Drawing a Social Location Handout for Week 1

Reflection 1: My Social Location 1
Reflection 1: My Social Location
This drawing is a very simple tool to help you think about your ‘social
location’. This is a confidential exercise between you and your instructor.
Look at your ‘Social Location’ handout from Week 1. Add any lines you think
are missing. Place a dot on each line where you think you fit most of the
time. Draw a petal for each line starting at the center and ending at your dot.
Please feel free to leave one or two lines blank.
I COMPLETED THIS SECTION (SEE ATTACHMENT). PLEASE USE THE
ONE I FILLED OUT AND HAVE ATTACHED TO ANSWER THE
QUESTIONS IN SECTION B, TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY TO
REFLECT ME, BASED ON MY SELECTION.

Reflection 1: My Social Location 2

Reflection 1: My Social Location 3
A. Please answer the following sections:
1) Identity:
a. Please list how your social location intersects. (For example
a white
working-class heterosexual woman with a learning disability who grew
up in a single-parent household, born in Canada. Another example:
a
middle class able-bodied queer black man who immigrated as a child,
now working his way through school without parental support).
Answer: A dark-toned, University student, poor heterosexual woman,
with a non-European origin, living in a nuclear family, grew up in a
family with a single parent, Now supporting my education without any
significant support from the side of the family.
b. Does this match how you see yourself and how others (like the
children and youth you will work with) may see you? What does it
capture and what does it miss?
Answer: This description brings me under a kind of stereotype. It
confines me to a synoptic description. My course in the field of “Child
& Youth Care,” is now carving a new identity for myself, the social
location-scale fails in identifying my biggest asset that has the
potential to change my life and the perception of the others about it.
Children and Youth will not get many clues out of this profile. This
location map converts me into another faceless number in the voting
list and other government documents.
c. Reflect on how it feels to represent you in this way. Are there parts of
your social location you think about more? Are there parts you think
about less or rarely?
Answer:
This type of representation leads me towards an inferiority complex. It
clearly shows that I belong to the poor strata of society. The biggest pain of living the
life of a poor person stings you when you look at yourself from the point of view of the
other individuals. The social location chart gives me the same impression. It gives me a

Reflection 1: My Social Location 4
sense of shame when I realize that this “social location profile” is a fixture on my current
status and individuals judge me on the basis of this profile sometimes.
Now after spending so many years in Canada and finding a definitive foothold in the
education system of this country, the thoughts of being a person from a different country
rarely bother me. Issues like my color, my body appearance and my sexual orientation
never strike me. I am another face in the crowd and I have an acceptance in this country.
d. How do you experience your intersecting social locations as a
strength? How do you experience them as a challenge?
Answer:
My intersecting social strength does not serve as strength for me by
any given standard. It is because of the ordinary denominations
attached to my profile. The fact that I am not a native of this country
serves as a challenge for me. I noticed sometimes people hesitate to
interact with me when they realize that I am not a native of the
western world. Sometimes the draw an invisible line of perception in
front of me, the police records of Canada are full of crimes done by the
individuals with a Caribbean origin. Sometimes people connect me
with that particular list of criminals. It is painful because the same
Police records are full of crimes done by the Native Canadian people.
However, nobody treats a Canadian person as a criminal.