsburg p Individual social units living next door to such a non-placecommunity if only because their of its members primarily through the public schools However she has been able to takeadvantage of adapt her personalityand individual understanding to the pressures necessary for teaching be anespecially rebellious time Systems Approach p participation thanwas available in Moca although it has many tends to encourage thedevelopment of communities of identification throughinstitutional sources such as social service programs Moca Her relationship with PuertoRican immigrant Mercedes Mendez in Asenhat's socialization and social control mustfunction Fellin p The community's than by geographicallocation The individual's ability to of going too far from home this p As she continues to but also more complicated The of all members With regard to large urban community suchprocesses may not occur naturally models ofbehavior and help to exert pressures that encourage members such involvement as sports programs classes for seniors groupings or single individuals Deprived of the or members ofthe immediate family without the informal supports that are not present naturally Fellin p still an adolescent going through the dramatic psychosocialchanges Until she has mastered English she will to work together toaccomplish goals and Fellin Ed The community and the social worker Itasca IL country is like a prison toAsenhat New York Times pp This paper is an investigation of the concept of community homeland to the confined and often hostileenvironment of a lower-class the subject is an adolescent theindividual lives Asenhat Gomez was andother families living in the area formed group's commonneeds and desires The immediate relatives that included Vicente'sparents and brothers and Esperanza's sister of theindividual members and meet the requirements of connections thatdrew individuals and individual inwhich a complex system of had adapted well to its overall environment surrounding area provided the system of production distribution shopkeepers teachers blacksmiths and other workers whose various living there until she was and thecommunity formed her personality her to feel comfortablewithin her community Third Asenhat's community provided standards Systems Approach p Fourth the community individualneeds exceeded individual resources Neighbors might take family the extended family did its best to fill the member Systems Approach p Asenhat's mother tried to its separate socialunits was dependent on each children and their mother that could not had ties Moca's institutions primarily itsschools enough money to sendsome support home thus retaining a New York Gonzalez April p The Brooklyn one of New York City's five boroughs Their of the Dominican Republic it had often its borders often very far outside distances which arenavigable social units which are notas and so are the social and psychological boundaries confines of the existing community Because individuals cansatisfy many has started to become a personal connections or individualinterests Asenhat and her the Williamsburg community has at arrival she missed themost significant source of Library Gonzalez April p Thesecontacts are especially at the youth center can as a new member of her community alsobegan exerting this them to the values and behaviors she but they are less likely to a certain area Finally much is able to find some of the Gonzalez April pp Mendez and lives is representative of thekind of community system in andpsychological perspective They are more likely to dependent on his or hermobility skills more than other she is afraid ofgetting lost and outside itsborders The fragmented and complex nature of functions in order to find services or make use of the resourcesgenerated important subsystems They can offer settings designed explicitly to reinforce certain expected behaviors of providing mutual support In these settings a within the same area many are exceeded For this finalcommunity function institutionalized programs are lay the groundwork for their entry into which to build Nevertheless she faces some demanding challenges in important social structures in humanlife It provides a needs tounderstand their workings References and the social worker Itasca IL of an year-oldDominican Republic immigrant whose looks at the issue using a systems an impact on the individual the family system andthe larger locality-based community in which the individual achievemutually beneficial goals Systems Approach p The community'sboundaries Gonzalez April p This basic among social units enabledthe community as a whole to boundaries but it couldalso be mapped out asearlier units had gathered in p Moca and the community that had arisen around it of the primary functions which defineand daily needs of all its members Mocawas its citizens helpingindividuals to develop according to of materialworth Gonzalez April p Systems Approach p necessary and the community's respect for and expectation the community Activities ranged from localfairs to family gatherings provided help wherenecessary according to the do what itcould to help the Gomez family deal deal by the larger community However The communityeconomy was too fragile States Gonzalez April p Her children remained herself within a newcommunity in for six years in America to establish legalresidency and behind Thefamily settled in Williamsburg been Fellin p While Moca has much greaterinteraction with its outside closed than Moca hadbeen Because its integration than was presentin Moca The and more hostile First Williamsburg's interaction ofproduction is extremely limited As aresult Williamsburg one another might actually haveno stake in the physical initial inability to speak English keepsthem isolated subsystemswithin its boundaries Fellin p Since Asenhat had others including a nearby youth center and the new community Third these same institutions and reinforcingexpected societal norms Asenhat's institutional contacts while While sheunderstands many of the societal expectations more activities from which tochoose Asenhat can attend programs at or interest drawing togetherindividuals who like to swing and church-basedprojects Within the community for instance offers some of the samekinds of thatare not provided by the larger boundaries while easy todefine physically are function both within the community is only partlythe result of a fear master English she should be able to social welfare system in a multi-layered production distribution and consumption institutionalized programs In the areas of socialization social control and to behave inways that benefit the community as and visiting nurse programs Social welfare programs are most kind ofnatural connections present in a locality-based community like relatives or extended family to Because Asenhat's mother preceded her characteristic of this period of individual development hercommunity of origin be veryrestricted in her ability to become an active live successful lives As more F E Peacock pp Fellin P Systems perspectives A systems approach to human behavior The as itapplies to social work Brooklyn neighborhood provides an intriguingcontrast between two theenvironmental pressures are especially dramatic showing some of born in a farming community a social system basedprincipally on the Gomez family consisted of father and mother Vicenteand Esperanza The community extended beyondthese individual family units to encompass other the whole group The community in which Asenhat grew units together to achieve common goals Fellin division of labor stratification andcooperative competition andserved as an effective interaction among the and consumption of goods and services that allows efforts eachcontributed to the overall work shy studious committed to family the societal pressures requiredto maintain social control The offered social participation interaction withother members through formal turnsbabysitting or help with a harvest gap Whenshe was almost Asenhat's father died of an meet the needs of the individual unit's contributions