isabelle's blog!

  There are many benefits to adoption, but I think it comes down to ethics and how the families and individuals respond and adapt to the situation. Some of the benefits/reasons behind adoption include the desire to have a family, wanting to provide a loving and caring home for children who don’t have that, and expanding on an existing family.  Some potential challenges that adoptees may face include: Not feeling like they belong because they “don’t look like” their adoptive parents/family members Longing to know their birth parents/birth family Medical health problems because there is no history to track  Bullying from unkind peers/other individuals about being adopted  Unclear birth history, early childhood history, and/or medical history, all of which could affect child and educational development  Transracial adoptees are defined by the lecture notes as “adopted individuals who are of a different race than their adoptive parent(s)” (HDFS 280 L20). An example ...

  People immigrate for a multitude of different reasons. The L19 class slides separates the reasons into “push” or “pull” factors. Some examples that the class lists as push factors are economic instability, political instability, war, violence, and enviornmental hazards. Some examples of pull factors are opportunities for higher education, healthcare, political freedoms, religious freedoms, family reunification, and access to better economic opportunities.  I know in my own family, my parents immigrated (separately) as young adults for the opportunity of a higher education, especially what the “American Dream” could provide for them. My dad came from a low SES family, and his parents were not educated. He saved up money working in high school and then picked a “cheap” college in the US, to where he was able to get a Bachelor’s Degree, and then later a Ph.D. in chemistry. He is the first and only person in his family to have one, which was a huge accomplishment for their famil...

  This past week’s lecture was interesting to me because I learned a lot more about gender and the different experiences with gender that people have. I grew up in a very cisgender and gender-confirming society, so I have not had much exposure to anything else. I did not know very many people who did not identify with their biological sex.  I understand that this is a very “hot topic” lately with media and society, but I think it is important to look at and understand the subject in a bias-free way in order to best serve and protect the community itself. One of the guiding questions for this week was “What are some challenges that LGBTQ+ youth experience at the individual, family, peer, and societal levels? What are the implications for the mental health of these individuals?” and I thought about this throughout the week.  I think individually, in today’s society, it is complicated and confusing as a young person to go through adolescence and youth. Today’s youth face num...

  HEALTH INEQUALITY When discussing racial differences in health outcomes, we are talking about society’s systematic differences regarding access to healthcare and the results of health outcomes. It means that there are differences between the different races in terms of their healthcare quality and type, and also the societal effects of racial inequality. There are certain racial or ethnic groups that experience vastly different rates of health conditions and/or mortality compared to white Americans. However, these differences are due to inequalities in social determinants of health (HDFS 280 L16, slide 14).  Some factors that perpetuate health inequalities that I was not aware of before this week were housing discrimination, employment discrimination, and discriminatory healthcare practices. I had never thought about how restricted homeownership would have led to a greater inability to generate wealth and stability, and in turn, cause people to potentially struggle with thei...

  Socioeconomic Status (SES) is defined in our classroom as “a way of describing people based on their education, income, and type of job” (slide 5 of HDFS 280 L14). I could not find a definition of SES in the Golash-Boza textbook. If I had to define SES, I would define it as a social class or social classification of individuals based on their income level and financial stability. I believe that SES is the most dividing factor among Americans in the US today because of how much economic stability affects an individual’s development and quality of life.  Socioeconomic statuses influence r omantic relationship stability and satisfaction, parent-child relationships, and child development because SES directly affects a person’s quality of life and influences how they are able to grow and maintain relationships with those in their life. For romantic relationship stability, someone who is upper class may not want to date someone who is not in the same SES. That person may also be ...

We watched the "13th" Documentary by Netflix (2016) in class on 9/24 and 9/26.  I felt discouraged, confused, sad, and stirred to action after watching this documentary. I also did feel helpless at times and inspired by the courage of those who advocate for true success. I thought that the message of the film was not ultimately hopeful, because it seemed to not have a call to action at the documentary's conclusion. I thought that the director of the documentary left it more "up in the air" for viewers to feel encouraged to see what they could do about striving for justice in terms of America's mass incarceration problem. I recognized that they were trying to go for a hopeful message at the end, but it just felt sad and discouraging to me.  I feel like I did not know much about the prison system before watching this film. I knew that America had a mass criminalization and imprisonment issue, but I didn't know the extent of it. To find out that the US has ...