Reflective Responses using the 5R Framework in Cultural Studies

This article presents reflective responses using the 5R framework in Cultural Studies, exploring the role of culture in ethics and social responsibility, validity of race as a social construct, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health status in Australia.

Running head: REFLECTIVE RESPONSES
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Cultural studies
Reflective responses using the 5R framework
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Professor’s Name
Date

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Reflective responses using the 5R framework
The role of culture in ethics and social responsibility
The concept of culture has always left me trying to visualization the most suitable
contexts that determine the actual definition of the term. This is due to the dynamic human
behaviour in different settings ranging from the workplaces, social gatherings, and within the
family set up at large. Although l had some background knowledge about the impacts or the
influences of cultural alignments among the people, it was through my current studies that l
realized how extensive the aspects of culture could affect the interaction among the people, the
quality of social services, and even the corporate responsibility in healthcare facilities as
demonstrated by the author.
I felt challenged when reading this article in the way the author has extensively
collaborated different definitions of the culture with regard to moral responsibility in the society
(Schwartz, 2017). Additionally, it was very satisfying noting that the author acknowledged
culture as the existence of some unwritten rules and regulations that govern the individuals in
daily interactions and an ethical guideline among individuals as l had always thought of defining
culture in this similar manner.
Concisely, this article made me relate to the quality of the services given on several
occasions l have visited my local pharmacy in my region. For instance, l have gone for my
medical routine checkup whereby different nurses have attended to me on different occasions.
Despite the facility having its own code of ethics to be observed by its employees, the level of
services offered is varied from one employee to another. After reading this article, l can attest

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that culture is like an internal ethical guideline that can enhance ethical responsibilities as
acknowledged by (Farooq and Rupp, 2017, pp.954-985).
On the other hand, the works of (Menges, Tussing, Wihler, and Grant, 2017, pp.695-719)
demonstrated the employee intrinsic versus intrinsic motivation could be useful in addressing the
aspects of cultural practices and the resultant attitudes that define the performance of medical
practitioners in healthcare. In my understanding, the managers in the healthcare can harness
more results from their staff if they acquire the knowledge depicted by the author about the
cultural information of their employees thus. Furthermore, the cultural background could enable
the managers to determine different weaknesses within the taskforce thus giving a clue on
addressing the issues and boosting performance.
Learning of this topic has changed my perception on the positive impacts that can be
obtained from a firm cultural practice in healthcare. This would be useful for my future studies
and professional practices since l have acquired a background information that would help me to
understand my colleagues’ behaviour and responses at the workplace. Moreover, with the
knowledge on the role of the culture in the ethics and moral responsibility, l would be able to
maintain a high ethical standard, which is not swayed by my cultural traits that could affect the
delivery of quality services in the execution of my duties and responsibilities.
Questioning the validity of race as a social construct:
The idea of profiling the people based on their race and ethnicity has been perceived
differently among the people. For instance, (Heere et al., 2015) acknowledges that the
government of South Africa categorised its people based on the race and ethnic grounds for the
purposes of achieving equal distribution of resources and group equality among the citizens.

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Through the literature review and the application of the social identity theory, the author seeks to
understand the mechanisms of how and why people prefer being identified with certain social
groups. The theory further guides the author to derive the hypothesis that seeks to test whether
the national and ethnic identity influences the social capital. However, the authors indicated in
the results that both the ethnic and the national identity significantly influences the social capital
of South Africa.
Surprisingly, this knowledge intrigues an interesting line of thought in my imagination as
l have always perceived the act of ethnic and racial profiling as a way of the authorities to
exercise their selfish interests on a political basis. By using the scientific methods (such as
regression) to run the analyses, the authors have demonstrated a solid research that scraps of my
earlier perception of the entire concepts of race. The article has illustrated that the negative
notion in the community could be totally of the point by using the ethnic groups and race to
determine the impact they have on the social capital of the country at large.
This experience enhances the understanding of the social sciences and groupings among
human beings. Through this article, l have gained knowledge on the importance of ethnic
grouping which can be harnessed to promote the social capital in a country. Additionally, the
article is vital in bringing out the positive side of the ethnic and racial profiling unlike the initial
negative attitude towards the ideas. Through such literature empowerment, the nation can
achieve a substantial participation of the census from the citizens that can be useful for driving
economic factors such as in healthcare services (Huda et al., 2018).
Despite the race as a biological construct continually criticized, the race as a social
construct receives a significant attention from most scholars. For instance, (Miller and Garran,