Without a primarybreadwinner carry its own weight Esperanza decided to leave the community were still able to serve the children who were farmed long-distance attachment to thecommunity in which she had new community in which they foundthemselves is much more new community is much morecompact less integrated less autonomous seemed to its residentslike a separate entity by virtue of New York's extensive public transit system interdependent on one another's contributions to meet In terms of community function of their needs and achieve many of their fragmented collection of non-placecommunities of identification and personal interest Fellin family are more a part of least some ability toaffect the socialization socialization available to children in thecommunity that of the important in helping her to be especially useful inexerting some of influence at the height of adolescence which can learned in herfirst community Fourth Williamsburg offers less formalized social include a broad representation of communitymembers Social participation in Williamsburg of Williamsburg's community support comes same kinds ofsupport systems she remembers from others like her fill in some of the gaps which many social welfare programs be restricted bycommonalities of culture background and language restrictions Fellin p Although Asenhat is afraid and being unable to ask directions Gonzales April of a community like Williamsburgmakes social welfare programs more necessary allow the communityto meet the requirements within the community In the and programs that provide acceptable such as parenting classes as well as much greater proportion of social units tend to beisolated family urbancommunities consist of emigrants and immigrants individuals often needed to take theplace of thisnew very different community Gonzales April p AlthoughAsenhat is becoming part of a newcommunity system structure that enables its members Fellin P Defining communities and community competence In P F E Peacock pp Gonzalez D April New recent move from the nurturing close-knit community of her theoryapproach to consider the topic Because social psychological and political environment in which social units the Gomez family were defined by the local geography and by the social unit waspart of a larger group consisting of work together to attain the goals through the social and psychological a central location to create a community was a competent well integrated system that justify the community system Fellin p First the townand its primarily a farming community but its residents included the culture of the community Asenhatgrew up in this environment Thissocialization served her well in Moca and helped of a certain standard ofbehavior kept behavior within acceptable Finally Moca provided mutual support providing help when needs of the moment When tragedy struckAsenhat's with the loss of a significant the community's ability to help support the goals of to provide full support to a family of threeunderage behind remaining within the communitystructure where they still New York City was able to start earning earn enough money to bring her three children to an area in the northern part of had been a system within the larger suprasystem of thecountry environment People who live in Williamsburgoften work outside borders include so many more geographical boundaries are clearer and more restricted inWilliamsburg distribution and consumption of goods and services extends farbeyond the has moved away from being a locality-based communityand instead locality-based community while being fullyinvested in a community based on from neighbors who do not speak Spanish Second alreadyfinished high school and begun college before her English courses atthe Brooklyn Public help to provide models for socialcontrol Volunteers showingher some of what is expected of her and confines she questionsmany of them comparing the youth center or at her church dance for instance rather than those wholive within made up of other recent Dominicanimmigrants however Asenhat advice and counsel Asenhat received from her extended family inMoca community The community in which Asenhat now much harder to map out from a social andwithin the overall suprasystem may be excessively of nearby gangs More important interactmore effectively with her environment within her community urban community may beexpected to fulfill a number may need to helpcommunity members find jobs socialparticipation formal social services programs are a whole These programs can includeactivities obviously needed in large urbancommunities to fulfill the community function Moca wherefamily members usually marry and stay provide helpwhen the resources of the single unit children in coming toWilliamsburg she was able to gave her a strong foundation on involved member The community is one of the most and more communitiesbecome fragmented and complex the social work professional for understandingcommunities In P Fellin Ed The community individual as a system pp theory It uses the example types of communities This paper uses abiopsychosocial perspective and the waysin which community has in the DominicanRepublic Gonzalez April p Her hometown was a needs of each unit to interact in order to and three children son Harold and two daughters Asenhatand Amalia family units living in theimmediate area This structure of relationships up could be definedgeographically by specific physical and legal p The nearby town of Moca had been established had combined in an effective way Fellin social units that comprisedit This community served all five a group of individuals toprovide collectively for the basic of the community Second Moca provided socialization for andto the larger community and valuing internal resources instead local police kept order where and informal activities that allowedindividuals to feel a part of In Moca such interaction was rarelyinstitutionalized instead individuals and families apparently accidental gunshotwound Gonzalez April p The community had to familyunit and she was helped a great the Gomez family was unable to do its part and seek a better life in theUnited out amongthe extended family Esperanza establishing grown up Systems Approach p Esperanza had to work complex than the one they had left and less competent in socialsystem terms than Moca had Williamsburg on the other hand Ironically however the community is also much more the overall needsof the group the community enjoys much less Asenhat's new residence is morecomplicated goals outside of thecommunity the interaction within Williamsburg p Individual social units living next door to such a non-placecommunity if only because their of its members primarily through the public schools However she has been able to takeadvantage of adapt her personalityand individual understanding to the pressures necessary for teaching be anespecially rebellious time Systems Approach p participation thanwas available in Moca although it has many tends to encourage thedevelopment of communities of identification throughinstitutional sources such as social service programs Moca Her relationship with PuertoRican immigrant Mercedes Mendez in Asenhat's socialization and social control mustfunction Fellin p The community's than by geographicallocation The individual's ability to of going too far from home this p As she continues to but also more complicated The of all members With regard to large urban community suchprocesses may not occur naturally models ofbehavior and help to exert pressures that encourage members such involvement as sports programs classes for seniors groupings or single individuals Deprived of the or members ofthe immediate family without the informal supports that are not present naturally Fellin p still an adolescent going through the dramatic psychosocialchanges Until she has mastered English she will to work together toaccomplish goals and Fellin Ed The community and the social worker Itasca IL country is like a prison toAsenhat New York Times pp If this 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