How life is affected by those in certain marginalised groups.

Essay by LuciWhiteUniversity, Bachelor'sB-, September 2004

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Lucianne White

Assessment #1

Approaches to Social Science

Background:

My interviewee will be referred to as "Pauline" in order to preserve her anonymity

and confidenitality. Pauline is 50 years old, she is currently married and has

previously been married twice before. She has three children, two daughters, aged

32 and 29, both from her first marriage and a son, aged 3 from her current

marriage. She is also grandmother to two grandsons, aged 11 and 8, whom are both

her eldest daughters children. Pauline is a caucasian, heterosexual female and has a

disability which occured from an accident in 1978. This disability is a lifetime

problem with no chance of improvement. She also suffers from spinal cancer

which is inoperable.

Both these issues require constant medication for pain. Pauline is a woman

of Jewish faith and a working Counsellor. She suffers from a lot of prejudice and

discrimintion due to her age, gender, disability and religious beliefs.

I have chosen to do my report on this woman as I believe she has accomplished

great things against all the odds. She has learnt to believe in herself, not what other

people believe she should be. She is now trying to help others to find their own

place in a world full of prejudice and unreal expectations. I will explain how she

has fought the issues of age, gender, religion, and sexuality to become the person

she is today.

I have based my assessment on the psychological aspect of the discrimination in

her life. In other words, how her inner person influences her view of and

behaviours in relation to the world.

Psychology is a social science which 'concerns itself with the interior lives of

individuals, our motivations, drives, patterns, personality types and pathologies,

and how we learn these -...