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2017) ascertained that using the racial labels helps in understanding the behaviours and beliefs
within a population, which could mask an ethnic difference within a racial group. Miller and
Garran acknowledge that this could give a false perception of the census of the citizens in a
country. This article supports this ideology in the data where the significant difference that
manifested among ethnic groups within each category of the races.
Concisely, learning this article is essential for the future studies as it presents the ethnic
identity as a crucial element that helps in predicting the social capital among the people, which
supersedes the predicting power through the national identity. Additionally, the article has
prepared me by illustrating the importance of the individual’s identity with their ethnicity.
However, as much as the ethnic categorisation of the people is advocated for by the authors, the
governments in the world should be aligned to a more accurate racial classification in
determining the social capital in the healthcare sector.
Overview of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health status 2015
The author presents an evaluation of the status of health among the people of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait in Australia. In the overview, the author seeks to give a summary of healthcare
indicators as part of contributing to the engagement of the taskforce servicing the people in these
regions. Through the review, the main indicators across a varied range of the health aspects are
analysed intensively to give detailed information on indicators like the availability of services,
the barriers to access of these services, and strategic policies concerning specific health topic are
illustrated. Moreover, the article has utilised these indicators to draw a difference between the
current and past status of healthcare in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander with a collaboration
of different sources of data. The findings in the article indicated that the health status in the

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mentioned regions was on continual gradual improvement although there was the need to close
the gap targets such as the life expectancies among the people.
After reading this article, l noticed that the indigenous people are likely to remain the
least healthy population sample of Australia. This is because there was a limited trend in the
recent health indicators that the author recommended for improvement. Another worrying factor
is that despite the overall drop of the death rates of 16 per cent from 1998 to 2013, the author
acknowledges that there has been no significant drop since 2006 to 2013 as recognised by
(HealthInfoNet, 2017).
In my opinion, the article can be a crucial insight that can be used to criticise the medical
bodies in Australia for failure to provide standard medical care for the indigenous groups. This
could be marked as a form of ethnic and cultural discrimination against humanity that calls for
equality among all the groups.
Honestly, l can relate this statistic to be a trend in most developed countries where the
overall healthcare standards are high with the existence of a specific neglected group who exhibit
poor attention to the medical services (Caceres et al., 2018). Sadly, such groups rely on the
mercy of false promises made by their respective governments to come to their rescue without
any tangible success. The segregation encountered is sometimes attributed to the political
resistance by their forefathers thus the region ends up being known for poor essential amenities
such as the medical care among others.
With this kind of knowledge obtained from the article, it can be sources of motivation for
conducting research especially in marginalised and neglected regions where most non-residents
lack awareness of the state of the healthcare. Additionally, this knowledge can help in creating

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awareness to improve the standards of healthcare through campaigns with a backup of robust
findings and results. Moreover, the information obtained from this information is crucial for my
future studies, as it will help me to draw insightful inferences when working in the health sector
in the service to humanity.

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References
Caceres, B. A., Bub, L., Negrete, M. I., Giraldo Rodríguez, L., & Squires, A. P. (2018).
Healthcare professionals’ perceptions of neglect of older people in Mexico: A qualitative
secondary analysis. International journal of older people nursing, 13(1), e12168.
Farooq, O., Rupp, D. E., & Farooq, M. (2017). The multiple pathways through which internal
and external corporate social responsibility influence organizational identification and
multifoci outcomes: The moderating role of cultural and social orientations. Academy of
Management Journal, 60(3), 954-985.
HealthInfoNet, A. I. (2017). Overview of aboriginal and Torres Strait islander health status 2016.
Heere, B., Walker, M., Gibson, H., Thapa, B., Geldenhuys, S., & Coetzee, W. (2015).
Questioning the Validity of Race as a Social Construct: Examining Race and Ethnicity in
the ‘Rainbow Nation’. African Social Science Review, 7(1), 2.
Huda, M., Jasmi, K. A., Alas, Y., Qodriah, S. L., Dacholfany, M. I., & Jamsari, E. A. (2018).
Empowering Civic Responsibility: Insights From Service Learning. In Engaged
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relative: how family motivation energizes effort and compensates for intrinsic
motivation. Academy of Management Journal, 60(2), 695-719.
Miller, J., & Garran, A. M. (2017). Racism in the United States: Implications for the helping
professions. New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Schwartz, M. S. (2017). Corporate social responsibility. London: Routledge.