Homework 24.02.

2022

How has the term “race” evolved?

Speaking about race always brings strong emotions into people’s minds. We could assume
that it is because our modern, politically correct world (especially when we think about the so-called
“west”) doesn’t like to use words that could have a not-neutral connotation. For me, as a native
polish-speaker, the term “race” doesn’t necessarily mean something pejorative. In polish “rasa” means
both “race” and “breed” - so in our language we refer mainly to the biological aspect of the term. We
also use this term to distinguish between humans and other species (“rasa ludzka” - “human race”).
The article “What’s wrong with Race?” is addressing the very important issue from the perspective of
social anthropology, clarifies what is actually the main issue connected to this word and, most
importantly, shows why it brings so much of a dispute.
According to the historical data, the term “race” didn’t have one specified meaning referring
to the biological aspect of humans. Speaking about the United States during the times of colonization,
which is from the 18th century, the government appropriated this term to create some kind of a social
mechanism between various nationalities that were settling on the land. The narrative was to
subordinate each nationality and ethnic group to the others. Of course, it had been the issue of control
and power - the “white race” had been considered superior to the others - blacks, indian etc and
therefore it “justified” the enslavery and mistreatment of these people in the public view. The division
that had been automatically connotated to this term put people of the early US into different categories
- the skin color determined their economical status, power, social ranks and the given and received
respect. Moreover, the English and European occupants stated that they have a God-given right to
divide society into such categories, referring to the ancient piece “Great Chain of Being”.
Unfortunately, this situation is not only a characteristic of the past colonial times in the United
States. We can easily think of other examples, reaching to the Second World War, where prejudices
and the sick ideologies killed almost the whole nations that had been considered subhumans.
Nowadays, with the unprecedented impact of social sciences, we understand that the culture,
our habits, language and what it somehow imposes - personality and behavior, can be learned or
modeled during infancy and later in our lives. We know it by observing the phenomenon of
multiculturalism and by further scientific research.
To my mind, that’s why the modern western world is avoiding the term “race” - never before
has humans valued so much our integrity, cooperation, freedom and liberty. We should not forget the
biological studies that are conducted in the article, which prove rather genetic unity and similarity
than divisions between the one “human race”.
HOMEWORK 28.02.2022
ART THERAPY INTERVATION FOR THE REFUGEE CHILDREN

1) A refugee is a term used to describe a person who left their own country because of the harsh
circumstances (f.eg. war, bad political situation etc) and moved to another country or region
to find shelter and safety and is unwilling to go back to the country of orgin.
2) The most prevalent disorders and symptoms that the refugee children present is depression,
PTSD, anxiety, aggression and behavioral problems, however PTSD and depression are the
most common.
3) the test used:
- The Stressfull Life Events Questionnaire (SLE) - to measure the stressful and
traumatic experiences
- Child Depression Inventory (CDI)
- State-Trait Anxiety Scale
additionally:
- UCLA PTSD index for DSM-IV
4) The art therapy summary:
Before the actual workshops, the refugee children (7-12 years) and their parents took the baseline
assessment (pre-assessment) with help and care from Syrian college students who also collected the
data from the tests. To help children feel comfortable, the whole procedure and the workshops had
been done in Arabic language (with the translator present). They decided to divide children into 3 age
groups. All of the groups participated in 3 kinds of art therapy sessions with 3 therapists: music,
movement and drawing. The workshops lasted for 5 days with the use of Skills for Psychological
Recovery (SPR). The children learned how to process the trauma by various tasks and activities with
the use of art and self-expression. 5 days after the intervention the children took post-assessment tests,
however not all of them were translated.
5) results:
- PTSD - the mean score in the UCLA PTSD was 26.2/55. 14 children (23,40%) had
PTSD >38
- depression - 10 children (17,6%) had 16-23 points which means “higher level of
depression syndroms”
- anxiety
-> state anxiety scale: 6 children (14,4%) had 39 points which means “severe levels
of state anxiety symptoms”; 19 children (45,3%) had “moderate levels of state
anxiety syndroms”; 17 children (38,3%) had “mild level of state anxiety syndroms”
-> trait anxiety scale: 13 children (31,1%) had “severe levels of anxiety symptoms”;
20 children (36,7%) moderate levels of state anxiety symptoms”; 9 children (19,2%)
had “mild level of state anxiety syndroms”