When pieces of cloth are sewn together, you might have trouble discerning the individual pieces of cloth that make the final garment, but by looking carefully, you can find the seams. You may have experienced similar difficulty in the first week of this course when asked to explore the individual aspects of culture that combine to create your unique self-identity. Forms of oppression can come together often in almost imperceptible ways to form the complex environment in which you and your clients live and interact. As a social worker, you must examine carefully the intersections between religious discrimination, sexism, classism, and racism so you can respond accordingly.

To prepare: Consider this week’s resources that describe how religion intersects with other forms of oppression.

Submit your response to those resources and analyze what you think is the role of religion in reinforcing sexism, classism, and racism. Provide at least one specific example for each -ism (sexism, classism, and racism). As a social worker, how can you address these issues on a micro and macro level?

Respond to at least two colleagues by doing all of the following:

• Indicate strengths of their needs assessment plan that will enable the needs assessments to yield support for the program that they want to develop.
• Offer suggestions to improve the needs assessment plan in areas such as:
  • Defining the extent and scope of the need
  • Obtaining important information about the target population
  • Identifying issues that might affect the target population’s ability to access the program or services

Jean Piaget is probably the most influential theorist in the cognitive development realm. His work has informed American educational practices since the early 1900s. Another key cognitive theorist in the realm is Lev Vygotsky. Interestingly, Vygotsky and Piaget were contemporaries (both were born in 1896), but for many years, Piaget’s theory dominated. The fact that Vygotsky died at age 37, while Piaget lived to be 84, might be part of that explanation. But Vygotsky’s ideas gained traction in the 1980s when educators began to question long held Piagetian ideas. Nevertheless, both theories are important to the study of cognitive development. In your initial post of 300 words minimum,

• Provide a brief overview of Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s child and adolescent cognitive developmental theories.
• Compare and contrast these theories as they relate to child and adolescent development by identifying at least one commonality in the two theories and two major conceptual differences.
• Determine which of the two theories you most support and provide a rationale for your choice.
• Briefly describe your business, your target audience, and the specific product you are selling online.
• Present the principle(s) of persuasion you would use to sell this product, and justify why the principle(s) you chose would be best for your ad and target consumers.
• Explain what you would emphasize about the product to appeal to online consumers with low ego involvement and what you would emphasize to attract consumers with high ego involvement. In your response, be sure to demonstrate your understanding of ego involvement and what makes each group of consumers different.
• Select the specific advertising ethics that you were most mindful of in creating your ad, and explain your thinking.