Social Determinants of behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Social Determinants of behaviour - Essay Example Social Determinants of behaviour This paper focuses on the psychological approach to explaining the reasoning behind prejudiced behavior still occurring in society today despite social sanctions that have been put in place against it. Negative behavior involving prejudice has been punished over the past several decades due to social sanctions being put into place. These sanctions have resulted in many individuals who would otherwise display prejudice behavior to change their stance or to at least keep their opinions to themselves and not act out in public. However, quite a bit of prejudice behavior still appears in society despite these social sanctions being put into place. There is a social psychological reason for this prejudice behavior continuing in society today. Among the things contributing to this fact are social cognitive processes such as stereotypes and categorization, as well as psychological theories, concepts, and research. According to Kanlouh, Koh, and Mil, "In culturally diverse and immigrant receiving societies, immigrant youth can be subject to prejudice and discrimination. Such experiences can impact on immigrant youth's cultural identity and influence their psychosocial outcomes. Four main themes emerged on participants' experiences of prejudice and discrimination: (a) societal factors influencing prejudice; (b) personal experiences of discrimination; (c) fear of disclosure and silenced cultural identity; and (d) resiliency and strength of cultural identity.† " Policies and practices that are inclusive in nature need to be put into place in order to counteract the disintegration of youth. The problem is not limited to just general culture. A big problem occurs in school systems throughout the world as well. According to Valeo (2009, pg. 1), "Ontario's current education system is struggling with the task of fully including children with disabilities in the regular classrooms of their neighbourhood school. While many educators understand that it is wrong to deny admission to publicly funded schools because the child may be Black or female, they nonetheless feel that segregation of students with disabilities is warranted and not discriminatory. An examination of their experiences using a narrative format seems to suggest that the institution of education has never welcomed difference in any form and at issue is not whether education can ever welcome students with disabilities, but whether it was created to be anything but an exclusive enterprise." Some people believe that prejudice occurs naturally, as in people are born with it, and that it does not develop as a result of society. Others disagree. They claim that it occurs because of how a person is raised, the situations that occur around him or her, or the like. In arguing the latter point of view, prejudice may occur as a result of the establishment of institutions, the status of a particular individual compared with those around him or her, a person's role in society, laws, belief systems, the overall distribution of the population, social currents, the experiences of groups, emotions, and urbanization (Valeo, 2009). There are both formal and informal social sanctions. An example of formal sanctions includes the law of the land. Examples of informal sanctions i