Reflective Statement (Psychology)
Social justice is understood to be the ability of people to reach their full potential within the societies that they reside in. For some members of society, whether it is due to certain factors such as ethnicity/race, religion/spirituality, gender/sexual orientation, SES/class, or age/generation, these factors can mean that their access to opportunities, tools, and resources available in society may be limited, which can have an impact on their healthy lifespan development and subsequent outcomes.
For this task:
You will select an individual who may have experienced impacts to their lifespan development due to any of the above identified factors (i.e., race, sexual orientation, etc). The individual can be based on a real person or a fictional character (depicted in a book/film/television). You should have access to or detailed knowledge of the individual’s life story to be able to provide an analysis of the issues they have experienced as a result of belonging to a particular subset of society that has resulted in their unequal access to human rights, access to essentials (i.e., shelter, food, education), participation in society, and equity.
For this task you will need to:
1) Provide a brief overview of the individual and their life circumstances and identify the issues they have experienced that may have arisen because of their ‘inequality’.
2) Apply lifespan developmental theories and research which exemplify ‘healthy development’ and expected outcomes to this individual’s perspective.
3) Analyse whether this person’s life follows the expectations or not. Here you can critically evaluate the scientific methods utilised and address any ethical issues inherent in lifespan psychological research.
4) If the person’s life has followed the expected developmental outcomes contrary to the issues they have experienced that could have disrupted their development – identify any protective factors that may have helped them to meet the expected developmental outcomes.