4 Identity and culture

One of the first steps you can take is to begin to understand your own unique identity. This will enable you to recognise that you see and interpret the world in a particular way. The next activity will help you reflect on yourself from a cultural perspective.

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A graphic showing a list of the GRACES. The list is arranged across three columns. The first column consists of the following: Gender, Gender identity, Geography, Race, Religion, Age, Ability. The second column consists of the following: Appearance, Class, Culture, Caste, Education, Ethnicity, Economics. The third column consists of the following: Spirituality, Sexuality, Sexual orientation.

Activity 2 Social GRACES

Timing: Allow 30 minutes for this activity

The following video was developed by Camden Social Services and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. While it is aimed at social workers, it is equally relevant to all social care professionals. Watch the video, then answer the questions below.

Download this video clip.Video player: author="hrp44" timestamp="20240513T144942+0100" content="Video 2 "

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Transcript: The GRACES

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Karen Partridge

The development of the social GGGRRAAACCCEEESSS is a real contribution to social work from systemic therapy. And it gives you a way to really begin to unpick issues about differential power, both within the service, within families and in wider society.

The GGGRRAAACCCEEESSS is a mnemonic. And it stands for a number of different positions, if you like, which might describe people, which confers on them positions of power or disables them from positions of power. For example, as a White woman, I have the grace of gender and of race, and those two aspects both enable me and disable me in different contexts.

One of the things that’s really important is naming these differences. And the idea is that if you name them, it’s on the table. You’ve identified the power differential between you and the family or you and the client, and you can explore what the effects of that are.

So for a social worker who is going to be working with a wide variety of different families from many different cultures, many different colours, many different religions, identifying those kind of differences and exploring them can really make a difference to your connection with the family. And it can really give them the opportunity to get into an expert position about their culture and their experience, the way they see the world.

So I mean, it fits with the concept of reflexivity, that the way that we think about the world is so tied up with our position within it. And in order to challenge our very basic assumptions about what is reality, what is the world, what does it mean to be a person, the GGGRRAAACCCEEESSS is a kind of gentle way into those kind of questions.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

End transcript: The GRACES

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The GRACES

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1. How do you identify yourself in relation to the GRACES outlined in the video?

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2. Do you think other people would associate with the same GRACES as you? Would there be a difference between people who know you well such as your family, and those who know you less well such as work colleagues?

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3. How might a social care practitioner use the concept of the GRACES when working with service users?

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Comment

The GRACES approach can be a very helpful way to start thinking about and naming your identity, and recognising the complexity and shifting nature of who you are. Reflecting on your life, there will be times when important aspects of your identity change – for example, you grow older, your geography, ability or economics may change, as might your religion or sexual orientation. If you are a student right now, you are in the process of developing your education and this could have an impact on how you see yourself. With many aspects of the GRACES, there is the potential for a mismatch between how you would identify yourself and how others may, at least initially, identify you.

In social care and social work, you need to understand what is important to a service user in terms of their identity in order to provide them with care and support. The information about them that is most easily available to you could be misleading, as could written records and the outward appearance of the person you are working with. Making an assumption or making mistakes about someone’s identity can be distressing and risks the delivery of inappropriate services. It can also result in discriminatory practice, as you will see in the next section.