Final Paper. Resiliency. Social Sciences Term Paper

RESILIENCY
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Course
Introduction
G, a fourth born in a family of 15, is a black woman who was born in Montgomery, Alabama, during the great depression. Her place of birth was characterized by a lot of poverty, even in the way of housing, before moving to a better place at the age of 10. She grew up a victim of segregation brought about by racists theatrics. She attended a strict blacks-only school that had poor services, e.g. no buses compared to counterpart schools of white students. She was a victim of verbal racism where she was called ‘nigger’ as a result of her color. Through her young life she experienced various bullies brought about by her tall skinny frame and her name, which was drawn from her grandfather. Her parents picked the name because they were expecting her to have been born a boy.
She grew in a strong religious family, which greatly supported her despite their poor economic state. She faced many challenges in her life which included, an unstable marriage, racism, inferiority complex brought by lack of skills to do other jobs, and her rebellious daughter. However, despite all she kept pushing on. She was resilient to her problems, and this kept her in a position to handle whatever came her way. G’s childhood and adulthood are built on a series of challenges.
Thesis Statement
G had a strong micro-relationship built of her family and religion. Her macro-environment, on the other hand, was the course of all her challenges. The two influenced her resilience at various measures, with macro-environment causing problems which micro-environment helping her to withstand them. Is it possible that micro and macro environments can be treated as intervening factors that shape an individual’s behaviors? Also, is more resiliency to problems good?
Resiliency
It can be defined as the ability or capacity to recover or spring back to a prior position after meeting some difficulties. Just as the resilience of rubber is tested by its ability to return to its normal shape after pressing, the resilience of human beings is the ability to recover after facing challenges or problems that destroyed or removed them from their earlier position (Powell et al., 2016). The case of G is a story of resilience all throughout her life. Since childhood, she has been a victim to the environment around her which to some extent has shaped her to the person she became in life. Among other things, her resilient nature can best be attributed to the positive impact that it has had in her life. In a way she still made it to the end even when faced by challenges that would have led her to lose hope. Her environment contributed to both her challenges and ability to withstand them.
The ecological systems theory argues an individual’s behaviors are shaped by the environment around them (Burns et al., 2015). It was a theory developed by psychologists on a framework that sought to examine the relationships that individuals had with communities and how this impacted their behaviors. The ecological theory divides a person’s environment into five systems
* Microsystem
It is built up of the environment that an individual interacts with immediate. The immediate environment is made up of social groups that directly shape the development of a child. They include family, school, peers, community, religious institutions, etc. These social groups build up the immediate environment of a child, and they influence how they grow, the beliefs they have and their perception of things. In the case of G, her micro-environment was built up of various factors. There was the supportive part that built on her resilience and sought to make her better through support. It included religious groups and family. There was that which challenged her, e.g. her peers who bullied her and the poor black community around her which led to economic struggles combined with segregation coming from racism.
* Mesosystem
The mesosystem in the ecological theory involves the interaction and interconnectedness of various factors in the microsystem. E.g., the family and the school work together to shape a student’s education. In the case of G, various factors interacted to form her mesosystem. For example, her family and religion greatly supported her and helped to be able to face the problems that she faced. Her peers and the community she grew in also teamed up to add on to the challenges that she was already facing through bullies, poverty, and racism.
* Exosystem
The exosystem involves impacts of the environment on the growth of a child that comes from settings that do not involve the child (Graves et al., 2018). An example is where experiences of parents outside the household may shape the way they run the family, and this may greatly impact a child. For G, her exosystem did not have much effect since her parents did not let their job environment impact their family much.
* Macrosystem
It involves the general practices and cultures of a community that shapes not only the development of a child but also both the micro and mesosystems. The cultures vary across generations, locations, social divides and time (Burns et al., 2015). They influence the general behavior and perceptions of people in a specific social setting. The macrosystem in the case of G was built on a time of the great depression and a racist community. Lack of employment and poverty are some notable factors from the external environment that influenced her growth. The racial setting, e.g. schools exclusively for blacks and whites impacted her education hence influencing her growth.
* Chronosystem
It is a system in ecological systems theory that behaviors change according to some patterns in the environment and other changes (Graves et al., 2018). For G, behaviors changed with various changes in the environment. For example, with time, racial segregation came to an end, and this changed her earlier way of treating whites as supreme.
The ecological systems theory using the five systems analyzes G’s life and gives explanations to her behaviors. It develops a perception of how she became so resilient to her problems. The objective of this paper is to use the case of G in finding out if it is possible for microsystems and macrosystems to be treated as intertwining factors that influence the behaviors of an individual. It also seeks to identify if more resiliency to problems good and factors that contribute to it. Below is an analysis of some relevant factors that build on both macro and microsystems and their influence on resiliency.
Impact of the great depression
The great depression is the greatest severe economic depression in history that took place between 1929 to 1939. It greatly affected not only the state and major institutions but also the general public subjecting them to severe poverty. Some of the effects of the great depression as seen in the case of G include,
* Unemployment
During the great depression, companies closed business while others laid off workers so as to control their spending in a bit to survive the harsh economic atmosphere (Bakker et al., 2016). Unemployment grew rapidly within these years, and this led to increased poverty among the people. During this time, employees also faced underemployment from most employers who paid them less so as to survive the market. In the case of G, her father had n unstable job, and this contributed to their poor state of living.
* Poor housing
The great depression led to families resulting in poor housings because they could not afford proper housing. Combined with the great famine, which led to farmers moving to urban areas and living in shanties in outskirts of urban centers. In the case of G, when she was born the family lived in a house that did not have a bathroom or a toilet or any other necessary facility in housing. The great depression had led to people needing just a roof above their heads and did not care much about necessary housing facilities.
* Social problems
During this time, the government’s main focus was on improving the economy and deviated the attention of solving some social issues like white supremacy (Bakker et al., 2016). In the case of G, she was realty affected by racism during her early years.
The great depression had some great effects on the livelihoods of people in the U.S. Having been born at the time, G was a victim of these effects. Being a child, it built on her macrosystem. Her father ...